Hi Elissa,

As a starting point I would approach the schools that you like, even if they are out of your zone. Some government schools are not zoned, and others might have a quota of students outside their zone that they can accept. WE have a combination of zoned, unzoned and quotas in my area, and after speaking to some teachers I have been told to approach the school early, even if you can't enrol early, so that they know you are interested.

We are in the situation that the 'zoned' school in our area is not one I would send my son to. There is another almost the same distance that is not zoned, which is not too bad, but the govt school that I would like is in the next suburb, unzoned.

If it came down to it we would send DS to a private or religious school (I'm raised Catholic, DH is atheist) ahead of the local one we're zoned to.