Ballots, Banding and Tests: When Last Distance Offered Doesn't Tell You Much for Year 7 in 2027

You have found a school you love, looked up how far the last offer went last year, and your home sits comfortably inside it. Then you read the school's admission arrangements and find the words "random allocation", "banding" or "entrance test". Suddenly that distance figure may be telling you very little.

With the England secondary deadline on 31 October 2026, it is worth knowing how schools allocate places before you lean on any single number.

Every state school that receives more applications than it has places must publish oversubscription criteria and apply them in order. Under the School Admissions Code 2021 (England), looked-after and previously looked-after children come first. After that, the order is set by the school's admission authority, which is the council for community and voluntary controlled schools, the governing body for foundation and voluntary aided schools, and the academy trust for academies.

Children whose education, health and care (EHC) plan names the school are admitted before any criteria are applied. Common criteria then include siblings, children of staff, feeder primary schools, faith criteria and distance. Some schools also give priority to pupil premium children. Distance often comes last, as the way of separating applicants who are otherwise equal.

That is the setting where last distance offered is most informative. Even so, it only describes the final group the school reached, and that group changes each year.

The Code permits random allocation, and the draw must be supervised independently of the school. A few schools use it as their main method for some or all places. Many more use it only as a tie-break between two children who live the same distance away.

These are two very different things. A tie-break lottery barely affects how you read distance. A lottery that decides most of the places does, because proximity may not decide who gets in. A child living further away can be drawn ahead of a child living closer.

Where random allocation applies, a last distance offered figure may describe little more than where the last name drawn happened to live. It is not a line you can place yourself against. Check whether the lottery covers all places, only some, or only a particular zone or priority group.

With fair banding, applicants sit a test. The school then sorts them into ability bands and offers an equal share of places, or a share set in its arrangements, in each band. The Code requires the bands to reflect the ability range of applicants, of the local area or nationally. The aim is a comprehensive intake rather than selection of the highest scorers.

Distance, or another criterion, is then usually applied within each band. That has two consequences:

• The furthest place offered can differ from band to band, because each band has its own mix of applicants.
• You will not know your child's band until after the test, so a single combined figure may not apply to you.

If a school publishes one last distance across all bands, treat it as a rough indication at best. Look for a figure by band if the school or council publishes one.

Grammar schools in England select by ability. Some rank applicants by test score. Others set a qualifying standard, then apply their usual criteria, including distance, to those who reach it. In the first case, distance may play almost no part. In the second, any distance figure only describes children who had already qualified.

Some non-selective schools also reserve a small share of places for aptitude in subjects such as music, languages or sport, where the Code allows it. Those places sit outside the main distance order. Our grammar school entry guide explains the process, and our faith school admissions guide covers the similar issue where faith criteria come before distance.

School Atlas holds published last-distance-offered figures, school by school and year by year, for many Year 7 entry points, mainly in England, where councils or schools publish them. Coverage varies by council, so a missing figure may simply mean nothing was published.

For schools that admit by distance, School Atlas Pro goes a step further. It uses your postcode to show how often families in your position were offered a place on national offer day (at your distance, putting the school first, with no sibling, catchment or faith priority), from a model tested against past offer days. That is how often it happened in past years, not a percentage chance. It gives no figure for grammar schools, where entry turns on a test, and at a school that uses banding or a lottery any figure needs the same caution as a distance figure.

To see where your postcode sits against recent figures, use the admissions distance checker. It is free with an account for the three nearest schools with an offer distance or catchment map, once a day, and Pro covers every school nearby. Treat what it shows as one piece of evidence next to the school's own criteria. For more on how catchments and distance work in practice, see our catchment areas and transport guide.

Start with each school's criteria, then use distance figures only where distance really decides the outcome. Run your postcode through the admissions distance checker for nearby schools, and browse nearby options on School Atlas explore if you want to widen your preferences before the deadline.

If you are refused a place after offer day in March 2027, our school admissions appeals guide explains how appeals work, and the admissions appeal quiz can help you think through your position. Keep in mind that lotteries, banding and tests are lawful ways of allocating places. An appeal panel first checks that the school's admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied to your child, and whether admitting more children would harm efficient education or the efficient use of the school's resources. If it would, the panel then weighs your reasons for wanting that school against that harm.