to be utterly pissed off that having a child already at the school has no bearing on getting a place if you do not live in the catchment area?

[samram]

Ok, This news to me.

Having just rang the school admission line to make sure they had my dd4 application form i was told that already having my elder daughter attending the school has no bearing on my application if i do not live in the catchment area!
Im so worried now - i mean how can i possibly be in two places at once?
Its not even like my elder daughter is old enough to walk home on her own (she's 6 in a few weeks)

Does any know if this is correct or have any advice? Thanks

I know something ill be glad when April comes and i know one way or the other whats going on. Glad its my last little on starting school then i wont have to worry.

Incidently, my teenager goes to the catchment high school which was pretty shit that has been taken over as an academy and the money going into it is massive, i think it will be the school to go to very soon. Which will then leave all the rich folk down the road complaining they cant get there kids in it. Swings and roundabouts.

How did the system get so messed up like this?

It got messed up because there is such huge variation in standards between schools, and because parents got given "choice" (hollow laugh) about which school to send their children to.

actually i think yanbu, there are all sorts of reasons why siblings should go to the same school if they can. and the school isn't exactly far away from your house. if this happened to me i would seriously consider keeping my youngest off until there was a place.

Before you even think of a school you should go into the local education office, find out the catchment areas, find out the criteria, find out how many outside the area got a place, find out if there were appeals, find out if new building is planned. Sending your eldest and assuming that the rest will get a place is a bit naive-it is a bit like putting your towel on a sunbed-it might be taken off by someone who thinks they have more claim!!

monstyermissy - I have to disagree about the nursery places thing as that really penalises working parents - if you are working and your dc are in a day nursery then they cannot go to the preschool attached to the school in most cases as its only for 2 hours a day and wont do PT places so that would be really unfair.

Hence my dd will be one of those dc who turn up at our local (incredibly popular) school in reception year depriving a nursery child of a place - it cant be helped though.

YANBU because one of my mindees family is in a similar situation:

As a background, we all live in a rural area outside a fairly large town which has 4 (I think) primary schools. The town is on the outskirts of a major city, a 40 minute drive away.

Our local rural school (lets call it School C) is due to shut down this year (end of August) although it's closure has already been prosponed before so it may be prosponed again, although I doubt it, because the LA have already began sending out letters which allocate the children to their new school from September 2011.

So, child A who is currently attending school C which is about to close down, has been allocated a place at another school (lets call it school D) from September 2011 onwards. So far, so good.

Now, child A has a sibling child B, who is due to begin compulsory education this September 2011. Ordinarily, child B would be joining child A at school C, but because that school is closing down, and because his sibling child A has already been allocated a place at school D, the parent naturally (IMO) assumed that sibling child B and follow child A at new school D.

However, the parents thought wrong. Apparently, sibling child B cannot attend new school D and has been allocated a place at school E instead, which is at the other side of town. School D and E are almost at opposite ends of the town, which during rush-hour morning can take around 30 mins.

So the parents complained to the local authority, which, as some of you are probably only too well aware, was a complete waste of time. They tried all the options - that is, to get child A into school E instead, etc. No joy, only a reply of "but it's not my problem" from the member of staff, to the parent's question of "what would you do in our situation?"

As a result, the parents are going to be using their inheritance money and savings to send both their children to a private school, as seemingly, it's the only option they have to keep both children in the same school.

NEW2CM - that is a bizarre and one off situation though, and not the sort of situation that the OP is in.

I know it is a ridiculous situation and apparently one-off. No one else seems to be in their position.

However, the OP wanted to know if her situation is correct - which it is - and I have given another example. The OP also asked for any advice, which I don't have other to point out that the family in my example just gave up with the state school admission process and went private instead.

If you live 3 minutes from the school how can you not be in it's carchment area ???

Catchments can be very weird beasts I think

We got into our (incredibly popular) Primary, but people in theory closer from the other side of the bridge didnt

This is certainly the case at DD1's school. She started in reception last September in the school we are in the catchment for. HOWEVER (and this really riles me) she is in a class of 37 children with two teachers.

Basically, the school filled up most of its places with childrne in the catchment plus a few siblings of older children. There was then a huge protest from some parents of siblings who for whatever reason had moved out of the catchment area during the time their older children were moving up the school. The LEA decided, when faced with a few pushy parents, to then let these extra children in (even though they were not in the catchment area)thus creating this stupidly large class which works okay in reception as they have a large classroom and two qualified teachers, but will not work once they move to year one.

I find this so annoying. If you want your child to go to the same school as a sibling, DON'T move out of the catchment.

Rant over.

'Don't move out of catchment' - so basically what you're saying is that parents of primary aged children muct live in school catchment areas until their last child is of school age? In my case that would have been 9 years - although we've never lived in catchment so it's a moot point. Is that realistic do you think? Why should parents be chained to a house that their needs have outgrown because the common sense position - which is that families should be able to choose to attend the same school - cannot be properly embraced.

'Why should parents be chained to a house that their needs have outgrown because the common sense position - which is that families should be able to choose to attend the same school - cannot be properly embraced.'

But it's not a common sense position because what we have is too many people trying to choose particular schools. It's gotten completely out of hand.

You can move to another more suitable home within the catchment area or rent.

We're living here because of the schools.

People do it all the time, all over the world.

My host sister's father worked in Tokyo in a bedsit with 4 other men from Mon.-Fri. whilst his family lived in Yokahama because the schools his children could attend were better.

When you applied for your eldest daughters place, were you applying from out of catchement?

My first priority in a house is the catchment area of a school.
You are not chained, once your DC is there they can stay if you move BUT if you have a younger DC and are applying out of the catchment area then you have to take your appropriate place in the criteria i.e. below those who live in the area.
I think that is fair enough, you can't stick one DC in to stake a claim and take the place of a DC further up the list! You will get a place if there are spaces, but you should realise that you are running a risk if there are no spaces.
All the information is freely available in the education office. If you think it worth the risk but fail, getting 2 DCs to 2 different schools is your problem.
It is tough, but some schools are in great demand.

Parents with a child at that school already have chosen that school. By allocating siblings elsewhere it devalues their right to make that choice for their family and prioritises a child who has no connection with that school over one or more that has. In response to this parents are apparently supposed to restrict their future plans, not move or move only next door basically all in the hope that will allow them to educate their family in the same place. That's absurd. If you are allowing parents a 'choice' then it has to be workable for all their family and once a choice has been made that's it, that needs to be respected.
It is ridiculous that parents spend years fretting 'will x get in' 'shall we live this perfectly fine house to get in to catchment' 'what do we do now x is happy and settled but y can't get in'
If you gave siblings absolute priority over all over children except for SEN and looked after children then you would give a large number of families certainty and we would be spared a lot of the anxiety and competition currently in play.

Hula were you asking me or the op? If me then yes we were out of catchment and we still are. We've always lived within 15 minutes walk of the school and considered it the best one for our dcs. My oldest dc also goes to an out of catchment secondary and we live a mile closer to that school than the catchment school. Our catchment primary is also 15 minutes walk away - and rubbish. Our original catchment primary was a failing school at the time we picked the other and was 10 minutes walk away.

Siblings come below those who live in the area-anyone can ask for criteria, it is freely available-you can't say it should be different-it isn't. I would be furious if I lived in the catchment area and didn't get a place because it went to the sibling of a DC outside it-I think most people would be! It is a risk you run and you should realise it is a risk if the school is over subscribed.

I disagree Northern That way people can simply rent a house on a short let near to a school, get the eldest child in and then bugger off to another Borough safe in the knowledge all their other offspring can attend that school.

Where would that leave families who actually live in that Borough? They would then be forced to send their kids to schools in other Boroughs and so on.