Short answers about Local Enrolment Area labels — especially Western Australia and the Northern Territory, where catchment polygons are not published in a form we can load — and how the finder stays free without selling open data.
Nearby schools still come from the national school list. Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not publish catchment polygons in a form we can load, so government Local Enrolment Area stays No data — that is not the same as No (outside a catchment). We do not guess Yes or No.
No. No means we matched an official catchment and the address is outside it. No data means we cannot answer. N/A is for non-government schools, where government catchments do not apply.
Use the WA Schools Online address search (search without the postcode), open each school’s local-intake details, then confirm with the school. Maps are a guide; some boundary houses need the written Gazette description. See the WA honesty page.
Open the NT priority enrolment area maps hub, pick your region, and search the address in the official map. For 2026, Darwin and Palmerston secondary PEAs were updated (middle schools became comprehensive high schools). Casuarina Senior College has no priority enrolment area. Alice Springs secondary currently has no designated PEA in public copy. Confirm with the school. See the NT honesty page.
Yes for nearby schools and national profile fields where they exist. Do not treat the nearest school as the official local school. Always confirm enrolment with the school and department.
No. Ideal Home is address-to-area matching where official data exists — not enrolment advice and not a placement guarantee. Capacity and policy still sit with the school and department.
Yes. Address search, nearby schools, Local Enrolment Area (Yes / No / No data / N/A) and core compare are always free. We do not charge for open government catchment or ACARA data. Optional map and autocomplete login only caps paid Google lookup costs — the Local Enrolment Area answer still works without an account. See how we stay free.
Optional donations are cost recovery for hosting and address geocoding. They do not buy access to catchment polygons or ACARA rows, and they never unlock a secret enrolment answer. See donate — the School Finder stays free either way.
Not today — there is no checkout, ads, or paid ranking. Nothing is for sale. If we ever offer extras, they would be a service (for example batch address matching for a buyer’s agent, or matching-as-a-service for a listing widget) sitting beside the free parent School Finder. Families would still get Local Enrolment Area without paying. We would not sell catchment files or featured-school listings. Use the public feedback form if you have a workflow idea.
Optionally. Ideal Home is still a family catchment check first. Tutoring institutes and researchers can tick Institute or researcher on School Finder (or open the institute / researcher page) to list nearby schools nearest first. You can also search a school by name on that page, then check an address near the campus. Local Enrolment Area still means who the school serves, not a child’s enrolment right. This is not job hunting and not a jobs board.
First-pass nearby-schools list only — not enrolment advice. We do not guess Local Enrolment Area Yes or No for WA or NT.