To be upset by school catchment change

[katedan]

We live a 5 minute walk from an excellent senior school which has been the catchment area school for this area for years. The local council have proposed a change to the catchment area which will mean we will be out of catchment and families who live the other side of town (not a walkable distance) will be allocated this school and my children will have to walk past this excellent school to go to a school with a very poor results record. As you can imagine the local residents are campaigning but the council have no intention of listening to our reasonable arguments about children being able to walk to school etc. My eldest will not go to senior school for 2 years so we will have the chance to move house but it seems so unfair that we will have to go the cost and hassle of moving when we live so close to this school already. It seems to be a political argument where residents on a new housing estate who bought their homes knowing they were not in the catchment for this school will be given priority over residents in this area who have lived here for years. Sorry this has become a long rant but I am so cross and feel no one is listening.

I'd be pretty upset too. If the decision's not been finalised, maybe some campaigning might help?

What reason does the council give?

They usually have to do a period of consultation, so it may yet not be implemented until after your dd applies. However I'm sure you can join a campaign and involve local councillor/mp if needs be. We had this locally a few years ago but the proposal was changed to include speciific feeder schools as priority.

DC's primary school used to be a feeder school to one of the most sort out schools in the area. The year DS started the primary was dropped. However the school over the years has gone downhill, and the school that DC's eventually joined, which was a sink school then, has just got an outstanding ofsted and is a lovely school. You do not know what can happen in two years, just a change in HM can make a huge difference to a failing school

And a major change in catchment may also change the fates of the two schools.

Any idea of the reason for this proposed change?

You can appeal and distance from school will always be a strong case. Threaten to home school - tbh I've seen that work a lot (I work in a secondary school. We had 196 places for year 7 last September and have currently got 219 pupils!

The council closed a failing school in the area last year and now they is not enough school places for children so they are trying to "give" this school to the new estate as the estate is in the same council where we live just outside the council boundaries so are in another council hence why our opnions don't count as we don't vote for that council. The school is being changed into an acadamy soon so they are trying to pick the best areas to have the children for their top school. we have done lots of campaigning and even protest marches but as we don't live in their council they are not listening. Our own council are as useful as a chocolate fireguard and have no school for our children to go to either hence why we are being sent to this below average school. I agree schools can change very quickly and it might improve but there is no incentive to put any money into the bad school as most of the people who go there do not live in the area and as such pay taxes in the schools council area. Hope this makes sense!

It's ridiculous isn't it. This has happened to one of the more sought after schools in our area. Same thing - bad school closed down and whole newish area now have catchment in the good school and previous catchment houses, some of whom live in the same road or just round the corner from good school are supposed to go either down very main roads or through woods to a not so good school

I'm wondering whether we are talking about the same school as this one is going to for academy status in April and I think the school is in one borough and a lot of the housing in the other.

I think we might be as have googled said failing school and it also closed last year.