To think parents need to actually understand the school's application process before applying?

[evertonmint]

So we've just received school places. I've had 2 going through the system this year and live edge of catchment so it's been stressful. We were lucky to get what we wanted, as most people around here did fortunately, but I also made damn sure I understood the process, and understood what to do if we didn't get our choice, so that my application was as solid as it could be.

I feel incredibly sorry for people who haven't got any of their choices, who live in crap areas with huge competition. We could well have missed out but just managed to scrape in.

But I've been shocked at how clueless people are about the process, or deliberately disingenuous they are about the reasons why they've not got what they wanted. For example,

1. somebody complaining on a local Facebook group that the council's letter says they live 5 miles from the school when she can see the gates from her house. Loads of "that's terrible!" comments. She then later drops into conversation that she only moved to the village 2 weeks ago!

2. someone who didn't tick the sibling link box as she didn't know there was one so has been treated as catchment only and not got a place for her second child

3. people who think the process is unfair because the school isn't near affordable housing so it's unfair on poorer people (even though this is not actually true - housing is very mixed here)

4. several people who spent ages stressing that they wouldn't have a place even though they have a sibling there and are closer than most people in the school catchment so were virtually guaranteed a spot

5. person putting home schooling as second and only other choice to force the school to take their child. Child doesn't get a place, no place offered as parent expressed wish to home school. Parent now upset they have to home school and talking to their MP about it...

I've heard all sorts recently, and I'm just shocked that so many people don't appear to have read the criteria, or rely on what their auntie did 15 years ago, or are deliberately holding back a critical bit of info when trying to garner sympathy.

I have loads of sympathy for the children affected by this, but their parents in some cases have brought this on themselves and I just don't understand how you can be that lax when your child's schooling is at stake. This is not an education thing - several of the people mentioned here have degrees for example, several of the people who did it all right don't. AIBU, cynical, unfair? Or do I have a point?

People seem to not know/understand one simple fact, the LEA only has one obligation to you, to offer your child a school place. Not a place at the school five minutes away, not a place at the school your child's sibling attends, not a place at the Outstanding primary five miles away because you're convinced little Johnny is G and T and couldn't possibly go anywhere else, just a place in a school. You can and should express your preferences on the form, but they're just that, preferences, and they're no guarantee of a specific place.

YANBU

I get exasperated explaining to people that they really do need to put down the "rubbish" local school they don't want as their last preference because that is far far far better being given an equally "rubbish" school that is a few miles away!!

Oh and that it isn't their choice, it's them getting to state their PREFERENCE

Also people getting pissed off about the schools' attitude that ask them where they live and they say to them you're not likely to get in. School are trying to do them a favour by them not wasting a preference - 1 class entry, huge number of younger siblings (more than 50% some years) so you have to live VERY CLOSE to stand a chance of getting in and these people don't

YANBU
My friend tried to put her pfb on a school waiting list (out of catchment state school) when he was 9 months old. I tried to explain that schools don't have waiting lists for babies but she didn't believe me as another friend had told her different. She was shocked when they turned her away and told her to apply in a few years.

Following the secondary admissions there was a family in the local paper complaining that their DS didn't get any of the schools they'd put down.
They had picked the 3 best oversubscribed schools, none of which was closer than 3 miles. Father was most indignant.

People haven't learnt for secondary school. I live in a grammar school area, and it's amazing how many people don't investigate how the system works. many parents believe that schools prepare kids for the exam, but where we live, state schools aren't allowed to.

Catchment doesn't really mean anything here- it is very fluid and depends on siblings and also affected by a random bulge year a few years ago where an extra class was admitted, having a knock-on sibling effect for subsequent year groups.

Still people try to force the system by putting random choices etc.

Yes a lot if people don't understand. A mum at the school put it down 3 times on the form so that's obviously why her child got in. She gives her advice frequently on facebook so others get in too.

Just demand that they give you a place is another one.

Not for school but for pre-school here you must put their name down from birth. This is for all the ones near me. A lot don't know this so miss out on places.

The system in England/Wales isn't particularly intuitive, though.

It requires that people know when the application form needs to be submitted by (in the case of August born children, this is before they are 3.5 years old), that they can/should visit schools and how to go about this, the broad likelihood of being allocated places as their local schools and how to strategically fill in the application form, the allocations criteria which can change year to year, that preference isn't choice and that there's no absolute to prefer to ie a school that your child would automatically be allocated to, that it's best to accept whatever place you're offered even if you wouldn't actually send your child there, that you can go on waiting lists for schools that you didn't initially put down etc etc etc.

Our local children's centre ran workshops for parents/carers, and helped them complete forms online. Every single family was allocated a place at one of their preferences because they'd had expert guidance about how to fill in the form/realistic preferences etc.

I do appreciate that there are some areas particularly in London where you can put your closest 6 schools as preferences and not actually be allocated one of them, but this isn't the norm (and often gets sorted by via waiting lists and in-year transfers when places come up).

I'd say that the unreasonable thing is that parents/carers who may not speak English/be familiar with the school system/know who or where to ask for help are left unsupported with such a major procedure.

There is only really one thing you need to know.

You do not get a CHOICE, you put down a PREFERENCE and you are allocated a place based on the local authority criteria. (Which you obviously need to be aware of).

Yes agree that it is a minefield if you don't understand the system. I am trying to help someone understand the system who only moved here last year and it is hard when English isn't your first language.

I was at an open morning and the Headteacher at an 'outstanding' school said 'If you want to come to this school then you must put it down first.' While tecnically correct - I.e. if you put another school as number one and you also qualify for that school then you will be given that school, it also could be understood as meaning 'we only want you if you put us as your first choice' which I think was once the system which some schools used. No wonder parents get confused. I do agree though that some parents don't really understand the system and sometimes don't want to.

I think many of these people do actually understand the system, they just think they're special.

Whilst accepting I am in the fortunate position of having received a place at our first choice school (although apparently 85% in our county did so not the minority) I am too slightly bemused by many of the comments on my local mums' Facebook page.

I have been completely unable to persuade a few that putting a school down as first preference does not mean that you get priority over those who put it second.

I also just want to scream 'calm down the bloody acceptance forms aren't even in yet' . We live in an area with high private school uptake so bound to be lots of movement at next stage. Maybe wait until then before you start lobbying our MP/ home educating your child/ opening a free school.

Perhaps if so many people are getting it wrong, then the correct conclusion is that the system is faulty? Not all parents are equally endowed with the wit, the time or the inclination to understand complicated school application processes.

Our primary school application process involved pitching up at the local council offices sometime in May to confirm that we wanted our children to attend the village school in September. I genuinely do not understand why it needs to be so difficult in the UK.

I agree Misti. Our application information wasn't that clear in places and open to misinterpretation. My 'semi expertise' in the subject comes from trawling the boards here.

OK, mistigri - you challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to say what the new system should be instead of the current one.

And as we're talking about the English system here, it must withstand the population densities of the inner cities as well as the spread of rural. And in cities some school cannot, just cannot, expand to take all the children in even a 500m fixed catchment (not uncommon for a 3 form entry school to have a greatest distance of under 400m, because yes there are that many children).

in some (rural) areas even distance could be identifying, tbh

Our council's information booklet about primary school applications (freely available online) has a section where they list all the school's in the county. This gives parents information on the size of the school, the PAN for the next academic year, the number of applications last year (split into 1st / 2nd / 3rd) preference, and, if a school is oversubscribed, what criteria the last child admitted got in on. So, if the school's oversubscribed and the last child admitted was in the last (closest walking distance to school) category, they put e.g. 500m in that box.

It may be identifying information in some circumstances, but it's also information that will be publicly available once they compile that section of next year's application booklet.

I do take the point about it being inappropriate for them to discuss numbers of LAC / children with special needs applying. Not that they did give any information out about that category when I was talking to them.

YANBU

You need to start with the list of criteria.
You need to know how many places there are and how many applications in the past.
You need to know how many appeal and how many are successful.

Don't waste a choice if you stand no chance.

I don't think the admissions system is that difficult to understand. I think there are people who just don't read the admissions booklet and just go on old information or wishful thinking.

I know people who've been through the process and still give shit advice to others about schools demanding that they are put as first preference.

.

I also think, when distances are measured as closest walking distance, it would be helpful for councils (mine at least) to be completely clear in advance about what's counted as a path.

My council's booklet says that paths have to be man-made. What they don't say anywhere in the booklet is that a man-made path also has to be lit for them to count it as a path.
Which means that we're officially about 0.2 miles further away from our preferred school than we thought, because a short, man made path that every pedestrian on our estate uses if they're heading towards the school doesn't have a street light in the middle of it.

I can understand the reasoning behind saying it's not a path if it's not lit, but it would have been helpful if that had been made clear from the start.

And if you want extra fun, you just wait until you hear parents and teenagers in 2015 applying for university like it's still 1983, when the parents last looked at a prospectus and filled in an UCCA/PCAS form, "advised" by schools that don't have a clue.

Manning a stall at an open day is a really depressing experience, because you talk to fantasists who are never, ever going to get in, because they have been catastrophically mis-advised (in no particularly order "gave up maths but wants to do STEM degree", "doing BTECs when they could have done A Levels" and "My A Levels aren't great but I've got lots of UCAS points from playing the tuba"). Actually interviewing students on an applicant day can be even worse, because you sometimes have to make offer/no-offer decisions which break your heart and by then they've committed to their choices. You know that if you could have a time machine and go back three years you could fix it, but it's too late.

If the schools have a list of criteria I don't understand how anybody can successfully appeal a decision. Surely if the school is following procedure there can't be very many mistakes made.

One school near us did something last year which I found really helpful. In their Open Day pack they included a small map with a ring round the school showing how far out children had been accepted the previous year. Looking at that map made it perfectly clear to me that we didn't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting in. It was harder for those on the edges of the ring though and sadly, the acceptance distance our year was even smaller. But it was a useful guide at least and if every school (or at least every council) could provide a visual tool like this, I think it would really people see what their chances actually are.