To think that the school admission system is a barrier to job moves

[SEsofty]

Thinking about a new job. Various options in different locations. I think it would be interesting for the whole family to move somewhere different in the uk for a while.

However, kids are in great schools and therefore I am terrified about moving and them be therefore unable to get into a decent school because would be applying for a school not at reception entry. And indeed having time without a school at all.

Therefore I am restricted in where I can look for jobs, so we don't have to move and change schools.

Multiply my situation across the country and its clear that this must be a huge barrier to growth and jobs.

So AIBU to think this, or is this an unnecessary worry

Everyone here is correct there are problems. But it's not admissions based.

Very few LEA can not find a place at all for children. If you do not live in the area, at admission time they can not offer you a place. Because all the good schools are over subscribed. The lower performing schools are then filled with people turned away from the better schools.

We also have a problem with people claiming to live in an area that they don't. Or claiming to live at their parents to get places. So now they have clamp down. So if you don't already have an address in that area, they can't do anything

The problem is over subscription, the inequality between level of education in different schools and years of parents lying and taking the piss to get their kids in.

It is admissions based, though. Elsewhere in Europe children attend their local school. If there aren't enough places, then either the catchments are redrawn or the school expanded - there is none of this nonsense of children being allocated schools a long distance away when there is a school at the end of the road!

LEAs also don't plan ahead. When DD was born, our local council knew that the 2011/2012 birth year was a boom year, so to speak. There was much made of the fact that in 5 years' time, X additional places would be needed at the schools in our borough. Did anyone take heed and build new schools? Expand existing schools? No! Were additional houses built locally, thus compounding the problem? Yes! And there are currently over 100 pupils in what will be our borough when we move back without places for September this year. If LEAs were held to account in a more robust way, maybe they'd get it right more often. We are talking London here, but other large cities worldwide seem to manage so why not the capital?

Mrs - sorry to hear you're in the same boat. I'll PM you later.

To Teabag's point above, parents wouldn't need to 'lie and take the piss' if all schools were of a reputable standard. I don't think it's right that people play the system, but when that system is so flawed that some children are condemned to veritable sink schools from the age of four, it's human nature that people will do all they can to achieve the best outcome for their offspring.

i think yabu i couldnt really move as ds2 attend a special school if we were even to move to the next town i would have to have his statement revised and get him into another special school we wouldnt know if they had places etc but normal mainstream priamarys are much of a muchness

But just as you are moving your kids away from their current school. so people and their kdis will be moving out of the area you are going to.

It's not the admissions policy as such that's the problem, it's the class size limits.

In "the olden days" this wouldn't be a problem, if you got a job in a new city, you moved into a house in the catchment area of a good school and they'd give you a place in that school, no bother. My parents did that, we moved when I was 7. I just went to hte school round the corner and it wasn't an issue. There were 38 in my class. With one teacher and no TA. This was just one of those things, some areas there were 20 DCs in a class, some closer to 40, you just went to your local school.

Now class size limits are shit for people moving into an area or those who live just at the edge of what used to be the catchment (so in high birth years won't get in) - but that was set against the benefit to the children already in the school to be taught in limited class sizes. We aren't prepared to accept going back to higher class sizes, so in the absence of a huge school building scheme, the downside is the current situation.

Some people do relocate their DCs round the country. Having a DC in a 'boom' year, I think we would only move if a job paid enough to cover private education.

Village schools tend to have more spaces as so few families can afford to live in the countryside nowadays

Yanbu. I was thinking of applying for a job back in London but the lack of certainty about my dc's education, especially for secondary, put me off totally.

Hear hear OP.

It's not just about being picky about getting a 'desirable' school.

There is no protection for in year movers to get siblings placed together (so you could be offered a place 3 miles in 1 direction and 3 miles in the other direction. And helpful advice that you can move them to a closer school if a place later becomes available. As though DC were left luggage that just need a convenient storage locker, and can be chopped and changed around with impunity.

If they can't find you a place within 2 miles (KS1) or 3 miles (KS2) they have to fund travel. This might be a bus pass. For the DC only.

So you might be faced with a move from all DC in a school close to home - vs having 2 DC needing to be in two places at 9am, at a distance of 5/6miles (no support) or more (with a free child's bus pass thrown in).

Wraparound care provision is not guaranteed - and varies wildly in cost.

If the logistics are impossible (eg you don't drive and busses are infrequent) -you can decline the place - but LEA have no obligation to offer you another place. So your only option is homeschooling.

You can appeal - but panels are advised to ignore issues of transport /logistics - and KS1 appeals are pretty much unwinnable due to tight infant class size rules.

So you might move for work - but actually find that you can't work - because one or more of
-> you have multiple pick ups and drop offs not leaving you enough time to fit in a working day
-> you have to double up on childcare (eg a nanny, a car for nanny and a CM) making it unaffordable
-> you're bounced into unwilling homeschooling

hell, yeah, it's an issue when considering job moves.

There are lots of parts of the UK without huge pressures on school places, they just aren't necessarily where the jobs are.

We're moving back to our house in the UK soon after a few years in the USA for work and due to errors in the admission process, were offered a year 7 place at the nearest school for DS at appeal. We knew 100 per cent that we would be moving back to our existing, owned house and had evidence to back this up. Despite this, we weren't allowed to apply in the normal way for a school place because we weren't physically living in the house in Feb this year.

I do understand that people try to beat the system by giving a fake address or temporarily renting, but I would like to see a system which offers flexibility to genuine cases and which recognizes that families sometimes have little or no choice about where and when they have to move.

Flashbangandgone I wasn't trying to say that the German system would work in the UK, was simply describing a system where school admission is no barrier to mobility. PPs had been telling OP she was BU, but it is a fact - there are other systems that deliver decent education and are less of a barrier to mobility than the UK system.

Agree that demand for the better schools is what messes it all up in the UK.

Schools certainly should be made bigge of build more schools. The secondary school dd is going to has to refuse kids from inside the catchment area that apply. However the have no plans to expand the school despite lots of new houses going up within the catchment. Dds school point blank refuses to even consider expanding.

Lots of houses are being built in this area yet no schools are expanding. The school system needs sorting for all our kids. All schools should be a good standard with places that match the surround population. What's worse is the school that is the 'rubbish' school in our area was the rubbish school when I was at school 20 years ago. I just don't get how nothing has changed.

IME extra school places are not linked to development (eg new houses or employers). At best - there might be a new free school in the pipeline - relevant if you have a pre-schooler looking for a reception place in due course - but bog all use if you're moving with older children.

Even if you can afford private school education, there's no guarantees they'll have spaces either.

And if you go to an area with grammar schools mid-year and are bright enough to go to one, will you get in if it's full or will you have to go to the secondary modern (assuming that has any places either)? Or indeed vice versa, though I suspect grammar schools are always full.

if you are moving, you should be able to apply ahead of time, and it's easy to spot people moving from say Devon to Hampshire, ahead of the local person trying to play the system.

I think even some element of responsiveness and forward planning on the part of the LEA would help.