Messed up Primary School Application **HELP**

[Ladyk79]

Help,

I feel I have messed up DS primary school application. We submitted on time, after the deadline our number 1 school ofsted inspection was published (after deadline) and is inadequate and is because of safeguarding concerns and reading in early years.

I have contact LEA who advise if we change our preferences before 29 January we be considered in the first round of allocations and will hopefully be offered something on National offer day but our application will be treated as late due to the change in preference so everyone who submitted on time will be looked at first then us. We just want to remove said school so our catchment school will then become number 1.

I know there is no guarantee we will be offered the school I originally put as number 1, but from what I understand if we are offered this place we can’t go on the wait list for another school or if we do we will be further down the pecking order as children who didn’t get their first preference will automatically go on wait list and will be offered first because we are turning down our number 1 choice.

Hope that makes sense. Has anyone been in this situation or know where we stand?

LEA is Bucks.

I just want to tell you not to panic. Our local school got put in special measures and there were safeguarding concerns. Basically the head teacher had had a breakdown and there was a hole in the fence...these things combined with a few minor issues all meant that the school had to have specialist help.

Within a year, there was a waiting list again.

Don't be too rash. What were your reasons for choosing this school?

@FortunesFave The school was inadequate back in 2015 then changed to an academy and the giveners are from local grammer school which is good.

When we visited the school the head seemed lovely and their ethos was great. She seemed to say all the right things that made us feel at ease.

But now I see they are still inadequate and reasoning is poor eyfs when it come to reading, poor leadership and concerns around safeguarding.

I am feeling sick to the pit of my stomach and this is now night 2 of no sleep.

I am thinking shall I change my prefences before 29th and remove the school and hope I still get one of the 5 schools on the list in first round allocations?

Sorry if I'm rambling just thoughts circling in my mind. I worried DS will have a poor education

Hi OP, I am a primary school leader. Any issue with early reading will be ironed out very quickly as I imagine in this circumstance the school will be heavily pressured into adopting one of the DFE approved phonics schemes. These are so structured that change will happen very quickly and it will be heavily monitored by the trust.

You may find there is a new Headteacher by September anyway.

@Useruseruserusee Hi, Thank you for your comment, from my understanding the head was only appointed in June but was acting head for a bout a year before that.

Does Ofsted still monitor closely if now converted to an academy under the local grammer school?

You can still go on the waiting list for the other schools, even if you get allocated your first school. But just don't turn that school down, in case places don't come up elsewhere - at least you'll have somewhere that way. You'd have to contact the council specifically to be placed on the waiting lists of your lower-ranked schools, even if they automatically add people to waiting lists of higher-ranked schools, but there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to go on those waiting lists, and you won't be behind people who didn't get into their first school, unless that's a specific criterion on the over-subscription policy. Instead, you'll be ordered according to the admission policy. So if it's a school that you would have got in to if you had put it first, then you will be quite near the top of the waiting list. So it seems a safer plan to leave your choices the way they are at the moment, and then go on waiting lists. If you were considered after everyone else because of a late application, where would you get put if there was no places at any of your preferred schools? Would you rather than school than school 1? If you'd rather school 1 than some random school elsewhere, then it might be better to leave the application the way it is and go on waiting lists for the others.

Honestly I'd leave it as it is. Safeguarding concerns and reading are two such major things that they won't be able to stay inadequate for long. I think submitting a late application would make you more likely to go into a school you haven't even considered which could be in a worse situation than this one. You can still go on the waiting lists for other schools if you are offered your first choice.

Tbh the school will now be given a huge amount help and resources to improve things so all may not be lost. Focus on what you loved about the school-the ethos and feeling is something that can’t be changed overnight. A phonics and reading scheme can.

I'd leave it and then ask to go on waiting list for other schools after offer day.

@SaltedCaramelHC thank you, so we want to be put on the wait list for our catchment school wh9ch is 0.18 miles away. Based on this we should have a good chance (but know there maybe other criteria before catchment). Even though it's lower preference it could be further up the queue than some who got there 2nd choice but catchment school was first choice but maybe doesn't meet the criteria as well as we do?

Sorry I've had no sleep just want to make sure I understand this correctly before making any more mistakes

How old is your child? I will remove that school completely and re do the application and just think of it as a late application and wait for the offer. Whether that means getting it in April or going on a waiting list.
For similar reason, I didn’t even put the local school to me on the list and my first choice was almost 2 miles away which we got. Whatever anyone says, people do usually get allocated the first choice as my second choice was the school 0.5 miles away and we didn’t get it.

I wouldn't change the form.
See what happens on offers day, and then go on a waitlist. If you want your catchment school, it sounds like you are quite close and so should be fairly high up the list - wait list opperate in the same priority as main applications, not first come first served.

As others have said, new reading scheemes can be implemented quickly with money. And this is something you can support from home too.
The safeguarding - what happened? Missing doors, holes in fences are all easy to fix. Systematic things would take longer, but would be directed by the academy, so procedures that have already been implemented elsewhere successfully.

You may well find its all sorted by September.

@loahsjrtkajwosihdyr @GhoulWithADragonTattoo @FortunesFave @SaltedCaramelHC

Thank you everyone, I read this on the Bucks coordinated admission scheme, which lead me to believe our 1st choice is automatically accepted and we can go on wait list. Am I misunderstanding?

Thank you everyone, I read this on the Bucks coordinated admission scheme, which lead me to believe our 1st choice is automatically accepted and we can go on wait list. Am I misunderstanding?

30. Where a child can be offered a place at an academy or school ranked first, this will become a firm offer. It will then be noted that the child will not need to be considered for a place at any lower ranked schools or academies and the pupils name will be removed from those lists.

That just means if you are eligible for the first choice you won't be offered another. You can still go on waiting lists post allocation day,

@LIZS thank you. So for now it's just waiting I guess and hope for the best

These aren't necessarily issues that would be obvious in a child's education and early literacy can be significantly compensated with support at home.

To change your application now makes you susceptible to a place at any school. That school may not be better and may be far more inconvenient.
If there are issues it may be better to transfer later in a more controlled way than play roulette at this stage on a panic reaction.

Hi there,
I’m interested to know how you got on with this as in a similar situation.
How do you get into a waiting list that was one of your lower preferences? Do you just fill out one of the contact us forms? Apparently there isn’t a direct dial to that department. Thanks.

Hi @HW87 I was able to change the order of my preferences as long as I was not changing the school names up to a week after the deadline without it being considered late.

Are you with Bucks? If so you can fill out the contact us form online and they will get back to you pretty quickly, we did this and had call backs same day.