New school admission rule, siblings and moving

[FiloPony]

Our borough has brought in a new rule, for siblings to get priority on school admissions it only applies if you still live at the same address.

Aibu this is hugely unfair? For context it's an area of high deprivation, the families I'm aware of who are caught have moved due to rental contracts being ended or reasons such as temporary housing. Not buying or selling property they own or movingly to more desirable addresses.

Clearly the idea is from areas with outstanding schools and affluent families renting or movingly close. This is not our borough though! Schools are not wow, much of a muchness and generally good or satisfactory. Families affected will have two infant children potentially 3 miles apart in an area where this is easily an hour on public transport.

Surely this is very foreseeable that they will hit their most deprived families, surely exemption should apply... or even questioning why on earth they need the rule! School places are skewed simply as they have built more and more places on one side of the borough which now have empty spaces compared to the other where schools are full. They've made the plces in the areas they weren't as needed because it's more built up with smaller property compared to the derived area with more social housing and families...

Our nearest primary is oversubscribed. I live two streets away so all of my children have gained places. In recent years there have been more and more families moving to cheaper surrounding areas once they have secured a place for their first child. In September's intake 40 of the 60 places went to siblings many of whom don't even live in the village. I think this is grossly unfair. It also impacts hugely on the traffic situation around the school. The system needs to be flexible to ensure that those who at in temporary accomodation etc are given allowances. I know in reality the system cannot cope with being flexible but the sibling rule is open to abuse

If it disproportionately impacts on poorer people in catchment because they are more mobile with their housing (because most if not all will be renting) then yes, it's unfair.

Very unfair.

Homeowners move much less frequently than people renting, the majority of whom are on short term leases.

I see your point too, OP.

Could they not modify it so people in the circumstances described could appeal? There would be enough of a paper trail to show they weren't moving voluntarily, I would think.

It's silly to have "if you're not at the same address", most schools I've seen use similar only care if you're still in catchment. Renters tend to move more frequently (not through choice!) than home owners even if within a small area.

I do think it's generally fair that siblings not in catchment get less priority than other children in catchment. In the areas most commonly talked about its to stop the "rent in catchment for 6 months and get all siblings into school" that some middle class families try. But that in some areas this will disproportionately affect already disadvantaged children. There's never a right answer when it comes to admissions priority though.

As for secondary schools, sibling priority shouldn't exist, children mostly get themselves to secondary school.

I don't men to be rude but aren't people missing the point? Basically people are saying it works here/ for me.... I'm saying it doesn't work HERE. Obviously if people are packing into your village or your on the borders of west London with people using the school then it's a great idea.

Here the impact is pretty much exclusively poor people, not home owners, people with little choice. People rehoused, overcrowded or evicted. Here it doesn't work and MY la shouldn't use it

Realistically there are only 2 groups who aren't in temporary accommodation - homeowners and council tenants.

Everyone else can't be deemed permanent for the purposes of admissions because an AST is only protected for 6 months to a year so rather less than the period relevant for getting siblings into a school. Would unscrupulous landlords hike rents knowing that desperate parents would pay - quite probably...

As usual those who are just above the threshold for council properties are the ones most screwed by the system!

The scenario of the mother in a hostel is less likely than family of say a postman and retail worker, 2 children, AST when child1 gets school place. After this and before child2 admission date, landlord decides to cash in, sells house, family has to move to whatever they can get in the area.

There are no catchments here, just lots of schools and densely populated. Distances can change quite a bit Year on year. Schools I could have easily sent my son to I now couldn't send my daughter do, distance have gone from things like 1.4 miles to 0.2 with lots of new flats

My borough (Wandsworth) has had to bring in a similar rule, after years and years of abuse of the system by parents wanting to get into the Outstanding schools in expensive areas, but wanting to live in bigger, cheaper houses elsewhere.

There has been a racket in renting out flats near the schools and living there for a year, usually under the excuse of parents 'splitting up' and then bingo, once child one has got a place, they all fuck off back to the massive house a few miles away.

We have an absurd situation of several schools with a catchment of under 300m (correct, 300m) and yet the roads absolutely clogged with cars during the school run

In some years, the intake has been siblings only, and children who live on the same road as the school get allocated a place miles away.

I gave that scenario as it's the most extreme example I know. Most are things like tenancy ended, new social housing with enough space was given, emergency accodation became new permanent addresses or a few revenge evictions due to damp complaints etc

I do understand your point OP.

You are concerned that in a deprived area, this policy will cause extra hassle and upset for people who are already struggling? That's a very valid point but, honestly, there is no one way to handle admissions that seems fair for everyone.

If a family (A) get a place for DC1 at school 1, and then move house for whatever reason, chances are that another family (B) will move into their old address. Then, suppose family A have a DC2 who is the same age as family B's DC1. Why is it fairer for family A to get a place at the school close to where family B live? Ideally the school would be able to accommodate both, but the fact that the policy has been amended at all suggests that the borough are having problems managing this.

So, really, YANBU to think it doesn't seem fair. But then siblings who have moved a distance away getting priority over catchment isn't fair either.

What are the transition arrangements if there are any?
My Borough has introduced a priority distance radius dependent on intake size to try to combat the moving out of area issue. Criteria would be siblings in priority area, other children in priority radius (750m for our school), siblings outside priority area.
I was horrified because we are outside it but the school was undersubscribed when dd1 started.
However in the interim siblings who were in the school before new criteria were introduced will be exempt from the distance criteria, which I think is good because the goalposts aren't being moved.
Dd2 may still not get in, if there are 60 siblings in the priority area but the chances are much higher.

It has instance effect this year. No one was aware of consultation, so goalposts have moved dramatically. Lots didn't even have our local as any of their 6 choices but still got it!

Ultimately, catchments need to be much much stricter, and we need more schools! There are still kids without allocated space in my area (we are in January ffs), because of new builts, new homes but no increase in school classes.

If each class had 28 pupils, but space for 30 (which is too many but let's not even go there), the system could be more flexible. As it stands, there is no room for any flexibility whatsoever.

OP, if a family moves CLOSER, then I agree, it's a shame if the kid cannot get in. Catchment areas are too big if being in one doesn't automatically give you a school place.

I get you point too. That must be really frustrating.

We have an absurd situation of several schools with a catchment of under 300m (correct, 300m) and yet the roads absolutely clogged with cars during the school run

That's almost funny but not in a good way

Here the impact is pretty much exclusively poor people, not home owners, people with little choice. People rehoused, overcrowded or evicted. Here it doesn't work and MY la shouldn't use it

I agree that it is the wrong tool for that area.

However, I think LAs have to have the same admissions criteria for all their schools (academies and faith schools excepted) so it could be possible for the rule to work very well at the other end of the area.

My neighbouring county has a mixture of hugely affluent areas and hugely deprived areas (footballers v refugees). In the poorer urban areas with insecure housing, high EFL, high illiteracy, etc they have to apply the same admissions criteria to "normal" state schools as they do in the leafy villages where average house prices are over £1m and many people buy in cash.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Every system will disadvantage someone, and I can see why it's a good idea to have a consistent system across an entire authority ... and yet the system as it is being applied in OP's area seems to disadvantage the already-disadvantaged.

We have an absurd situation of several schools with a catchment of under 300m (correct, 300m) and yet the roads absolutely clogged with cars during the school run

This is like our area. We can actually see 2 schools from our upstairs windows and DS is not likely to get into either as the distance criteria is next to nothing for one of them (and yes completely clogged with cars) and the other one doesn't take any non-catholic children.

We are utterly fucked. No idea what we'll do. There is no back up school I'd rather not send him to - I don't think we'll get into any school in the borough.

There are no catchments where I live but it is a densely populated area of London with very good state schools. Like the PP in Wandsworth, there are tons of cars doing long school runs to schools with absolutely tiny catchments. People get the first child into whichever school they like and then move, often quite some distance. This rule would really help this area but it does sound a strange choice for yours, OP.

Both my DCs go to a very sought after OOC school. We waited a year for DSs offer and had to appeal against my DDs refusal. DS had complex SNs and DD was being severely bullied. (several schools immediately around us with no spaces and couldn't attend to DSs needs) The LA had already taken the sibling link away hence the appeal.

It was all done legitimately and we used out address showing we were OOC but we got the spaces nonetheless. I can always tell when its school appeals time as there's a flat on the road near DCs school that they cant give away The 'To Let' sign will come down and they'll rent it out for the minimum amount of time to be placed in that catchment area. Shortly after. The To let sign goes back up and hey presto. New child has a school place. So I can sort of see where the LA is coming from.

But I'm probably just projecting because I want it the ground floor flat is perfect for me with my health problems and we wouldn't be eligible

Maybe they should have additional criteria along the lines of if you were in temporary housing for [list of agreed reasons] then you get sibling priority too. I can see that this would cover things like changing address due to DV or council moving you etc. Not sure if it could cover the people whose rent contract runs out as it might be used to excuse too many but it would be a good start for those who were particularly disadvantaged.

We're being affected too.We live 0.3miles away from an outstanding school but we're not in the catchment.The school is oversubscribed but I've just found out people who live as far as 2 miles away have their children at this school.Apparently it was undersubsribed few years ago.This means their siblings will get a priority and we'll have to commute despite of living within a walking distance.Very disappointing.I'll have to put my son on the waiting list and hope that a place becomes available as Ivreally don't want to take 2 buses to school every morning.

I think that siblings in catchment should get priority over siblings out of catchment but siblings who were assigned the school or siblings from bulge years should get priority over siblings out of catchment.

Our LA gives sibling rule If you either stay in the same house, or move within a two mile radius of the school.

It works well. There's a lot of housing within that two mile radius. Even in the deprived areas.

I agree siblings within catchment should be given priority but don't think it's fair to give priority to those living 2miles away when local kids who live within walking distance from the school can't get a place.The furthest distance from the school of the child who got the place last year (outside the catchment) is 0.2miles!

Admissions experts please help X

Very complex 6 week long nightmare with school admissions has resulted in catastrophic situation and I am at completely broken by the process.

My 10 year old is under the care of CAmhs and the GP for long term anxiety disorder and mental health which is recognised as a disability.
She is very vulnerable, this unfortunately leaves her open to bullying. In Jan of this yr I was forced to move her schools in year 5 after a 2 year long period of sustained physical and emotional bullying that led to a complete breakdown.
No matter how much I went to school, had meetings, sent emails they just did not support her enough or stop the bullying.

She moved in Jan which although difficult and led to a worsening in her symptoms is a more supportive school with less bullying. 4 weeks ago I did the rounds on school open evenings with my emphasis being on the schools that could best support mental and emotional health.
Met with all the Sen's and one school fitted our need fantastically well with a separate unit for mental and emotional issues, weekly self esteem counselling, weekly anger management and daily support in the unit.
2 other schools were not too far behind so we decided these were the ones we would list.
I was staggered to see that in the previous year the council had introduced s feeder school system. Being a bulge year where the council is currently trying to add ports cabins onto schools as they do not have currently enough places and going off the previous years statistics no schools in our area went further than feeder school criteria.
This is where it started, all schools had between 3/5 feeder schools except for my daughters ( which is the biggest school with a 3x class intake per year) and is in a deprived area, her school had only one choice.
This school does not cater to my child's additional need , the Sen admitted this.
I contacted admissions to ask why we only had one choice ? And to say I felt it disadvantaged children from that school especially against neighbouring schools within a 5 minute walk who had 3 more choices ? And if your child had an additional need how could they access the best provision for them with one choice ??
Also why had a secondary school in the same town added feeders further away and in other towns but not us ? At 1.5 miles away I feel this discriminates.

Admissions advised secondary schools choose their own feeders and they can't control that, but I advised her surely they are administering a system that isn't fair ?
Raised with director of education, same reply nothing could be done. I asked for my daughter to be considered as an exceptional circumstance as she had spent 6 years at the feeder school for 2 of our choices and was there when the criteria was introduced , and had had to move through no fault of her own.
My Councillor and MP also sent a representation - same story no.

I was advised I would have to apply under social and medical need with supporting letters from Camhs and GP.
Took me 2 weeks to get these letters and was now only a week away from submission. Upon registering on the online application I was shocked to see that this criteria meant the school had to be named as the "only " one that could fit the need of my child.

Rang admissions again to say I couldn't make this criteria fit as realistically if she didn't get passed on this criteria which they had already told me was very rare I would only be left with the one school that didn't cater.
She advised it was school specific so I would have to get the letters again with the top school name.
However as I advised my top choice was a community school so if the council considered this eveidence and refused it, my 2 nd choice academy who may view it differently now couldn't as the evidence would have the first school name on.
The criteria of one feeder school choice just does not a fit a child with a disability but no EHCP And I was being shoehorned into a category that wouldn't fit.

I was now left with a week to secure the letters again which isn't easy, also 2 days before when going online I saw they also expected me to fill in a statement for medical and social need and exceptional circumstances for these 3 schools max 3000 words each. This was a huge undertaking. And wasn't mentioned in their booklet- only " select the criteria and send in your letters "

I did this as soon as the last letter came on deadline day, it was very difficult as the Window for the 3000 word document was 3 lines wide.
Upon finishing and print previewing it had wiped off half the document and I couldn't see it. So I had to re do.

This is when the nightmare began, I clicked submit - Error, tried again Error. Re checked everything Error. There were no guidance notes except on the registration email it only stated trying to download MoZilla and google chrome as you had to use the most up to date version of the browser.
I was getting desperate now downloaded both programmes both on my laptop and Ipad - same result.
Regardless of trying on my laptop, phone, iPad nothing. The application form was 15 pages long and I had no idea what the error was and assumed the system
Must be down.

At 23.45 15 minutes before close of submission in a total panic attack I emailed the admissions team telling them I had tried to submit all night and just couldn't , advising all software had been done, different devices tried and I was at a complete loss as to what to do.

I screenshotted the screens of my laptop and iPad as evidence.i felt completely broken and at a loss as to what I could do I felt is tried everything I could .

The following morning the admissions team emailed me to advise they had received submissions until 23.59 and they could see I had been in the application at 4pm so it was working fine.

I sent her the screen shots as proof and she said she'd contact IT but I would now be treated as a late application.
I felt completely and utterly broken and haven't slept since, IT advised they can see I tried over and over to submit it but have sent off to Capita to download data and read it.

I am just completely at rock bottom with this and my daughter is extremely upset. she will now be allocated the worst school. I'm just beside myself I don't know what the error is and I don't know how I could know what the error was to correct on a 15 page 6000 word document with no indication of what was wrong.

I know from last time her school place broke down this year she won't cope again,

I'm so sorry for such a long post just wondered if anybody knows anything else I can do apart from appeal ?? Will my chance at appeal be zero because they will just say you would t have got a place anyway because you didn't apply on time ??

Thanks so much for your time X

Kirt, start a new thread of your own, preferably in the education section of the site, and you're much more likely to get the advice you need. Your post is unlikely to be seen by the right people at the end of an old thread, but there are very knowledgeable and helpful posters on the education boards. Good luck!