Have been a member for years but haven't posted for a very long time and name changed quite a while ago. We recently moved into a new area with some really good schools. The school admissions team have informed us that all the catchment schools are full in the area. I've been making some enquiries directly with schools to arrange appointments and find out about possible places. One school came up on the council website as being undersubscribed (it is not a catchment school for us) so I called asking to make an appointment to visit and enquire about places for my dc. I was told by the person I spoke to that it did not matter about catchments as they had places, certainly in one of the years that would be appropriate for one of my dc. Very friendly conversation on the phone and I was asked for my name, my dc names and if they have SEN. We have Muslim names and both my dc have SEN. The tone of the conversation changed at this point and I was advised that the head would need to make a decision and I'd get a call back. I didn't get a call back. Not the next day or even the following Monday. I left it a few days and asked dh to follow it up on Wednesday and they claimed that they knew nothing about any conversation with me. They took details from dh and promised a call back. No call back that day or the next. Dh calls again on Friday and he is told by the lady he spoke to that she didn't know anything about the request for a visit and would speak to the head and call us back. Surprise surprise, no call back. I'm very upset as we have called the school on a number of occasions over a period of two weeks now and been told the head is out all day or in a meeting. It strikes me as very odd as the woman I spoke to confirmed there were places in one of the year groups and then for some reason or another they are not interested in allowing us a visit or discussing a prospective application. I can't help but feel it's some form of discrimination, either because of the Muslim names or the SEN. My dc do not however have EHCP's. I work in education and understand the funding issues that impact schools in relation to children with special needs.
Every other school we have spoken to have been helpful and encouraged visits asap unless they are heavily oversubscribed with very long waiting lists. This school is undersubscribed. I feel like they should not be allowed to get away with ignoring us like this in the hope that we just leave it alone, but I may be over reacting. What do you think? Is this discrimination or am I over reacting. If you think this could be discrimination, how do I flag it so that the school (or the head) realises that they can't do this?