To get my knickers in a twist over this?

[Duperhero]

Hello,

Would love some opinions on this please. We were forced down the private route as no school places available. We are still waiting for a place in Year 2.

There is a little girl in my DC's class who has just been allocated a place at our nearest school. We were number one on the waiting list, but somehow the other child has been given a place. They live much further away from the school than us. There are no learning difficulties that I know of, as the little girl was in my DC's class and at a similar level. There is a sibling, but we also have a sibling at the school we are on the waiting list for.

How could this have occurred? Mutual friend has been bragging about how there are 'ways' to get both children into same school. She won't elaborate when pushed about these mysterious 'ways'!

Am I missing a trick here? I want to bring this up with the Council to find out why we were not given the place.

Our LEA criteria is Looked After Children, SEN, Siblings, then distance. Length on waiting list doesn't come into it.

Yes. Agreed.

Except in reality in our borough it meant children with siblings were given priority because they would keep results up and likely be good at same things eg sports keeping standards 'high'. Onlies were untested, and less preferred. You can say it doesn't work that way. Except they capitulated. Agreed the method/reasoning was unsound. Was tense at the time. There seem to be more onlies presently so maybe an area that's died out a bit.

Not surprised you're twisty knickered. Very frustrating. Worth posting this on the MN Primary board over in Education. There's some very knowledgable admissions folk over there and a lot of support on things like this.

The non-friend's 'ways of putting on pressure' or whatever is probably really ways of lying to make your situation seem more needy than it really is. So perhaps some story about a new difficulty in parents'/ GP's ability to collect from two schools, a sudden lack of funds (unemployment?) which means it is too difficult to collect from two schools etc.

Hi I don't know if you've got advice by re-posting. I deal with this kind of thing at work. Yes, the other family may have leapfrogged you with circumstances you don't know about. But mistakes definitely do happen and you could pursue this. (i could tell you some horror stories of small mistakes that have the effect of the wrong child being admitted). The council cannot tell you about the other family but it doesn't need to. You are asking about your application. Make a formal complaint in writing to the council- that it didn't apply the admission criteria properly. Ask it to look at that family and yours alongside and make sure it did it properly. If you are not satisfied take it further. Where you take it will depend on whether the school is an academy.

Moniker. Travel arrangements do not usually come into it unless really down to medical or social problems.

Op I say complain in writing. Of course you can usually complain online. The confidentiality thing makes it tricky because the council will not be able to give you the answers you need as such but it will look at it more thoroughly than if you just phone asking about somebody else's child. If you smell a rat keep on it. You can of course pally up with the mum and try that angle. The council should not tell her you have complained.

How could you be number one on the list when your daughter has a school place?

I would have thought that wanting to stop paying fees isn't a very good reason to be allocated a place tbh!

Your current place does not affect your place on the list - its not usually on the criteria, at least. Lots of people have a child in school and on the list for another.

yanbu

I would definitely complain, the only possible reason is as others have said the little girl is adopted.

Thank you everyone for the replies. I haven't re posted in Primary yet but will do so.

Moniker, I think it's something along those lines.

Diddl, the council have an obligation to provide a school place.

Our borough is incredibly over subscribed. I just wonder if those families that keep complaining the loudest, and those that refuse to make other arrangements for their children and leave them at home until a place is allocated their preferred school, do actually get further ?

Has anyone said they are not sending their child to school and waited it out? Has that led to the council bending the rules to give your child a place?

"Diddl, the council have an obligation to provide a school place."

Yes, but how much urgency will they put on it when she is in school?

Steppinginto2015. If they decide to drop out of private the council will need to find them a school place. It doesn't have to be at the school that is close by. That school is full, with long waiting lists.

There are other schools much further away that have spaces. I'm not sure how they got a space at the oversubscribed school.

Hi diddl. I understand your point, but a waiting list is a waiting list. We occupy a position on that list and the other child cannot jump ahead just because they pulled her out of private. In that scenario she should have been given a place at the next nearest school with places available.

In your OP you say you were forced down the private route.

Does that mean that you have put your DC in a private school while waiting for a place to come up?

If so then maybe that's your answer. The other child has NO school place and the LEA has the obligaion to provide one. But your child does have a school place due to you paying for it. So you have in effect solved the LEA's problem with finding a school place for the other child. That child can have your child's place then both children have a school place. If they give your child her place as top of the waiting list they leave a child in their area without a school to go to at all.

Not sure what you do about it though . ..

"We occupy a position on that list and the other child cannot jump ahead just because they pulled her out of private."

Well yes, because they are then not receiving schooling.

Is that what happened then?

No, the child will not jump a waiting list by being out of schooling. Parent's cannot just say, "well, little Ann must have a place here, as she's not in school otherwise".

A place must be found for an out of school child somewhere, but it's unlikely to be in a very popular school with waiting lists; she can be placed anywhere in county that has a space. If they haven't appealed, none of the sob stories mentioned by Moniker are relevant, they should have no impact on waiting lists.

In the event that absolutely no schools in county have spaces, the FAP can be implemented which will force a school to take her (though this process usually takes some time). However this will be in the school best placed to take another pupil, not particularly at a school of the parent's choice.

OP says the child was in her child's class, so she seems to have been pulled out of one school to immediately attend another, so it's unlikely that FAP applies here as it generally doesn't kick in that quickly. It may well be that the child was adopted (which would see her leap the waiting list, though it wouldn't get a space opened up for her if the school was full), or it may well be that something has gone awry in terms of waiting lists.

Do the school or the LEA administer the waiting lists? Schools can do so now but in practise many let the LEA do it still. It could be that your request to be on the list hasn't got to the right person.

Unfortunately OP, no-one on MN can give you the answer. You need to ask either the school or the LEA.

So if two kids have the same criteria, who gets put at the top?

The one whose name was put forward first?

Perhaps something has changed that OP doesn't know about.

Obviously she can't be told the circs, but it's perhaps worth making sure that she is still in the system!

So OP, were you not offered any places anywhere when your daughter needed to start school?

If two children are in the same criteria pool, for example no special needs, not adopted, so what is normally criteria 3 for a non-religious school, then normally the child who lives close to the school will go higher on the waiting list regardless of when they applied. This isn't universal though and distances can be measured in different ways by different LEAs.

OP needs to quiz the authorities, as the previous poster said, we cannot solve jt here!

Only the published criteria are relevant nothing else. She is not LAC or adopted as she would have got a place initially if so. There is a possibility of a new SEN statement naming the state school. You both have sibling so only distance left. You need to look at his your LA measures it. The only other thing is that a lot of LAs (incl ours) only hold waiting lists until Xmas then you have to register ongoing interest. If some one left at end of last term and you were no longer on the list maybe you missed out ???

Is she a child of someone in the Forces? They can leap the queue.

I will be in touch with the Council on Monday, absolutely.

Just to answer some questions here, they are not a forces family. Nor is the child adopted.

We remained on the list throughout.

I know we can't work it out on MN (!) but I wanted some opinions on whether I am missing something. I looked at the admissions process thoroughly when it was time to apply for schools because we're in an oversubscribed area.

There definately seems to be something wrong then. The law is very clear that only the published admissions criteria matter. There is no legal way round that. Do you know where the family live? Could it be that their walking route is shorter? One faith school near us uses walking route not crow flies (which all the others use). Have you measured the distances on a radio is map? The LA should tell you exactly what measurement they have used for you to 3 decimal points