Mr Wandle - as far as I know there were no bulge classes at all in forest hill this year (I could be wrong but I think there were two Sydenham schools that bulged). This means that there are less overall places in the area than the last year, combined with some schools being a couple of years on from a bulge means that some schools catchment has shrunk considerably - I think horniman only had 10 non sibling places and a catchment of 250m.

It's really tough as if you just miss out of one of the schools you would normally be close enough to, then you are generally too far away from any of the others.

I think there should be a letter going out in the next few days that will give your distance, and the last distance offered, for all schools you didn't get allocated.