About Schools in Reach

Schools in Reach is a free guide to schools, nurseries and neighbourhoods in England, built from open government and community data. It helps you see which schools are near you, how far a place reached in past years, what Ofsted found, how pupils are doing, and what the area around a school is like. We're adding councils one at a time, starting with London, so some areas have more detail than others.

How to use this site in 3 steps

1. Type your postcode in the search box, or tap the location button to use where you are right now.
2. Look at the map and the list. Schools are coloured by how likely a place is at your distance. Tap any school to read its own page.
3. Add schools to your shortlist with the star button, so you can compare them side by side. It's all saved in your own browser.

What the colours mean

Green means a good chance of a place at your distance. Orange and yellow mean fewer families at your distance got in, so it's still worth a try but less certain. Blue lines and shading show each school's own pattern. If a school isn't coloured, it usually has spare places, or it doesn't use distance to decide.

What "last distance offered" means

When a school has more applicants than places, it's called oversubscribed. Most state schools then give places first to looked-after children (children in the council's care) and to siblings, and then to children who live closest. Each year the council publishes the last distance offered: how far from the school the last family to get a place lived. We compare that with your own straight-line distance from the postcode you search, or from the pin you drag to your front door. When we say a school is "in reach", we mean that last distance reached at least as far as your home.

• These figures are as at National Offer Day — the day offers arrive, 1 March for secondary schools and mid-April for reception (primary). Waiting lists can move them further out before term starts, so a school can still be worth a try.
• Councils measure from your home's official address point to the school's measuring point. A postcode centre can be a few hundred feet from your home, so drag the pin for the best estimate.
• Cut-offs change every year with the number and location of applicants. Past years are a guide, not a promise.
• The waiting-list estimate on each school page is our own calculation, not published data.

How the chance heat map works

For each school, every published cut-off since 2018 counts as one sample of how far offers reached. Each ability band counts equally, because you won't know your child's band when you apply, and each year counts 75% as much as the year after it, so recent years matter more. Your estimated chance at a given distance is the weighted share of those cut-offs that reached at least that far. A year with spare places counts as reaching everywhere.

• The map's heat surface shows your best chance at any oversubscribed school of the phase you've chosen. Schools that usually have spare places are listed separately, so they don't colour the whole map. Faith schools are left out unless you tick "Include faith schools".
• Open a school, or hover over it, to see its own chance bands.
• It's an estimate from offer-day data. It ignores siblings, looked-after children, faith and other criteria that come before distance, and places offered from waiting lists. Next year's cut-offs will differ.

If your chances look low

First, take a breath — these figures describe past years, not your family's outcome. A low estimate just means fewer families at your distance got in on offer day. Here's what to know:

• Join the waiting list. After offer day, places that families turn down go to the next child on the list. Waiting lists move every year, often by a meaningful distance.
• You can still appeal. Every parent has the right to appeal a school decision, and some appeals succeed. The council can tell you how.
• Look at other schools. The map and the "usually has places" list show schools that are less oversubscribed. You don't need to limit yourself to one.
• Nearly every child is offered a school. In the end, the overwhelming majority of children get a place, and the system is built so that nobody is left without one.

Key dates

These are the usual dates for England, but always check with your council — deadlines vary a little:

• Reception (primary) applications usually open in autumn and close in mid-January, with offers on National Offer Day in mid-April.
• Secondary applications usually close at the end of October, with offers on National Offer Day on 1 March.
• Waiting lists start right after offer day. Appeals have their own short window after you get your offer, so act quickly if you want to appeal.

Reading the numbers

A few terms turn up a lot, so here's what they mean in plain English:

• Places available (PAN) is the planned number of places a school will offer each year.
• Bands are the ability groups some schools use so that every level of child is represented.
• National Offer Day is the day offers arrive: 1 March for secondary, mid-April for reception.
• Looked-after children are children in the council's care, who are usually given first priority.
• Faith criteria: a faith school gives priority to children of its own faith, then to others by distance.
• Nodal point is a fixed spot the council measures distance from, instead of the school gate.
• Catchment area is the neighbourhood a school mainly serves.
• Progress 8 compares a pupil's progress from age 11 to 16 with similar children across England; a positive number means they did better than expected.
• Attainment 8 is a pupil's average grade across eight subjects.
• EHCP is an Education, Health and Care Plan — a legal plan for a child with special educational needs.
• Free school meals is a marker used for children from lower-income families; schools and councils use it to measure disadvantage.
• Ofsted grades and report cards: grades run from Outstanding through Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate. Report cards (the newer framework, from late 2025) grade each area of a school rather than giving one overall grade.

Features and where the data comes from

What we can't show (yet)

Some commercial sites show where a school's current pupils live, which primary schools lead to which secondary schools, or which schools children in each street attend. That comes from the National Pupil Database, which the Department for Education only releases to approved organisations under licence, so it isn't open data. We show the council's published cut-offs instead, which set the rules for new applicants.

Licences and attribution

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence.

Privacy

There are no user accounts and no cookies. Your shortlist, your plan and your last search stay in your own browser, and nothing is stored on our servers. Read our privacy page for the full, plain-English picture: what stays on your device, which third parties see what (postcodes.io, ipwho.is, data.police.uk, our own map tiles — and, only if enabled, non-personalised ads and cookieless analytics), and your rights under UK GDPR.

Disclaimer

Schools in Reach is independent. It isn't affiliated with any council, the Department for Education, Ofsted or any school. Always check admissions rules and deadlines with the council and the school before applying.