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Type a postcode, see the schools that serve that address — with real catchment boundaries where councils publish them, and the last distance offered where they don’t. That second number is the one that actually decides places.
AI-draftedEnter your postcode: we’ll show which nearby schools’ catchment maps or last offer distances reached it.
Key facts
In Wales and Scotland the council gives every address its catchment school or schools. In England most councils draw no catchment at all, so the schools “in your catchment” are, in practice, the ones whose last distance offered reached your address in recent years. Enter your postcode in the checker above to see both, school by school; Northern Ireland has no catchment system.
Where a council draws catchments, it is the school whose catchment contains your home: in Scotland usually one non-denominational and one denominational school. Living there gives you priority but, outside Scotland, not a guaranteed place, so check how far the school actually admitted last year before you rely on it.
Type your postcode into the checker at the top of this page. For any one school, its profile shows the council’s catchment map where one is published, its last distance offered where we hold one, and a link to the council’s own checker for the official answer.
The checker above lists both for your postcode. Don’t read them the same way: among the distances we hold for the last two years, the middle Reception figure is about a mile and the middle Year 7 figure about two. So a primary that looks close can still be out of reach. Once you have a school in mind, check that one school against your address.
Only where a council draws catchments and publishes them. Most English councils draw none, so no honest map exists for them, and the last distance offered is the figure to use. Where a council does publish a boundary and we hold it, it shows on the school’s profile with its source. The council’s own checker is the official answer.
In England, primary applications for September 2027 close on 15 January 2027 and offers arrive on 16 April 2027. Reception cut-offs are usually much shorter than secondary ones, because a primary admits from a smaller area, so check each primary’s last distance offered rather than assuming the nearest one is safe. Our Reception checklist takes you through it step by step.
Scotland-specific? See our full guide to Scottish catchments and placing requests. For how distance, siblings and faith criteria interact, read Catchment Areas & Transport.
For oversubscribed schools, the drawn boundary tells you less than the cut-off distance — how far from the gate the final successful offer lived. Councils publish this after each allocation round, and it moves with demand: a bulge year shrinks it, a new housing estate shifts it street by street.
We hold last-distance-offered data for thousands of English schools — including fresh September 2026 rounds for counties like Surrey, Hampshire and Hertfordshire — shown on each school’s profile in the Admissions tab and on its admissions history page: the latest year free, and every year we hold with Pro.
Moving house for a school? Check the cut-off trend, not one year — a single generous year can mask a tightening pattern. Our guide to moving house for a school place covers timing, evidence rules and the address checks councils run.
Catchment boundaries shown on School Atlas come from each council’s published data with source and date attached; last-distance-offered figures come from council allocation publications and DfE data. Where a council publishes neither, we say so rather than guessing. Admissions arrangements change every year — always verify with the council before an application or a house move. Last reviewed August 2026. Corrected September 2026: every year of cut-off distances we hold is free on each school’s admissions history page, not a Pro feature.