Help! How do I untie this knot? (Sorry, long post )

[mummy2zni]

Hi - am hoping for some advice. We need to move areas and I have no idea how to untie the knot of renting a house - finding a school.

Back story: Two DCs current ages 13 and 10. Both in a middle school yrs 8 and 6 respectively. DH has new job so we are now both working on the other side of "the city" to where we are currently renting. Bit of a no-brainer to move closer to our respective work and slash our commute times. Both DCs happy to move. We want them to finish up this school yr where they are & start new school year in new place. Have not arranged new property to move to as yet but have good idea of areas...

So... 1) ds is simple enough yr 8 to yr 9 - have been told by admission authority that there are places at 2 of the schools that we would like. Get house, apply to school and there we are... I hope...

2) dd quite a bit trickier : we need to indicate preferences for 3 schools as transition from yr 6 to yr 7. As don't have new address yet, need to apply from current (whole other county!) address; which of course means if school oversubscribed distance excludes. Once new address can be confirmed, submit change of address and the whole allocation starts again. Which makes me worry that we go for house A and still don't get a school we want but if we had chosen house B we might have!!

Also worried this may result in DCs at 2 different schools one (or both!!) further than anticipated from home (thus relying on us to get them there (they currently walk to school) plus our own commutes...

Argh I feel like I'm twisting in circles... must remember to breathe!! Surely we can't be the only ones who face this scenario..?

Any tips or hints would be greatly appreciated! Hope I've given enough info...

[Cleo1303]

I get the impression that most local authorities aren't very helpful in these situations which are hardly unusual so they should get their act together.

Others may have more practical advice, but the only thing I can think of, if it is affordable, is for you to overlap your rentals. Rent closer to the school you want and apply from there. Make sure you get a rental agreement with a six month break clause just in case it doesn't work out.

However, as you need a Year 7 place and these will all have been allocated earlier this year I think you should phone the schools directly and ask them if they are oversubscribed and if so what is the length of the waiting list.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Cleo is right. All year 7 places were allocated in March so whilst not technically an in year admission, the solution is essentially the same. You need to find out which schools were undersubscribed and have places for next year's year 7. Your current address will make no difference if applying to those schools as they will have to offer you a place if they have one.

Where it would come into play was if you were also to apply to schools that weren't undersubscribed. Then you would be added to the waiting list according to the admissions criteria. Once you move, you should jump up it if you are closer to the school.

Two different schools should be less of an issue at secondary. Can one or both use public transport to get there if one school is too far away to walk to?