Secondary and Primary School Catchment Areas Map

Which secondary or primary school is nearest to each part of Cheltenham, by straight-line distance — not an official catchment map.

Cheltenham Open Data has added two new maps to the schools page: a secondary school catchment areas map and a primary school catchment areas map, each shading the town by whichever school sits closest to it in a straight line.

Gloucestershire doesn’t publish fixed catchment boundaries — most admissions are decided by measured distance once a school is oversubscribed, alongside siblings and faith criteria. So rather than reproduce a boundary that doesn’t exist, both maps compute their own “nearest school” zones directly from official school locations, 7 secondary schools and 32 primary schools in and around the town.

FAQs

Is This an Official Catchment Map?

  • No. Gloucestershire County Council doesn’t draw fixed catchment boundaries for its schools, so there’s nothing official to map. These are straight-line “nearest school” approximations, not a reproduction of any council boundary or admissions guarantee.

Which Schools Are Included?

  • Schools within Cheltenham and its immediate edge. Schools sharing a Cheltenham postcode district but sitting in a separate village or town — Winchcombe, Bourton-on-the-Water and Stow-on-the-Wold among them — are excluded, since including them would stretch zones across open countryside rather than reflect real choices within Cheltenham.

Why Two Separate Maps?

  • Primary and secondary schools sit at very different densities — 7 secondary schools across the town versus 32 primaries — so each gets its own map and its own realistic exclusion radius rather than being squeezed onto one.

Where Does the Data Come From?

  • The Department for Education’s Get Information about Schools (GIAS) register, the same source behind the full schools list, refreshed monthly. Grid references are converted from the register’s Ordnance Survey coordinates.

How Do I Check Admissions for a Specific Address?