To think that HV's should not be doling out 'advice' on school admissions and to be livid about the implications

[spritesoright]

Sorry, this is long.
I recently took DD to her 2Y health visitor checkup. We got the usual advice about vitamin D, teeth brushing, etc. Then near the end she asked me if I had looked into schools at all. We have moved recently and chose a house within walking distance of two 'satisfactory' schools but beyond this I have not done anything.
I actually believe that home influence is more important and as long as DD is at a 'good enough' school nearby she will do fine with our support.

The health visitor then went on to strongly urge me to make further considerations and suggested checking the catchment distances, attending church if we're religious or MOVING closer to a good school.

I was a bit flabbergasted.

Initially I thought she was just trying to be 'helpful' but a friend got the same lecture at her HV appointment so it seems to be standard in ours and surrounding councils as advice.

I can't help thinking that the implications of this are that if we don't get DD into a nearby school we aren't being proactive enough so it's our fault as parents. At least that's what the council are trying to say.

In reality we live in a borough that had a massive birth boom in 2011 when DD was born where schools are already oversubscribed and I can see the council doing little about it. I suspect they are constrained by the coalition's emphasis on free schools and academies (don't get me started).

I checked the council primary admissions guide online when I got home where it urges parents to 'choose realistically' based on distances but even though we are only a few minutes walk from nearest schools, DD would not have been admitted to either this year based on distances they provide.

Other nearby schools are Catholic or C of E and given that we're atheists that's not going to happen.

So, AIBU to think that I shouldn't have to open my own free school, convert to a new religion or pay twice the amount for a house next to an 'outstanding' school in order to get my child into a primary school!?

I know the council has a responsibility to school her somewhere but what I fear is that it will be 5 miles away (in london rush hour traffic) or in some temporary trailer in a parking lot somewhere because the council are not being proactive enough and instead trying to pawn the responsibility off onto parents?

I welcome your thoughts.

I imagine it's pretty likely she has had parents crying on her shoulder about not getting the school place they wanted and she has felt (and been) pretty useless in helping sort things - maybe she wants to see if she can in some way help parents before they get to that stage

It seems to me that your HV has been very helpful in pointing out the admissions situation locally, at a point in time where it may still be possible to do something about it.

She has prompted you to investigate - which you have done - and has made the realistic point that, given where you live, school admissions will be a significant issue for you. She has then gone on to list the things that people most often do when they find themselves in this situation - make sure that they have the 'entry tickets' to a school which does not admit on distance alone, or move closer to a school so that you can get into on distance.

I presume that if the HV had NOT mentioned this issue, the first you might have heard of it might be at pre-school or maybe even when you come to make an application for admissions. By that point, your options for doing anything at all are very limited.

If your HV had said 'ah, well, the schools near you aren't very good, so you should go to church or move house to avoid them', that would be overstepping the mark because it would be a commentary on the educational standard of the schools, which she is not necessarily in a position to make. However, this is not what she has done. She has alerted you to an issue of getting a school place at all, and has prompted you to think about action. Hats off to her.

Do you have neighbours with children in the first couple of years of school (older children won't be of much help as the admissions problem wasn't as acute a few years ago)? Where do they go to school? Are they happy about the schols they attend? hat might give you options that you hav not thought about.

It is an enormous shame, of course, that you didn't encounter someone as helpful as your HV when you were looking for a house. Had your estate agent, for example, been honest about the admissions areas of your two nearest schools, you would in all probability not been in the position that you are in now....

YABU- she was trying to help you.

Why on earth would you want less than the best for your child? Strange priorities...

The point is that the HV wasn't saying 'if you want a better school than the local ones for your child, you should do x, y, z'.

She was pointing out that in all likelihood the OP would not get a place AT ALL in any of the nearest schools (however good or bad they are) and therefore might need to be resourceful and creative in finding a place - which is easier 2 years in advance than it is when you suddenly find yourself with no school place on allocation day when she is 4....

VworpVworp I have to ask you: are you named after a jungly bassy noise?

And yes, it is reasonable to ask 'why haven't councils done something about this sooner' [and query the role of central government in directing money to open new schools into the places where school places are in shortest supply, rather than into free school vanity projects - how many much-needed primary places could they have created with the free school / acade,isation budget??].

But realistically, you will need a school place in a couple of years' time - and a nursery / pre-school place probably before that - and supply is not going to meet demand quickly enough to solve that problem in time for your child to start school. Land, buildings, services, teachers, head teachers - all need time and significant capital to put into place.

Absolutely, chunderella - seems to be a 'shooting the messenger for bringing unwelcome news' situation....

"Do you have any idea how difficult it is to buy a house in London when prices are out of control. The school nearest us has a 'closest distance' measure of 180metres! "

Yep, got an excellent idea how difficult it is. Spent three years trying to move out of a black hole and only managed it in time to get a place via waiting list. Otherwise I'd be fucked. I don't see what's apologist about acknowledging the reality. No letter to an MP would've got me a local place. It was move, pay or take some leftover place miles away. Would I rather it wasn't that way? Hell yeah. But practically it was my problem to try to solve in time.

A black hole in London, that is. So very much analogous. Except we don't even get 2 year health checks in this area let alone extra helpful advice from HVs.

yep about redirected anger. BUT
It is fucking hard to find somewhere to live that is good for work, affordable, pleasant, blah blah. then you have the palaver of moving into it, which, seriously, is a Thing. and when you have a 2 year old you are run ragged anyway. op has done all this, this year, and then the HV has basically said "you're not a proper parent unless you are moving house to get a school place" - not a good school place but a school place at all. It would fuck me off. "can't I just send my kid to fucking school? No? I have to live in a certain zone? and the HV is harrassing me about neglecting this, and tacitly buying into a system where only some kids get places?"
the reason why it is annoying is that it is the HV, who advises EVERYONE. Your mum or your best friend might worry and witter on your behalf, wanting the best for your kids, wondering if there is something that might give them an advantage. But the HV looks after everyone and the implication is that everyone needs to behave in this dickish sharp elbowed way, or they are in dereliction of duty.

and the nightmare is, if everyone does, then the same propertion STILL lose out. it is not the case that if everyone was pushy enough there would suddenly be places for everyone. it would just be that you have to be even pushier to be in the top xper cent, and still y percent would lose out.

On the church school point, If you were vaguely Christian and were interested in your child going to a church school it is very important to be thinking about that now for your 2 year old. By me the catholic and CofE churches both require 2 years regular attendance at those specific churches by the application date which for us closes in January. So for my just turned 2 year old I have to decide NOW whether I want them to go to one of these schools and act accordingly.

Of course this favours the organised and forward thinking so frankly your HV is doing her patients a favour by encouraging them thinking about it now.

So on that YABU but YANBU about the lack of schools places in London generally which is really difficult.

Catholic and Coe schools...

I think it's normal to be advised to look at all the school options and see which one would be more suited to your child. All responsible parents would weigh up what's best after various school visits. Yes you could blindly send your kid to the closest school without checking it out but why would you?

But also yes, family has the greatest influence at infant age. In juniors friends gain more importance and influence. You will find some satisfactory schools have major problems with low staff morale, poor leadership sometimes resulting in poor teacher backup which in return results in behavioural issues/mass bulling in a classroom/school. You need to talk to lots of parents to get a true picture

All schools teach religion by the way.

Tapioca, the point here is not that the OP's nearest schools are satisfactory. It is that she lives in a 'black hoile' where her child will not, under the current scenario, be offered a place at EITHER of her two nearest schools because the house she has ust moved to is too far away from both.

If she had the luxury of getting a school place in one of her nearest schools, yes, the discussion about family / friends having influence has relevance. But at the moment she faces the fact that the only school place available to her may be way across from the borough from where she lives - and may well be at a school in Special Measures or otherwise in great difficulty, andas a result is the only school with places.

Or she may not be assigned a place at all, and have to lurk on waiting lists right up to and beyond the beginning of the next school year - a fact that the HV has been helpful enough to point out while the estate agent who sold her the house did not...

Wait till you're a few years on the other side of reception, then you will retrospectively appreciate her advice.

But the council has a legal obligation to provide education surely? If they fail in that obligation are there not legal implications.

And in Scotland, which despite being small still has densely populated areas, everywhere has to be within a catchment area. There are no gaps, one catchment area meets another. if there are not enough places the council has to provide more as they did at my dcs school where they put in a extra p1 to accommodate a larger than usual year within catchment

Once you introduce the concept of choice then you can start shuffllng kids about all over town.

And choice does not seem to homemade for betterschools just wider gaps between them.

I don't get this choice thing. Surely the point is that you don't get to choose. In theory, yes. But in reality you go to the catchment school or you risk choosing another school and will likely end up at an 'undesirable' school which has places. Op lives in a black hole which is not acceptable. They should be building a school for her area if she is not accommodated. Move to Stratford. There's a few nee schools opened up there!

Mrs mink. The council does have an obligation but not to provide a school close by. I think reasonable distance can be quite a long way and you have no idea what the school may be like.

In a densely populated area there may not be somewhere to build a school. Believe me, they're cramming in extra classrooms, building extra levels etc everywhere they can as well as finding spaces for kids in other schools as close as poss, as is their statutory duty. It's still a nightmare, but it's not like no one's trying to address it. Funding's limited, space is limited. It's just not as simple as saying they should build another school to solve OP's black hole problem. Yes, something needs to be done, but the simplest solution would have been for OP to check distances before buying her house. Which would have required greater awareness raising. Which the HV is doing.

Sounds a rough situation.