Primary school - moving before September

[McDougal]

I'm hoping the wise people of mumsnet can help.

My daughter has been allocated a place at our first choice primary school to start reception in September. We currently live 0.3 miles from that school.

My question is that we are looking into moving, not far away, but would be out of catchment for the school in which she has a place. Could anyone advise that, if we informed the school before September, the place would still stand?

I've googled and no luck and also checked the local authority website and still confused.

[DeanKoontz]

Ring your Council's school allocation department.

[McDougal]

I've tried today but no answer.

We've not moved yet but the school that is the closest to where we're thinking doesn't have the greatest reputation. We'd be 0.8 miles away from the school she has a place at if we moved which seems tiny!

[PatriciaHolm]

Assuming you are not moving back to a property you already own, and assuming you have lived in your current property since well before allocations day, you will have no problem.

At this stage, a place can only be withdrawn if the Admissions Authority suspect you have fraudulently attained it - so your current address was just a temporary one to get the place and now you are moving as you have secured it. If you can prove that this is not the case, there will be no problem. They can't take the place just because you are moving further away, they need to have evidence of fraud.

[McDougal]

Thanks Patricia. That's what I'd hoped but it's good to hear someone else say it.

We've lived where we currently are for five years, renting, and looking to move to another rental property. There are three schools pretty much equidistant to where we have our eye on so hoping that would back us up too - that we're not closer to another school due to the move.

[Mumofone1970]

When is your tenancy agreement up and when would your move actually happen?

[SimonsPies]

In some areas you have to be living at the application address on the day your child starts school.

[namechangedtoday15]

At my child's school which is a church school (so has slightly different admission criteria) the address used by the school is the home address of the child at the date of admission. So if its an oversubscribed school with this sort of criteria, I'd have thought they could in theory have the place withdrawn.

I'm not an expert though by any stretch. Maybe re-check the admission criteria for the school.

[McDougal]

Thanks for the replies. I still haven't managed to get in touch with the admissions dept but will try again tomorrow.

We're moving on 13th august. It will be a shame if we have to apply to another school as DD has already had the settling in sessions and really loved it there.

I'll see if I can find the admissions info on the school website.

[prh47bridge]

At my child's school which is a church school (so has slightly different admission criteria) the address used by the school is the home address of the child at the date of admission. So if its an oversubscribed school with this sort of criteria, I'd have thought they could in theory have the place withdrawn

In my view it is highly unlikely an arrangement like this is acceptable. It amounts to a clear attempt to get around the restriction on withdrawing places in the Admissions Code.

[namechangedtoday15]

That may be right prh, like I said, I'm only going off the published criteria. Not sure whether this sort if issue has ever arisen - suspect they have tried to stop unfair allocation of places (its highly sought after, one of top in country as far as the league tables are concerned so there's a clamour for places every year) but you're far more knowledgeable about admissions than I am