How Offer Odds works: our method for Reception cut-offs

In short

We measure like the council. Distance from your home to each school, by the council’s own method.
We find your priority group. Siblings, faith or distance, from your answers.
We replay each year. Would you have been offered a place, using that year’s real cut-off?
We sum it up. Likely, Borderline or Unlikely, from those years.

Where the figures come from

Every cut-off, admission rule and school fact comes from a council or school publication: allocation reports, admission arrangements and Freedom of Information replies. Each figure is stored with a link to its source and the page it came from, and every school page lists its sources.

Until a figure has been checked against its source, it is shown only with a visible “draft data” banner.

Each school’s latest Ofsted inspection comes from Ofsted’s monthly management information on school inspections. We update it from Ofsted’s file when a new month’s file comes out, and each school page says which month’s data it shows. We show it in Ofsted’s own words with its date and a link to the full report. A report card grades each area separately, so we never turn it into one grade, and we don’t rank or sort schools by Ofsted. Ofsted results play no part in our verdicts.

Step 1: how far you are from the school

We measure distance the way the council does, and nothing else.

Straight line: many councils measure a straight line from your home’s address point to the school’s measuring point, on the British National Grid. We measure the same way.
Walking route: where a council measures the shortest walking route, we use a walking route.
Published precision: councils publish cut-offs to a fixed precision. We round your distance the same way before comparing. If you’d be level with the cut-off at that precision, we count you as inside, because the rule is “no further than the last distance offered”.

How exact our distances are

We use each council’s measuring method, but for now we estimate the point on each school site that the council measures to, so our distances can differ slightly from the council’s. Councils don’t always publish their measuring points, so we estimate each school’s point from the outline of its site, and we use the centre of your postcode unless address-level lookup is available. Close calls are treated as borderline for this reason.

Where a council publishes distances in metres or kilometres, we show its figure first, then miles to two decimal places, for example “1,071 m (0.67 miles)” or “2.656 km (1.65 miles)”. Otherwise we show miles to two decimal places.

How Harrow measures distance

Harrow Council measures a straight line from your home’s address point to the centre of the school site, and publishes distances to three decimal places of a mile.

Close calls: in Harrow, a margin of 75 metres (0.05 miles) or less in either of the latest two years counts as borderline.

Source: Determined admission arrangements for Harrow community schools for 2027/2028, including the schemes of co-ordination (Part A(i)-(ii), Part C (Distance)).

How Lambeth measures distance

Lambeth Council measures a straight line from your home’s address point to the centre of the school site, and publishes distances to two decimal places of a metre.

Close calls: in Lambeth, a margin of 75 metres (0.05 miles) or less in either of the latest two years counts as borderline.

Source: Admissions policy for Lambeth's community primary and secondary schools for the 2026/2027 academic year (determined arrangements) (pp. 4-7).

How Lewisham measures distance

Lewisham Council measures a straight line from your home’s address point to the centre of the school site, and publishes distances to two decimal places of a metre.

Close calls: in Lewisham, a margin of 75 metres (0.05 miles) or less in either of the latest two years counts as borderline.

Source: Admission arrangements 2027/28 for the London Borough of Lewisham's community schools (determined): criteria, "Fifth criterion: distance" and Appendix A admission numbers (section 6 (pp. 4-7), Appendix A (p. 20)).

Step 2: which priority group you’d apply under

Each school ranks applicants by its oversubscription criteria: looked-after children first, then usually medical or social need, siblings and so on, with distance last. For each year, we find the highest-ranked criterion you meet:

Siblings: if you tell us a brother or sister will be at the school, and the school gives siblings priority.
Faith: at a faith school, if you tell us which of its faith categories you meet.
Otherwise, distance: the general criterion everyone else is admitted under. At faith schools with “open” or “community” places, those places are the general criterion.

We never assume you qualify for looked-after, medical or social need, or children-of-staff priority. Looked-after and previously looked-after children, and children with a medical or social need the council accepts, get top priority. We don't model these, so check the council's guidance if either applies to you.

If a school’s rules for a particular year aren’t in our data, we use the most recent earlier year’s rules, or failing that the earliest year we have, and say so.

Step 3: replaying each year

For each past year we compare you with the point where places ran out: the last criterion reached and, within it, the last distance offered.

An example year: your home lies inside the last distance offered, so you would have been offered a place.

Every applicant was offered a place: you’re in.
Places ran out at a lower-priority group than yours: you’re in.
Places ran out at a higher-priority group than yours (for example, partway through siblings, and you don’t have one): you’re out.
Places ran out in your own group: you’re in if you live no further away than the last distance offered, otherwise out. We show the gap, for example “2026: cut-off 0.42 miles. You’d have been 0.07 miles inside.”
No usable figure for that year: the year isn’t counted either way, and we tell you which years these are.

Where applicants live the same distance away (for example, flats in one building), the council breaks the tie, usually by random allocation. We tell you when this happens.

Step 4: Likely, Borderline or Unlikely

We need at least three years with usable figures before judging. Otherwise the result is “Not enough data to judge”.

Likely: You’d have got a place in every year we can check, or every year but one, and in each of the three most recent years; in each of the two most recent years you were comfortably inside the cut-off (by more than the borough’s borderline margin, and by at least three-tenths of the cut-off: within 700 metres of a 1,000 metre cut-off, for example); and places ran out in at least one of the years we checked.
Room for everyone: Everyone who applied was offered a place in every year we have figures for, so there has never been a cut-off to measure your address against.
Borderline: Everything in between, including very close calls in the latest two years.
Unlikely: You’d have got a place in one of those years at most.
Rules not yet supported: This school's admission rules use a priority area or parish, which we don't model yet. We can’t yet check whether an address is inside a drawn catchment area, so we don’t judge these schools.

Why so strict? When we tested our method on past years (see how accurate we are), most families we would have rated Likely did get a place. The misses came from popular schools whose cut-offs suddenly shrank. Asking for a clear margin in the latest two years and no miss in the last three means that when we say Likely, it holds up. A home just inside a cut-off is Borderline instead.

The rule never penalises being closer. Living closer, or having a sibling at the school, can never make a result worse.

Why isn’t a school with room for everyone rated Likely? If everyone who applied has been offered a place in every year we have figures for, that’s a good sign, and when we tested our method on past years most families at these schools did get a place. But there has never been a cut-off to measure your address against, and popularity can change quickly: in our tests, some schools like this suddenly filled up, and families living further away missed out (see how accurate we are). So we give these schools their own rating, “Room for everyone”, rather than Likely, however close you live. This applies to every family, including those with a sibling or faith priority.

The “less predictable” tag

Some schools swing a lot from year to year. We tag a school Less predictable, with a one-line reason, when:

the distance cut-off has varied by more than four-tenths of its typical (median) value across the years, or
the share of places going to siblings has swung by more than 20 places in every 100 between years.

The tag doesn’t change the verdict. It tells you to treat the history with more caution.

When a school changes

More or fewer places: if a school’s number of Reception places changed by one-tenth or more between years, the years before the change are marked less comparable. They still count, but we point them out.
Mergers, new schools and changes of status: we only use years from the change onwards, and the headline says so.

Your list of schools

Councils in England use an equal-preference system. You can name up to 6 schools, and each one considers your application under its own admission rules without knowing where you ranked it. If more than one school could offer you a place, you're offered the one you ranked highest. So ranking a school higher never harms your chances at the others: list schools in your true order of preference, and include at least one you'd be likely to be offered.

When you build a list, we warn you if none of the schools on it is rated Likely, suggest the nearest Likely schools that aren’t on it, and point out schools we can’t judge.

How we word results

We show history: “would have got a place in 4 of the last 5 years”.
We never show a percentage, and never call a school a sure thing. The council makes every offer.
Each year is explained in a sentence, for example “2026: cut-off 0.42 miles. You’d have been 0.07 miles inside.”

How we check our own accuracy

Before launch, and whenever new figures arrive, we test the method on a year we already know the answer to. We take a sample of real home locations across the borough and, for each school within 1.86 miles, work out the verdict using only the five years before the test year, assuming no sibling or faith priority. Then we check what actually happened that year.

Our target is that at least 9 in 10 “Likely” results were offered a place and at least 9 in 10 “Unlikely” results were not. Schools that miss are listed so a person can check their figures. See the accuracy report.

Limitations

Please read these before relying on a result.

The past isn’t a promise. Cut-offs move every year with the number of applicants and siblings, new housing, and nearby schools opening, closing or changing size.
Siblings vary a lot. In a year with many siblings, fewer places are left for everyone else, and the distance cut-off shrinks.
The council’s measurement is final. Its system can differ slightly from ours, for example because of the exact address point it holds for your home.
Approximate locations. If we only know your postcode, we use the centre of the postcode and mark the result as approximate.
What we don’t model: looked-after children, medical or social need, children of staff, catchment areas, late applications, waiting lists, places offered after offer day and appeals.
Rules change. If a school changes its admission rules for next year, past years may be a poor guide.
Data errors. Sources can contain mistakes. If you spot one, email help@offerodds.co.uk and we’ll correct it.

Always read the council’s admissions guidance and each school’s admission arrangements before you apply.

See the figures: Harrow primary schools · Lambeth primary schools · Lewisham primary schools.