Moving after primary school admission deadline (temporarily)

[cpt46]

Hi,

My older child is already at the desired primary school. I have been living at my current residence for over a year and it is 1 mile from the school. I applied for my younger child using the sibling link in Dec 2016.

I have received notice from my landlord to leave my current residence. Unfortunately, I have recently lost my job and am struggling to find another affordable property to rent. I need to move in with my brother while I look for another job(possibly for a couple of months). I am thinking of moving in with my brother ASAP, so this month itself. I will find a house in my residence once I get another job. The issue is my brother lives 20 miles away from the school.

What impact will this move have on the admission of my younger child? Do I need to inform the LA of my temporary move?

Thanks for your input!

KENT ADMISSION RULES:
//www.kent.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/18926/Primary-admissions-booklet-all-areas.pdf

SIBLING RULE:
A current family association means that the child who wants
a place will have a brother or sister (sibling) attending the
same school when they start there and they live at the same
address. Kent County Council count linked Infant and Junior
schools as one school. Brothers and sisters means children
who live as brother and sister in the same house, including
natural brothers or sisters, adopted siblings, stepbrothers or
sisters and foster brothers or sisters.
The sibling claim will stand if the family have continued
to live at the same house as when the older sibling was
admitted into the school, OR
• If the family have moved, and they have moved to
within 2 miles of the school, OR
• If the family have moved nearer to the school from
where they were living previously.

Unfortunately, if your older sibling is currently attending
school in Year 6, you cannot claim a sibling link for your
younger child, as the older sibling will be transferring to
secondary school in September 2016.
Whilst linked infant and junior schools are considered to
be the same school for this criterion, if sibling priority has
previously been lost (as above), it will not be reinstated
when a child transfers from an Infant school to the linked
Junior School.
Where a child is transferring from Year 2 and would not be
attending the Infant school from the start of the academic year,
but applied for the linked Junior school, the sibling link would
not be broken for a child applying for the Infant school.

RULES ON ADDRESS TO USE:
The address must be the residence of the parent(s)/
guardian(s) and the child (i.e. where child and parent
are living) by Friday 15 January 2016 (the deadline for
submitting your application). It should be either owned by
the child’s parent(s) or guardian(s), leased or rented by the
child’s child’s parent(s) or guardian(s)under a lease or written
rental agreement.

If you have exchanged contracts or have a rental agreement
after you have submitted your application, you can advise
the Primary Admissions Team (in writing or via email),
provide them with the appropriate documentation and
they will amend your application to reflect your new address
if received no later than Friday 5 February 2016. Parents
should email [email protected] with
the details of their required amendment, ensuring that their
application reference number is included if their application
was submitted online.

Kent County Council reserves the right to check information
that parents give on their child’s application form. When you
receive the offer of a school place from Kent County Council,
you will be asked to provide the school with evidence of
your residence and that of your child. This evidence can
be, for example, a utility bill, bank or credit card statement,
Council tax bill or any correspondence that would show
you were living at your address at the time you applied
for a school place. You must also provide the school with
evidence to show your child was also resident at the same
time. This evidence could be, for example, a bank statement
in the name of the child, hospital or doctor’s appointment
letter or correspondence. This is not a definitive list of
acceptable evidence and the school will consult with the
Local Authority if they are unhappy with the evidence they
have received.
Should it be found that there is insufficient evidence to prove
your residence and that of your child or that the information
on a child’s application is misleading, then the offer of a school
place may be withdrawn. The vacant place would then be
offered to the child who had been disadvantaged on Monday
18 April 2016 and was effectively displaced by the application
at that time and not to the child on the top of the school’s
waiting list (unless it is the same).
Any residential move which takes place between the
Monday 18 April 2016 and the end of the first school term
will be investigated to establish if a short term let has been
taken for the purpose of securing a school place outside of
the families intended residential area. If the Governing Body
consider this to be the case it may consider the application
at the time to have been misleading and may withdraw the
school place even after the child has started at school.

RULES REGARDING MOVING RESIDENCE:
If you are intending to rent or buy a property, but have not
yet signed a rental agreement or exchanged contracts,
you cannot use the new address until you have the
appropriate documentation. Once you have the appropriate
documentation, you can use the new address even if you
will not have moved into the property until after the closing
date of Friday 15 January 2016. We will amend your
application to reflect your new address if this is received no
later than Friday 5 February 2016. It would be expected
that you would move in before the offer day on Monday
18 April 2016 otherwise the offer of a school place may
be withdrawn.
If you do not exchange contracts or have a signed rental
agreement until after Friday 5 February 2016, Kent
County Council will not be able to make any amendments
to your application, but will use your new address for
correspondence purposes when we need to send you
an offer letter.

KENT ADMISSION CRITERIA:
In February, after data validation exercises have been
completed, Kent County Council will send a list to each
school detailing children who have applied for a place at
their school. The list will contain the child’s name, date
of birth, their address, a parent’s name, the straight-line
distance (as provided by Kent County Council’s measuring
software) between the home and the school and any
remarks or comments that the parents have placed on the
form as to the reason why they wish to be considered for a
place at that particular school.
The schools will rank all the children on their list against their
school’s oversubscription criteria. Oversubscription criteria
are a set of rules which a school uses to place children into
priority order, or rank, if it receives too many requests for the
places that it has available. They will only take into account
any reasons that parents may have provided if it has a
bearing on where the child should be ranked on the list in
line with the school’s oversubscription criteria.
For Community and Voluntary Controlled schools, the
admissions criteria are listed in the next section. As
Academies, Voluntary Aided, Foundation and Free schools
are their own admissions authority, their admissions criteria
may be different from the Community and Voluntary
Controlled schools. You can find the schools’ criteria at
//www.kent.gov.uk/admissionscriteria in the Admissions
criteria 2016/17 section or directly from the school in
their prospectus. It is important to look carefully at these
criteria as it will help you decide how likely it is that your
child will get a place at the school you prefer.
The criteria for Community and Voluntary Controlled
Schools are:
• Children in Local Authority Care or Previously in Local
Authority Care
• Attendance at a linked school (only relevant to infant and
junior schools where they are linked – See table on page
16 for details)
• Current Family Association (sibling)
• Health, Social and Special Access Reasons
• Nearness of Children’s Homes to School
Bookmark

[CactusFred]

I thought that as long as you were in the address on 15 Jan you will be fine. It seems to be the case in Kent.

[admission]

Kent will use your current address for the admission place allocation on 18th April and presumably with a sibling in the school will have a good chance of being offered a place at the same school
What you need to do is inform the admissions office that you have received notice to quit your current rented accommodation and in the short term until you get a new flat arranged will be living with your brother. You need to tell them that you are giving them this information for correspondence purposes only and that you do not want to change the preferences on your application form. This is important because if you do not they will take it as a late application and you will go to the back of the queue for allocation of places. I would follow up any conversation you have with the admission office with written confirmation just to be on the safe side.
There is however an obvious problem and that is that 20 miles is a very long way to be commuting to take even one child to school. I would suggest that you do work as quickly as possible to get another position, so that you can then arrange alternative accommodation.

[cpt46]

Thanks CactusFred & admission. So it seems I will be ok then. Yes I have tried the 20 mile trip, it isn't close but I should be able to manage while I am unemployed. Will get a home closer to school as soon as I get a job.

I should definitely inform the admissions office of our moving to brother's place??

[prh47bridge]

I should definitely inform the admissions office of our moving to brother's place

Yes. You need to be completely up front about the situation with the council. You don't want them thinking you made a false application with no intention of staying at your original address.

[cpt46]

Thanks for your advice. I have informed the LA and received the following response:

"The address has been amended on the application for correspondence purposes only."