To think I have reason to kick up a fuss re school place offer?

[Moleskine]

I am posting on here for traffic and in the hope that someone in the know or with previous experience will come and help with some advice.

We applied for a late school reception place due to a house move. The admissions team told me we would be considered in the 2nd round offers which were supposed to be made mid May. They were delayed and letters went out yesterday. But we still have no school place despite living 50m from our local school and being 1st on the waiting list.

The admissions team told me today that of the 90 places offered, all have been accepted except one. It is a place offered to a sibling so they are expecting it to be accepted too.

However the closing date to accept or decline a school place was 2nd May. So surely we should be offered this place if the other family have still not accepted on 28th May?

To add to this, 2 'special cases' have also come in late and they are to be considered this Friday. I am not sure if this means they are appeals or just higher priority applicants (looked after children or SEN). If successful, they will be placed ahead of us knocking us down to No. 3 on the list.

I am wondering if I should insist on the place that hasn't been accepted yet being given to us? Do I have grounds for this, as as things stand on today's date, the 2 'special cases' have not been decided and we are basically next on the list.

Please come and offer me some advice on this. Am becoming more and more anxious about my son not having a school place come September.

C of E schools rarely require children to be baptised. I would not rule them out without knowing their admissions criteria. So please do not jump to conclusions.

If you stated you wouldn't move until September then you won't have been actively sought a place yet. You need to be prepared to move whenever a place arises or it could be offered elsewhere in the meantime.

I' d suggest following mummytime advice. There a lot of guff talked about my DC C of E school - like knowing the vicar gets you in or getting a place at school nusury gets you in. It doesn't they follow the LEA admission criteria - even faith schools that do their own admissions have admission criteria they follow and its worth knowing what it say not what people think it says.

The criteria for the faith school closest to us has five admissions criteria listed on the council website - the 1st four state the child must be baptised. But I am definitely going to apply next week when school's are open again.

The council seemed to think I apply directly to the schools and they had nothing to do with it. So I don't think I need to ask the LA to add us to thier lists ... but I will clarify this.

Oh we did always state that we would take a place immediately if one came up at one of our first 4 choices of school, but nothing has come up in the last 10 weeks since we moved.

There was another thread on here recently where a child didn't have a place at school - can't remember if it was because they moved or just hadn't been offered one sorry. But the mum kept hassling the council and nothing happened.

Eventually she had a brilliant idea - rang the council's truancy officer - and said she wanted to report a child that hadn't been at school for the past few weeks. Truancy officer was very keen to hear details - but was very surprised to hear that she was reporting her own child. She obviously explained that she was still waiting for a place and the council were giving her the run around, but it wasn't fair on her dc who wasn't at a school and that it seemed a very double sided system - they jump down the throats of those that should be at school but don't go even for a day or two these days, yet when they are the ones that are not providing a school place when they should be, they are quite happy for that child to not be receiving an education...

A couple of days later, the truancy officer had sorted stuff out and the child had a place at a school.

So maybe - this would be a strategy to keep in mind if the worst happens and you don't get a place at any school. And if you are on lots of waiting lists but the one you are highest on is your local preferred school then even more reason for them to try to swing you into it rather than find yourself at a dodgy school a long way away... But also maybe only wait a day or few days before calling the truancy officer so there's no chance of other people doing the same thing!

Zipzap, I will keep that in mind. We might have to resort to that at this rate ...

I received a very prompt reply from Admissions just now, and they state that although there are 70 children unplaced they have no current plans to add any further bulge classes (several were put in place for this September already as there were 200 unplaced children last year).

They have also said that they do not allocate school places outside of the borough. So where does that leave us and all the other children without a place?

If all the school place offers were confirmed on May 2nd, I can't see how 70 more places are going to magically appear at this late stage.

What do we do now?

I am not sure whether we can appeal formally as we were a late application ...

I think you can appeal but you need to show a mistake has been made depriving your dc of places . Not sure you can do so tbh. Can you contact neighbouring borough ? When is your ds 5 as until the term after he isn't due to be in full time education so zipzap's circumstances wouldn't apply and your elder child is already in school.

They may not allocate outside of the borough, but you may be able to apply yourself.

You'll have to do a lot of research to find out which schools suit you and are not impossible to get to.

I don't envy you - this must be a horrible situation for you. Just out of interest, what prompted you to move to the area? Just that if I thought there were 200 children in the area without a school place the previous year, that would have put me off moving, especially if I knew I had to do a late application.

As long as you have made an application for a place you can appeal. That's a given. It doesn't mean that you have much chance of winning though. It might however, push the LA into finding a place before the appeal though.

Suburban is right. They might not allocate children who they can't place outside the borough, but they can't stop you from making an application to an out of borough school. If that school has a place, they have to accept you regardless of whether you are in borough or not.

We moved to the area because it's where we would like to live for the long term and bring up our children. We also have family here.

I thought we would be ok because we live so close to a school - there are lots of black spots for schools here and I wrongly assumed many of the unplaced children last year would have lived in those black spots. Also, the council have added bulge classes to around 6 schools this year.

Honestly I am just not prepared to ferry the children to a school in another borough. If it came to that I would just be at the council offices every single day until something was done.

One neighbouring borough has terrible schools, and the other is the one we just moved from which is an hours' drive in traffic and just as oversubscribed!

I have asked them how we can appeal ... let's see what they say. Have also asked for details of whoever is accountable for deciding number of school places.

If it came to that I would just be at the council offices every single day until something was done but they can't bend the rules for your dc . If they did the floodgates for appeals would open as your dc would have been incorrectly allocated places ahead of those on a waiting list who may have places elsewhere but possibly not of their choice. Being 1st/3rd on a waiting list sounds quite positive in the circumstances , where would your elder child be for that school ?

It does sound quite positive being 1st/3rd on waiting lists, but for the past 3 years in a row not a single offer has been made between May and October. So when you look at those figures, it's not very encouraging.

So what happens if we are just without a place? That can't just be it ... no education provided at all, is that the reality?

When is your ds 5 ? He isn't required to be in school until the term after then ?

He is 5 in November so one of the eldest ones. It should be a January start at the very latest.

So they could offer a place between now and then.

Which child would you appeal for? Could you appeal for your eldest child (as you have been 10+ weeks without bering given a place in your current borough) and then aim to up your younger child's chances as a sibling? There will also be fewer people appealing for Year 1 / going into Year 2 plasces as opposed to Reception appeals for oversubscribed schools.

I am considering appealing for both actually. At this point I just want to explore every avenue.

LIZS, given the historical figures this is very unlikely. Nothing has been offered at our closest school for the past 3 years after May.

I don't want to add to the doom and gloom but I'm not sure you'd get very far asking who decides on the numbers of children in a class because 30 is the legal limit. There are occasions where reception classes are larger (in one of the schools I work in, we have 33 in reception, but we have a specialist centre for speech and language and the rules are different for us).

Someone somewhere will decide how manny bulge classes to add though - this is more what I am referring to. The LA have told me there are no plans for additional bulge classes this year even though they have 70 children without a place.

I thought the OP meant who decides about number of bulge classes. 70 unplaced sounds high.

OP there may still be chances of children going private whose parents haven't declined their state places yet. It's horribly worrying; I suspect that you are in my borough or one nearby - despite living within 600m of three different primaries, we have only a slim chance of getting into any of them when it's our turn. It's grim. The council was going to build 4 new primaries, the new council are 'free schools only'.

Yes possibly - we're in a London borough and there is talk of a new free school being built shortly.

I have just emailed local MP's and councillors. I am really not sure what else can be done at this stage apart from proceeding with appeals which I know are unlikely to have successful outcomes. It may give us more visibility though which can't be a bad thing.