To want a say in my kids Primary School placement?

[Pikachu18]

I'm not with my ex anymore, however DS (4) lives with him full time.
We've both moved on, new relationships, ect.

However, my fiancé bought it to my attention the other week about DS heading up to Primary School and needing to look for placements. I spoke to my ex about this, and he wasn't even aware that he needed to apply for them 🙄
Today, I message him and not only has he told me that he's applied for three places already. But he also ignored my questions as to what sort of schools they were - ofsted reports, other parents comments and such. But upon further investigation, and a few Google results later. I found that one of the schools he's applied for is a devout Christian school. I am not a Christian, neither is my partner, nor my ex.
My partner and I are in a LGBT relationship, and I've always stood by raising my children to be open minded and accepting of those around them regardless of gender/race/who they love and to have one of my kids put into a school where that sort of thing isn't accepted...?
Thing is, of course my ex is being a 5 star A-Hole about the whole thing. I'm not too sure what I can even do in this situation..

I'm afraid the onus is on you, the parent, to be proactive and find out about this stuff. Did you not see all the adverts and billboards outside your local schools advertising their open days for 2020 entry? I was part of af an extra tour one school put on in addition to the usual ome and there was a dad there who made sure everyone knew, repeatedly, that he'd missed the first one as he 'hadn't been notified' by his ex. I think he thought he would get a personal invite. It's no one's job to tell you this stuff. If you want a say you have to step up and if your ex does have full time care and will be doing all the school runs etc then really I would say your input should be minimal.

@slipperywhensparticus

As she is in a gay relationship her ex might also be a she?

Nope, op refers to him as a he multiple times in her post.

I think it's absolutely fine if you want to say to your x that you really like school A, B or C because [reasons].

I don't know if your ex can or will do anything about it - and even if he does, there's no guarantee the child will be allocated a particular school. But it's legitimate for you to have an opinion and state it.

You’ve both dropped the ball on this, you can’t really blame him if you didn’t realise the deadline either. Seems like he’s pulled his finger out and completed the application, possibly with the 3 most likely options.
Do your research now.
Faith schools are not necessarily anti lgbt

I genuinely heard nothing about this and thought there would be more time

Where, exactly, do you think you should have ‘heard’ this from?

Your Ex has your DS permanently. If you’re not involved in bringing him up, you cannot just jump into things because they offend you. If you are involved in bringing him up, you need to make yourself aware of these things, like others parents do.

My partner and I are in a LGBT relationship

What, all of them?

@JemimaPuddleCat I literally just gagged on my tea because of you. 😂

So both parents forgot to apply for the school and so the resident parent had to make the call quickly to ensure the application was done in time. Good job it was or neither of you would have had a say in which school he went too.

Christian schools aren’t too bad. I live in a rural area. Many small villages only have c of e schools and parents have no choice but to send them there. Never a problem.

I would be annoyed too But your ex is his primary carer so not sure where you stand on that one? I guess your ex would be doing the school runs etc so unfortunately it’s his choice.

I have a DS with my ex partner. I didn’t consult him on schools to be honest. Mainly because my ex would have been clueless and there’s only one school in the village so only put one choice down. Thankfully it’s a fab school.

To be honest it was cutting it a bit fine anyway. Isn’t the deadline this week or something?

FWIW no one has any choice OP
Sadly , you get the one nearest and thats about it
So even if you loved a tolerant one if you didn’t fit the area you
Wouldn’t get it anyway
All school teach tolerance and diversity now . Today’s kids are one of the most tolerant and diversity accepting generations ever

I really wouldn’t waste your ire in this issue , pick your battles .

May I ask if you get access , and is there a chance if increasing that ??

I think I remember this poster too, she needs kindness folks. thank

She's getting kindness, if this was a man he would have been hung drawn and quartered by now. Unfortunately there's no back story, a name change, a parent who is criticising the ex for the same thing she has done even though he's bringing up her child. I feel sorry for the child who nearly ended up without a school due to both parents not giving it any thoughts and the only greivence is that it might not be inclusive of lbgt. What about the rest of stuff that makes a school?

You can only go on with what's written

I think if he is with his dad full time then his dad is the one who will be doing all of the school runs, the homework, the parents evenings and events then it will be his dad who chooses and most likely he picked the ones that are most convenient.

I have to say that unless you know how it works it can be easy to not realise about school applications and when it was needs to be done. There are no letters sent out to remind parents to apply in my area which is weird when I think about how many letters I got(and even someone knocking on my door) regarding 2 year funding. When I said I wasn’t interested in the funding(and wasn’t eligible anyway) and asked why they were knocking on people’s doors they said it was to ensure anyone who couldn’t read/didn’t speak English/ lived a chaotic life was aware so surely the same should apply to school applications?

I would say it is completely irrelevant that your partner isn't a person of faith. They have nothing to do with your childs schooling.

To echo others its quite sad that neither parent seem to be bothered about his boys school place. I think this post is a little bit of mn double standards. If you were a dad posting this, people would be up in arms.

How come you get to 🙄 that your ex didn’t know about applying for primaries, when you didn’t know either? That’s not very fair. (do both of you live in a bubble, though?)

Christian schools... do you know ANYTHING about primaries? Go google (1) what % are church schools and (2) what their performance is like compared to other local schools. Church Schools are filled to the rafters with the children of atheists - often, it’s your only catchment school choice.

Finally... that your girlfriend is not a Christian is completely irrelevant. Even if she was your child’s stepmother and lived with her, it would still be irrelevant.

Go and speak to a solicitor about ensuring you are a contact for nursery and then school, and are informed of choice of school.

There is clearly a massive backstory here if he is with your ex full time and you don’t even have any days etc. You’ve both been very lax for the poor boy. My 3 year old is off to school in September and all the open days were in the autumn with applications opening in October. The nursery handed out leaflets, pretty much every conversation with someone with a similar aged child has featured the ‘what school’ chat.

I suspect it happens every year that some parents are unaware and fail to apply full stop.It does surprise me that the council don’t write to remind parents as I could see how some isolated or chaotic parents could slip through the net.

Do you get a say in anything relating you your child? Do you have any access?

He's merely applied hoping for one of the 3 schools.
Doesn't mean will be offered any....
You can't do anything until offered a place. Then you would have to prove to a court why the school could not best meet your child's needs. It's incredibly rare to win unless significant special needs issues.

Your ex is the resident parent therefore it’s their decision which school your DC attends. Nice of them to include you but they don’t have to at all. You are welcome to go to court and apply for shared custody or even sole custody if you like.

I didn’t inform my exH of the schools I chose, as far as I was concerned it was none of his business. He lost the right to a say when he moved away and basically stopped seeing our DC imo.

How much your ex involves you in decisions (in a moral sense) really depends on your role in your child's life, which we don't know so it's hard to comment if he is being reasonable or unreasonable. From your post it isn't clear if you play an active role in your son's life or not. If your ex is fully caring for your son (as in you have no regular contact) I can see why he just submitted the choices asap before the deadline.

Often the choices can be changed online after submission, if you have any preferences I would discuss with your ex. Legally I'm not sure what happens if you both disagree and want to dig your heels in. If he has your DC full time I would imagine he would get to choose.

I think it's unlikely any school these days would be intolerant of LGBT. At primary level it's unlikely there would be any overt discussion of LGBT until the later years anyway. So if that is your sole complaint with his school choice, I wouldn't worry about that.

I find the English system so difficult to understand. They seem to make it complicated for no reasons.

I'm in Scotland and we just get a letter saying "you child is due to start school In August. The name of your catchment school is "name of school". Registration at this school is open from monday to friday on X week, please take your child's birth certificate and proof of address to register them".

The space is just guaranteed at your local school. You then have th choice to apply to another school, and almost always get accepted, so you're not forced into the nearest one, but it's all set up and they expect you so you dont need to do anything expert show up and confirm.

So neither of you have taken an interest until the last minute and now your main concern is how the school will shape your son's view of you.

Without wishing to be unkind, do you not see how that sounds a bit self-centred?

Actually, I didn’t read your OP properly. He isn’t refusing to tell you the schools. He just hasn’t told you about Ofsted reports etc...

If my XH asked me about Ofsted reports when I’d done the donkey work in choosing schools AND was primary carer, I’d eye roll to myself, and tell my friends that he’d annoyed me - that I wasn’t his personal secretary.

Our Church is accepting of everyone and has a "love is love" banner outside .The School itself has a very good Ofsted rating and is very inclusive IMO .You might be able to contact the Schools he has applied for and see if you can get a tour .Dont worry about the missed dates you wont be the only ones !

Kindly,

As you are by your own admission sadly not in a place right now to be allowed to have any input in your child's care, I would just be relieved he is still with a parent, and not in the system and not look to find fault over decisions you are not in a place to make right now.

As hard and as upsetting as it most likely is not to be doing all the starting school stuff
I feel for you, but as someone else said, your ex whilst it might be nice if he gave you room for some opinion he doesn't have to right now, and he certainly doesn't have to give your girlfriends opinions any headspace whatsoever.

There's nothing for you to do at the moment.

Once your child has been allocated a school place in April, you can go and visit the school they will be attending. Assuming you're the child's mum, you have PR and assuming there isn't a Prohibited Steps Order or a Child Arrangement Order that specifies no contact with you, the school will listen to you and talk to you about your child. You can put your position in writing to the school - you are in a same sex relationship and it's important your child does not receive the message that this is wrong, even though they currently have little(?) contact with you.

Ofsted Reports aren't as helpful as you might think they are - they're very much a snapshot of the school on the day the inspectors came.

humanism.org.uk/education/parents/collective-worship-and-school-assemblies-your-rights/ is worth a read

you are a parent, per www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/56/section/576 [which applies to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998]

and can withdraw your child from collective worship and/or RE per www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/31/part/II/chapter/VI

Not that that's necessarily a good idea, but it is an option if the school's approach is extremely unhelpful.