Impact on home ed y6 when intending School yr 7

[DarkEvilMoon]

Things are bad with school. And we have three choices: Home ed, grin and suffer, move to new school. The child involved does not do change. Hates it with a passion so new school is a bit tricky. Not sure I have the nerves to hang on in the current school.

The key issues for removing to home ed are school specific and the primary system itself. Secondary system will be more agreeable in its structure to the child. Home ed has been considered on numerous occasions but not acted upon previously as the child in question requested to stay in school despite there being problems and there has been ongoing discussions for years. However, it has got to the point where I might go against the child's wishes due to the seriousness of my concerns.

Having spoken to the preferred high school, they suggested that we check the impact on the choice of high school. School is over subscribed but we are firmly in the catchment area. School does take a large number of students from outside the area so generally those in the school system (yr6), in the catchment area are pretty much guaranteed a place. School said that should we chose to home ed for y6 that they would advise us to check for any impact on the way the school place would be allocated so as not to unnecessarily do us out of the place that we would like.

Has anyone any advice on this matter? Especially the route into a preferred high school from home ed.

[Doobydoo]

I dont know the answer in your area but i know with us our son went to secondary from home ed. There wasnt a catchment as such he got offered both schools we put down they were gramnar schools. One that had a catchment and one that didnt. I dont think you will be penalised for home edding. Hooefully someone will be along.

[Saracen]

So your child is currently Y5? No need to wait for the end of the current school year if things are intolerable - you could even send the deregistration letter in tomorrow and he or she would never have to go back.

The general consensus is that missing part or all of Y6 doesn't make a blind bit of difference with regards to starting secondary. In fact, if you are ever going to home ed, this would seem to be the perfect time to do it. All the kids will be new together and on the same footing in Y7. Probably none of the staff or pupils would know or care that that your child was HE the previous year.

There has been a bit of dissent about this on the primary board, however. In a thread about boycotting SATs, a few people say that some secondary schools use SATs results to allocate kids to sets in Y7 and that if your child lands in the wrong set (through having no SATs results, for example) it can be hard to get moved. Most people say the opposite - that most secondaries ignore SATs and instead use other tests when the children arrive, and that if they start off in the wrong set they will soon get moved. You could ask the secondary about this. If they don't use SATs for setting anyway then it's a non-issue.

Of course, if your child is deeply miserable right now, then that consideration might override any worries about possibly going into the wrong set in future.

As for secondary allocations, the School Admissions Code states that admissions criteria CANNOT take into account the child's current place of education, except in the case of children who are attending specific named feeder schools. Just check the admissions criteria for the secondary school you want - which should be online - to make sure about that. I'm a bit surprised that the secondary school wasn't able to produce their admissions criteria for you on the spot and tell you whether they operate on a feeder system! I should think they must often get asked questions about whether a child is likely to get in. I guess if the LA is their admissions authority, they leave it all to the LA and don't bother themselves about the details of who may or may not get in. At least they told you to check for yourself and didn't give you misinformation!!!

So yes, aside from those two possible issues I can't imagine any reason you should hesitate for a moment to spare your child an unhappy Year Six.

[DarkEvilMoon]

I have just checked on the feeder school issue and We do have feeder school system. Which might be why I was suggested to check? Thank you for your advice.

[DarkEvilMoon]

Tbf to the high school, they might have mentioned the feeder school thing and I had forgotten, my contact with the high school was during the time when I was advised to consider reporting the primary school to ofsted and had other things on my mind.

[AtiaoftheJulii]

The secondary school will have to have a very clear and public set of admission criteria. Look at that and see whether feeder school comes above distance/designated area. The school or the LA will also have the exact numbers of how many children got into the school from each admission category for the last few years - check your council website or school websites. If you can't find it phone the school admissions team at the council, or if your preferred secondary school administers their own admissions, phone them back with a pen and paper in hand.

(I have 3 ex-HE children who started school in I7. I've spent a lot of time reading admissions guides!)

[saintlyjimjams]

There are feeder schools here, but tbh none are oversubscribed, except the grammars so it doesn't make the blindest bit of difference.

If you search on the council website you may find stats for applications/places/PAN for each secondary.