Some schools indicated their desire to get a lower level domain name - e.g. www.schoolname.sch.uk rather than www.schoolname.leeds.sch.uk

The domain names are out of our control - they were defined by BECTa in conjunction with Nominet on behalf of DfES - and have been arranged in such a way that all schools fit within a nationally recognised pattern. In the example given there could be competition for the domain www.bashst.sch.uk should there be more than one 'Bash Street' school in the UK whereas the domain www.bashst.leeds.sch.uk has a greater chance of being unique and satisfies a number of additional rules: it indicates that the site is in the uk, that it is a school, that it is in Leeds (and not necessarily the LEA as all schools in Leeds including private, have names with this format) and that it is closely and transparently linked to the full school name (schools' initials were not allowed). If you are not happy with the domain name issued by BECTa/Nominet then there is some flexibility but all school domain names do have to fit within their proscribed format.