Parents who only put one school choice down

[womblesofwestminster]

AIBU to wonder why some parents only put one school choice down when they fill in their primary school application for their child? I've heard several parents claiming to do this. Why put all your eggs in one basket?

Are they that confident their child will get it? Why risk it?

I only put one down for DD2 as the first entry criteria was siblings at the school (they don't even stipulate in catchment). We are also well in catchment, I just couldn't see the point of putting another one down when it was plainly obvious we would be among the first ones admitted. I did use all my choices with DD1 though.

tiggy, what are your rights if the other schools do not provide e.g. disabled access?

surely a LEA that allocates a child a place in a school that child cannot physically enter is not fulfilling its duty to provide that child with an education?

yet many LEAs do not statement children with physical disabilities, many LEA's do not have a medical box on their application form and many schools are still in Victorian buildings which cannot be adapted to a wheelchair.

difficult to call it a preference when it is a question of whether you can get to the lesson or not.

Rosa - You need to look at your own area. Mine, as I mentioned, has no such thing as catchment. We have the priority categories (statements, looked after children, etc), then siblings, then distance. Hopefully your nursery gave you decent local advice. In my area (excluding the faith schools) you would be horribly unlucky not to get a place as a sibling. It would only really be a possibility in some of the single class intake schools if perhaps there were a large number of statemented children and it was a couple of years after a bulge class, or some anomaly like that. Look on your LA website for details of your local rules.

We are only in the catchment for one primary. It happens to be a "good" primary which has never turned down an in catchment child and usually takes 10+ from outside the catchment. Our next three closest primaries (between two & four miles away) are all "outstanding" but, for the past five years, have not been able to take all of their catchment children, let alone non-catchment children so putting any of those down seemed pointless, especially as two are church schools (one CofE, one Catholic) and we don't meet any of the religious criteria.

Because they think it will force the councils hand ha they have no idea my sister mate works for admissions and she says if only one choice is on the form and it can't be given those parents are simply allocated any school.

Your better of have six choices you would rather not have but don't mind but

Than get a random school across the LA

I think sometimes in a small school you can be fairly confident that you are one of the nearest siblings. We know that although the class will probably be filled with mainly siblings, there are very few siblings who live closer than we do, hence unless four families move in with adopted sextuplets next to the school we would get a place.

We used all 6. I didn't want some random school miles away. I would only be happy with the first two - but realistically it might not happen so will stick ds on the waiting list.

I know how stressful it is, tiggy- I've done it.

But just supposing the appeal had failed, what would the right course of action have been? Just dumping dd in the foyer every morning and going off? (not taking her in at all would be risking a fine and/or prison sentence)

And what if I then found she had just been left sitting there without tuition (as happened at her primary school)? What redress would one have as a parent? Surely parents can't be forced to home-school?

I live very close to an excellent school which has recently expanded and always had children from outside the catchment area. It is near a barracks and university so there are generally a few children every year who leave getting up places. My eldest child is already there. In the extremely unlikely event of DS not being a place I would educate him at home until a place came up.

We only put one school down, knowing thta woth sibling rule and on distance we woud get a place, you can ask the distances that were admotted in previous years to check.

But we had previousy home educated and I was prepared to hoem educated until a place became available,the school we wanted is one where there is a high level of movement in and out of thr school due to it being used by visiitng students to thr local uni, sooften only here for a year or even a term.

The high school I knew was undersubscribed and we had the sibling link. It has now become an academy so I need to check if criteria is changing forour younger children, we have two at high school, two at primary and one atpre-school.

If we are not happy withlocal option we will look at home education again.

Oh ans thr council phoned me up andgot quite snott thtawe only had onechociedown, iexplained I would be home educating ifi didnt get a place at my chosen school. They got very aggressive and told me I legally had to send my child to school! I very calmly pointed out that idid not, I had to ensure they were educatedand that this does not have to happen in school. The were really insistent I coultn do this, so I asked to speakto thir superior, who whilst admitting I was righti cpuld home educate, told me this was not something he thought I should do, he would never recomendit and itmay lead to social servoces involvemnt.

At whichpoint iaske him if hewas threatening meand pointed outthat my partner actually works for childrens servoces and as such I am pretty sure they wpuld have no concerns.

I sent a written letter of complaint!

Have only ever put down one school - the one in catchment in a rural area

5madthings that sounds terrible and I can totally imagining it happening unfortuneately.

I knew of one person who did this in our catchment. For years many dc out of catchment got into the school. She thought it would be no problem as she lived within catchment. But there is no way of knowing how many dc are born that year and live in that catchment. She didn't get her choice. Neither did she get the nearest other 5 schools. She got a failing one 7 miles away. I think it's foolish. It doesn't enhance your chances to just put the one down. So why on earth wouldn't you put 3.

depends where you are, surely. In London this would be bonkers. In a small village where everyone goes to the one school, why bother?

I've put down 5 out of 6 choices having read threads like this before!

However realistically he could only go to option 1 or possibly 2 so if he doesn't get in we ll be absolutely screwed. Fingers and toes all crossed.

I find it very irritating that there isn't a way of getting then to take parent disabilities as a reason. I do wonder if anyone will manage to get that changed in the future as its a very real issue for people.

I'm hoping we're ok as although they don't have to take it into account, my first choice school is a faith school that is very close to me do I can get DS there, and also get into the school to visit teachers and classrooms etc. They know my situation personally and the linked church has backed our application. As an added extra I have a gp letter of support about its accessibility which has gone straight to the school (not on the council application as it won't matter to them. Letter is probably pointless but prepares the way for appeal and hey, you never know, maybe someone will take it into account.

They have such high criteria in terms of church going though I was really surprised/ shocked. Apparently it came about because of all the religious cheating that went on!

There are FIVE levels of religion scoring:

1. Goes to linked church every 1-2 weeks for two years prior plus personal recommendation from vicar
2. Goes to another CofE church 1-2 weeks plus vicar reference
3. Goes to linked church every month with recommendation from vicar
4. Goes to another church once a month
5. Practicing Christian of any faith (catholic, baptist etc)

Someone told me that unless you have the first level then you don't have a chance.

I was worried as actually I can't get to the church because of my disability but the curate comes to me frequently and my Ds goes to church without me as much as possible. So they put us down as number one anyway as they know im committed as much as a physically can - or so I've been told (I hope it's true!)

I live in crazy oversubscribed part of London and my mother, who works in a tiny village school up north really can't understand what the fuss is about! Her school is permanently worried about dipping down too low in numbers. It's a lovely school though.

Cory - you wouldn't be forced to homeschool. You would be offered another school. If you abandon your child in a school foyer every morning, you could probably expect a call from social services.

I only put one choice down when my children moved from Infants to Juniors. There was only one junior school I could get them to since at that point you can't choose a primary school. Had we not got in I would have had to apply for a transfer to one of the 4 nearby primary schools.

All this 'outstanding' schools 'good' schools stuff is such a load of complete tosh. It's only the case until their next ofsted! They could swap around our get a 4, just bizarre.

I put only one choice down as there is only one school in this village. DD1 was actually no.30 to get into our school and we are now lucky we have the siblings in catchment policy. There was no point in putting other schools as I didn't want any other but if one had been allocated I'd have dealt with it, obviously.

I've done three applications and only put one school down each time - we don't have many oversubscribed schools round here at all and I've never wanted dc to go to any of them.

We got the place at the school we asked for each time too but then pretty much knew we would when we applied.