my son has not been offered a place in any of the schools requested

Hotpotlawyer, is likely to be right about which house is used for address purposes for admissions. It is up to the LA to state what their policy is in terms of addresses but many LAs do say if you own a house then they will use that address. You would have to prove to the satisfaction of the LA that you are living elsewhere. That would normally be proving you are in rented accommodation with twelve months left on the lease and that your owned house is in the same situation with a tenant in place with at least twelve months to run on the lease. That does not sound like the situation you are in from your posts.
Your best course of action is to be on all appropriate waiting lists and also appeal for all schools that you want but at the end of the day you may only have the option of going to the "inadequate" school or home educating, which is why you should accept the offer made, even if you do not want it.

Some LAs will not accept a rental address if you also own a property within the same or adjacent area. You would need to demonstrate that you have legitimately moved there, not just for short-term. Which is your nearest school, many areas do not have fixed catchments . Are any schools you overlooked or ranked lower undersubscribed and therefore could immediately offer you an alternative, more acceptable , place?

Reallyanotherone if the OP’s neighbours have just moved a child from the offered school, the offered school probably is the local ‘catchment’ school.

Waiting lists are held in order of how you meet the criteria, usually distance, so this who live nearest are highest up the list.

Accepting a place will not disadvantage you in getting a waiting list place, and neither will they prioritise you for waiting list places because you have no accepted offer.

Find out where you are in the waiting list for your preferred schools.

Ask the LA if they have any other schools with spaces. Visit those schools.

Get yourself on the waiting list of any schools nearer to you than the ones you applied to.

If you were planning to move house it wouldn’t hurt to move on to the doorstep of a school you like. Big schools have more places become free than small schools. But LAs are usually very strict. You have to show proof of address and if you own a house in the same area but give a rental address they will use the address of the house you own.

From now on you can stay on waiting lists and get a place when one comes up. It is called an ‘in year’ application or place once this Primary Admissions process finishes, after September.

Do you live in an area where people move about s lot? In London places often move fast because the population is so mobile, but that isn’t the same everywhere.

I do wish you well.

Whatever you do, don’t reject the place you’ve been offered. If you do that, you can be given any place left in literally any school in the sre

If you reject your offered school that ends the councils obligation and they don’t have to offer you an alternative at all. Only reject it if you are able to home school indefinitely until a place comes up.

You applied for 3 out of catchment schools? Didn’t you apply for your catchment school at all? No wonder you didn’t get a place as catchment kids will have priority.

Your ds is “ summer born” so you could request to defer reception until Sept 2020. You would still get 30 hours for nursery until then.

I don’t believe any school can be really bad in reception. I too would suggest you accept the place first.

Moving closer would increase your place on the waiting list, assuming distance is used one of the criteria, but you would still need a place to become available (ie another child leaves), or more likely a number of places unless you moved close enough to be top of the list.

You need to look on YOUR local authority’s website for details of how they manage waiting lists etc. Different authorities do it differently.

Don’t reject the place you’ve been offered yet; but DO go on as many waiting lists as they will let you. Start with the schools nearest you, unless you hate them.

You could also ask the council for details of any schools that are under subscribed and see if you would accept any of those. You would have to transport your child there though.

Sorry you haven't got a school you wanted. We were in the same position but with secondary schools. Going private and home ed weren't an option so we accepted and got put on the waiting lists for the other schools.
We've just been offered a place in our first choice school.
Unless you are 100% committed to being able to home educate or can afford private for the next 7 years I would accept the place and go on waiting lists. I would give your LEA a call and ask if you can go on waiting lists for other schools too, it's possible spaces will come up.

My dc go to an outstanding small village school with is always over subscribed. The past few years there has been movement after allocation day, so even the best schools have spaces turned down due to changes in circumstances.

Is the reputation of the school based on what people have said about it or based on evidence? I say because if a school has a bad name by reputation, you may find it isn't that bad. I've just said on another thread that we picked a school in a rough area, weaker exam results and average Ofsted. It became a brilliant school during the time we were there and my kids loved it. Yes there were some iffy families but there are in every school. We had neighbours in our nice middle class enclave who made money form running brothels & distributing cannabis. Only found out when the police raided their house.

Don't decline the place. Go & visit the school, talk to the headteacher about your concerns. You might be pleasantly surprised. Easy to put yourself on a waiting list for other schools. Just phone them. I have a friend who was given a non choice school, put her child's name down for her preferred school, but by the time a place was offered in August, her daughter had gone to all the welcome days & made friends. She's still at that school & shes now ten years old.

Accept the place offered and go on waiting lists. Ask the admissions team at your council for information. Rejecting the place will not get you a place elsewhere any more quickly or easily.

I would be surprised if there was much bullying, violence or racism in Reception. I would accept the place and hope for a place at another school before Year1. Are you in the catchment for any of your desired schools? And where are you getting your info on the one you’ve been offered? Local gossip is often very inaccurate.

Trust me, even a bad reception year would be better than staying in nursery.
My ds thrived with an extra year at Nursery. They can stay till term after 5th birthday. When is your ds birthday?

Have you visited the "bad" school? It may be much better than you think. I think it highly unlikely that violence and racism are encouraged in the Reception class.
Did you apply for schools near you? It's not wise to just put down desirable schools that you live a long distance from.
You cannot rent somewhere near a desired school unless you actually move there (ie you don't own a house elsewhere and just rent for 6 months to get the school place). That is gaming the system and LAs are pretty wise to it. They will ask to see rental agreements etc and expect you not to have another home elsewhere.

Trust me, even a bad reception year would be better than staying in nursery.

If I were you, I would give it a try. Too often people just think they can choose whichever school they gaucho and make the mistake of putting 3 very popular schools down. If course, everyone else wants them too.

He needs to start Reception and then you wait for places at the others. Moving could possibly help boost you up the waiting list but you would need to let the local authority know you have moved.

Were you in catchment for any of the schools you applied for or are you quite far from them? This could affect where you are on the list, but you really need to find out where you are for each. My daughter got a place at our preferred primary school from a waiting list, it is possible.

Oh and worth noting, a lot of movement happens between now and May, lots of parents will have moved, or applied for state but taken the decision to go private etc, if you are likely to be close to the top of the list for any of your preferred 3, you may well get a place when other people decline their childs place.

Check if you are automatically added to the waiting lists for your 3 choices, in our LEA there was a form you had to fill in to be added, it wasn't automatic.

Usually the school won't know yet where you are on the waiting list, the first round of reallocation is done by the council, only then is the list given to the schools to manage. At that point you can go on the waiting list for other schools beyond the 3 you applied for.

Only reject the place you are offered if you really wont send your child to school if you can't get another school. This is the "home ed or private school" option.

You can't apply for a year 1 place, but once you are on the waiting list, you stay on it, unless you ask them to remove you, we did this with dc1, we got his 2nd choice school, went on the waiting list for 1st choice, because it was a more convenient school for us, settled him into 2nd choice school, was very happy with it, but forgot to remove him from 1st choice list. half way through year 1 we got a call from 1st choice with a place offer. (We declined as by then we felt it would be too much upheaval for a slightly shorter journey to school).

Why don't you like the school you've got? Can you make the journey work? Often places become available in year 3 when dcs go into key stage 2, worth considering if it's an acceptable school for just reception/KS1.

You need to accept your place
You then need to get yourself on the waiting list of any school you would consider. There is a lot of movement between now and September.

If you decide to keep your child at home until they turn 5, you will have to do an in-year admission form but if the classes are full, they won't mysteriously have a place in year 1 unless someone leaves and there isn't already a waiting list of other people higher up the admissions criteria.