About school applications for reception 2015...

[elfycat]

To remind you that you need to apply by Mid-January (15th seems to be the day).

And AIBU to bump this for the next few weeks?

You need to apply, even if you live next door to the school, even if your child is attending the preschool attached to the school, even if a sibling already goes. There are no automatic places at state schools.

There were quite a few shocked parents last year who got a random school that they didn't want their child to be at. If you do not apply for a place and someone else does - they will get it. Even if they are out of catchment and you are in the area they will get the place.

Most, if not all counties have on-line submissions. If you have time to read MN you have time to nip in and start the application, or start by just getting the log-in sorted. Do it now before you forget and get caught up in the frenzy of Christmas and the post-Xmas exhaustion.

rusty I've just checked and the info is now there on the local authority website. I looked at the time (years ago) but I felt it's one of those website where you have to know where to look - it wasn't intuitive. Good to see it's getting better.
sizzles - similar to you I didn't have locals friends to ask - we didn't attend the toddler groups (which I imagine where a lot of this info may be shared).

But sizzles, you knew they'd have to go to school at some point do why wouldn't you find out a couple of years before it was needed? I just don't see how so many people can plead ignorance. It's not as if someone has changed the rules to say they must now go at 3 instead of riding 5.
It's like saying, ' well I didn't know I needed to book a dental appointment, I thought I could just turn up when I wanted to see one.'

There are hundreds of aspects of parenthood that you need to sort out for yourself. School is just another one if those.

And must private schools would require you to register well before the state cut off so if you went by that timescale you'd be told you're too early but at least you'd know when to do it.

rising 5

I think if you didn't know other people with young children it would be very easy to not know about the deadline. I was working when it time for us to apply and had stopped spending much time with other parents, but fortunately DDs nursery were very proactive in sending home letters and talking to all the parents about it.

There seems to be an assumption that everyone just "knows" when to apply and how to do it properly, but that's really not the case.

No, I get that exact dates and timescales wouldn't necessarily be known to most parents. But if I had a child going to school next September, then this September I would have thought about him going next year and called my local authority to ask when I should be applying.

And to go back to the dental analogy. Nobody gives an exact timescale for when a child should first see a dentist but most parents make that appointment at some time in the second year of life. I just don't see how this is any different.

Remember it is a preference for a school, not a choice.

Look at schools you actually stand a chance of getting a place in not some outstanding oversubscribed school on the other side of town that you would never in a million years stand a chance of ever getting a place in.

If it is a Catholic school make sure if required that you submit the supplementary form to the school with a copy of your child's baptism certificate.

Do your own research, don't expect somebody to tell you what to do and when to do it by, many councils do not send out letters to parents about applying to school.

Thanks for the reminder, completing our on-line forms is on this weeks to-do list.

It's all done on-line via council website here, they don't send out reminder letters or e-mails, parents are pretty much expected to find out about deadlines etc themselves.

The DCs nursery have put posters up about school admissions, and the staff have mentioned it, but if your DC don't go to a nursery you might not realise.

Has 15th January now become a national date? I know it's not that long in our authority that they had to be in, in early December. I think at least that is one step forward, in the hope you might be chatting to a friend / relative, MNer across the country and be jolted into action if you didn't know.

Am surprised though that all families of rising 4s don't get a letter / application form, (even though I realise this must be a massive cost).

Can I also just add that you should check with your LA what their procedure is on nursery admissions too - we recently moved to another county and nearly missed the nursery admissions deadline (online, same process as school places) as our previous council's policy was to fill in a form at the nursery itself.
Definitely worth checking that too. Especially if you want your child to go to the local pre-school.

Has 15th January now become a national date?

Yes, and 16th April will be the date that all allocations are released too. If you have applied online you will most likely receive an email confirming school allocation, or you will be notified to login to your account where the allocation will be listed. If you have applied via post then, for our LA, letters will be sent on 16th April so you may not find out for a couple of days.

All mine are at school now. But when it was time to apply for my youngest we were in the same county but had moved areas. Early on I asked playgroup if they knew when it was we were supposed to apply and were told they normally sent a letter. I wait for a letter, and wait and it's only because I overheard another parent talking about not having received a letter around the time of year they had for their other children I thought to enquire. The info on the website was awful so I rang them. I was in time but I could have so easily been too late.

Three? You lucky things- we have to put down SIX!

I really don't want to get into an argument about this, but sometimes you don't know the system.

I called the LA and asked for a form to be sent, no form arrived, so I called again and got one that time. But no it wasn't clear what I had to do and I found it all worrying. No one seemed to give a straight answer. Took me ages to even find a number to call.

I have a summer baby so will be days after the fourth birthday that they need to attend school.

Talking to someone at work who lives in the next village, but another council district said I don't need to start in sept, but Easter. That I don't understand.

I get Sizzles' point.
Our council puts posters up in doctor's surgeries, libraries etc but if you don't use those facilities, you wouldn't know. The child-minder hasn't mentioned it and there is just one small notice up at nursery. If DD went to a relative's house for childcare, we wouldn't come into any contact with the venues where information is posted. We don't read the local papers either.

It's only because of mumsnet that i have an idea of the timescale and can go look for the information myself on the council's website. I suspect DP wouldn't have had a clue about applying in advance and would have just rocked up at the nearest school at the beginning of September.

I'm not sure what the solution would be though as the cost of sending out letters to every child would be prohibitive and the only real method of doing this would be through GP surgeries as councils don't have a central register of all children in the borough and birth registrations would be out of date. Maybe there should be a few adverts of tv paid for by central government?

What they mean Sizzle is that you have the right to defer starting time in Reception. As your child has a summer birthday, they can start at Easter time. The School has to keep their place open but you do need to let the school know.

Some people advise against this, saying that it just means they miss out on bonding time.

However by Year 1 they will have all forgotten who started when anyway.

Sizzles - your child does not need to be in education (be that at school, or home educated) until the term after they are 5. In reality, most people choose to start their child at school in the term after they are 4.

Even then you have choices. Generally, when you have been offered, and you have accepted the place, you can then ask to defer the place until the term after your child is 5. If they are an Autumn born child, this would mean them starting after Christmas. If they are spring term, they would start after Easter. However, if they are summer born, they need to start in their same school year in orde to keep their place, so would need to start after Easter.

If you choose not to start your child until the term after their 5th birthday and they are summer born, then it usually means them missing reception year out all together and going straight into year 1. There are several difficulties with this, one of the main ones being that there may not be any spaces available in year one as you would need to apply a year later so may not get any of the schools you prefer.

For summer born birthdays, you also now have the right to request that your child starts in reception in the following year (ie. They start in the reception in the term after their 5th birthday). However, this is something which needs to be agreed by the Headteacher and is not an automatic right. Again, you would need to apply the following year, and do not get an automatic place.

I realise it's complicated, but it really is down to parents to start asking the questions. it would be pointless the local authority writing to all the parents of children in a particular year, as there is no way they would be able to track them all down. Instead, posters are displayed in schools, nurseries, GP surgeries, libraries, children's centres etc. in other words, all the places where parents with children are likely to go.

I hope the information in my post is useful (and accurate!), but it really is worth speaking to the admissions department at the local authority to check before you make any decisions.

It's a good reminder. This time around my application went in the following day as ds attends an out of catchment school and I wanted dd to get in too, even though first time around I applied in April, way past the deadline, and somehow secured a late place.

This is something HV used to give advice on in our area at the 2 year check. She would advise you about nursery and school admissions and deadlines. Since they scrapped the 2 year check locally I do wonder how many people miss the deadline. We didn't get anything through from the council for DS who started school Sept 2014.
We were unsure when to sign him up for nursery and school, so we went in to school and put his name down (turns out we were very early and he was the first on the list!).
The Nursery get you to fill in the school forms when you sign up for nursery at the same time, so DS was signed up for school from the age of 2. That way you are most likely to get a place when they move on to school age (though it is still not garunteed) it also saves a lot of stress for parents as you do all the forms at once and submit your birth certificates once.
Our school was not over subscribed before this year though (so we only ever needed that one choice) and often got children who missed out on their choices. This year it is full. Goodness knows what next year will be like, their are plans for 2 housing developments in our local area, and every other local school is over subscribed.

Sizzles, it can be daunting with your first and I agree about the inconsistencies of information supplied depending on LA. As DS attends the school nursery we were supplied with an LA leaflet from the school giving us all the information about how to apply and key dates.

In your case, you have to apply for a school place by 15th January - and that is whether you want them to start in September, January or Easter.

As your DS is summer born, you have the right to defer his start until January or Easter. The school will keep his place open until then. However, they will not keep the place open until Year 1.

You also have the right to request delayed entry; this means you can request that your DC starts reception after their 5th birthday. Please note that you can only request not demand delayed entry and, whilst there is no blanket ban allowed on delayed entry, most LAs only consider delayed entry when there are extenuating circumstances; such as premature birth and SEN with statement and support from professionals that delayed entry is necessary. You will hear anecdotal stories of people who have succeeded in getting delayed entry for their DC without extenuating circumstances, other than birth date, but those cases are very few and far between.

Both my DC are summer born, with DD being late August born; both have/will start in September with their correct age/year group and neither have been disadvantaged by this.

We're applying this year, as are many of our friends. I am amazed by the confusion many of our friends seem to have about the process. Some have said they are only putting two schools down, but don't want their child to go to school X. If they feel strongly about school X then putting something for all 3 options makes much more sense. Other friends are trying to be tactical with the order that they are putting schools in, rather than in order of their preference. Some seem to have been misinformed by school office staff with regard to the importance of the order to put schools down in. It all seems a bit of a mess. I think I understand the process, but sadly it matters least for us as we are a stones throw from our village school, so we could get away with making a hash of our application and still get a place.

Liftleprincess - you can't apply early for school anymore. You can only apply from the September to January in the 12 months before they start school. Neither can you "put your name down at school" for a school place, although you may be able to do so for nursery places.

Put your preferences down in the order you would want to get them in. Remember that they are just preferences rather than proper choices . If you can, try to include a school that your child is likely to get into just in case!

Littlefish - I did not know that. All I know is we went in to school and put his name down for nursery. When we went to fill in the forms for starting nursery we were given forms to apply for the school place too. We filled them all in at the same time, and he started nursery 18months before school.
All I can guess is school keep them on file till the appropriate time and then send them in for us.
I did double check with school that all the forms were in the January before he was due to start in school (as my sister was on about deadlines for her DS) and they said they had sent my forms off ages ago, and he was on their provisional transition list for reception. So I presumed they did it as soon as I signed them. But however the school did it, they did it right as he got a place. I guess they do it that way to ensure the forms are in and signed long before the deadline to help avoid disappointment as much as possible.
Anyway, just glad both mine are all in and sorted, wouldn't like to be attempting to get mine in now with all the over subscription in our area.