AIBU to ask about your experiences of trying to get a secondary school place

[mamamia2020]

We're moving back to the UK next month, driven by Covid-19. I have two children aged 9 and 13 (Year 8).

I have applied for schools in our new area but they have said that they won't process them until December as if offered a place we have 20 days to accept and asked for them to start beginning of January.

The youngest should be ok for a school place. However, the secondary school in the catchment area for my son seems to be full. Does anybody know how much flexibility schools have to increase spaces for in year applications? This school is in walking distance and has excellent pastoral care and I think he will need a lot of help adjusting to a new school/country, during a pandemic.

My son has an operation a couple of months before covid-19 and was being taught a home when the schools here closed anyway. Due to Covid our planned move in June got delayed until December and I've therefore been trapped homeschooling for a year. We felt it was best that we homeschool him until the move as school here is only part-time anyway and it meant we could follow the UK curriculum in preparation.

The school they will probably offer us is a bus ride away, a bit on the rough side and seems to be rife with Covid-19. I've followed them online and they've had many cases and have had to send some year groups home on a rota basis. In contrast, the school I want him to go to has had no cases.

So, I was interested to hear tales from others who have managed to get school places in a school that on paper seems to be full. Is it likely I will have to appeal? Go on a waiting list?

I am just exhausted with everything that has happened this year, Covid and the delay to our move. I'm not sure that I have any fight left in me.

You will be offered a place at a school with spaces, and can ask to be put on the waiting list for your preference. You would need to have exceptional supporting circumstances for the school to admit above PAN. They can do this at Secondary, but they're unlikely to.

Waiting lists operate on priority lists, not length of time on list.

Have you looked at the school you want's admission criteria? Where does your son fall on that list? Have you actually contacted the school about the year group?

I contacted the LA about the school and they said that the year was full. I was told that I can contact the school when I arrive in the country, which is the end of next week. I always imagined that secondary schools had a little more scope to admit over the number that primaries, but I guess I was wrong.

According to the criteria, Looked after children are first in terms of allocated places, then children with a sibling, then children within the catchment area (which is where we are).