Asking for advice re niece school place

[Fattydoggy]

Sorry, posting here for traffic. My brother and sil were late applying for a school place. They wrote the wrong date on their calendar and applied 2 days late. Now, they have received their offer. It is not the excellent school 5 minutes down the road they applied for but a much worse school 50 minutes walk away. My niece has 3 older siblings at the close school and niece doesn’t know yet she won’t be joining them. My sil is going to appeal. I know it is their own fault but niece is going to be devastated and she is young for her age. Can’t imagine her travelling that far there and back every day on her own. Is there any advice anyone can offer that will help?

One thing I will never get used to is you native brits and your irrational phobia of commutes. A 50 minute on a bad day walk is nothing. It's a five minute car/bus ride.

She may not have to appeal. Given that she has older siblings at the school and lives close by she must surely be very close to the top of the waiting list, most likely top of the list. First step is to check that info. Depending on area the next question is how likely is it that there might be some waiting list movement before September. If there are good private schools nearby then might someone be currently choosing between this excellent state school vs their private school offer? How much churn is there in the local population? Some areas are certain to have a few families needing to move somewhere else for work during the months between 1st march and 1st September.

Eteri her parents work though. There are no direct buses. She will only have been 11 a few weeks come September. I think a 50 minute walk for her is harsh especially if her siblings are just walking a few minutes down the road.

Why would they forget about something so important?

@Fattydoggy

Eteri her parents work though. There are no direct buses. She will only have been 11 a few weeks come September. I think a 50 minute walk for her is harsh especially if her siblings are just walking a few minutes down the road.

Is there no school transport? Or taxi service as it is a hard to get to school? Hopefully they will successfully appeal, but it wouldn’t hurt to think of the practicalities.

It's a difficult one as on the one hand I would be furious if they won an appeal (which they obviously won't - the appeal shouldnt even be heard as it's clearly their fault. Massive bugbear of mine, local authorities should have the right to refuse an appeal to stop wasting tax payers' money on processes that have absolutely zero chance of being won). What kind of parents get one of the most crucial parts of their kid's lives so wrong. We all mistakes but that is terrible, irresponsible parenting! However, it's not the child's fault and it would be very difficult for her to go to school a distance away, totally different from her siblings and presumably away from her local friends too. I hope it gets sorted for her sake. I can't see any way around it and I would guess you just have to hope she gets a place via the waiting list system.

Does the school have a sibling admissions criteria? If so, then she should be right at the top of the waiting list (as she falls into both sibling and distance criteria) so she may be offered a place as soon as someone drops out via the 'continuing interest' list.

Who waits until the cut off day to apply anyway..:regardless, siblings and the distance I would think she would be first on the waiting list and should get a place

The first comment on AIBU is always nuts and nasty. OP please ignore.

Please support getting her on a waiting list. Hopefully this will work, with older sibs being there already. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for her. It’s important and the flippant comments are unhelpful.

Otherwise maybe try and help with transportation options. Good luck

Btw - could you sort out the mixture between your SIL and niece as I think you're talking about yourself here. Or you are mixing up your SIL and your niece. Or something like that.

I feel for your Niece i really do @Fattydoggy. No need for the narky 1st comment!
We live in Oz where you have to accept everything is a good distance apart but its the last thing you want for the school run-and expecting her to walk 50 minutes is beyond stupid-I know I wouldnt walk 50 minutes to work : )
Why wouldn't they be able to appeal with the expectation a little commonsense would prevail.
As an aside my DD just won a scholarship to a fantastic private school- did a couple of try-out days in different years as she was working 2 years ahead-they bent over backwards to accommodate her. You cant knock a class of 14 with amazing facilities..
This school is 30ks away and a good1 hour drive through traffic-I would never expect her to contend with that travel as well as putting her best into each day. We're still outside the schools private coach route and will have to relocate down the coast-If i wasnt prepared to do it I wouldnt have put her in for the scholarship test ; )

The school must have missed that she has older siblings there? Surely that is part of the selection criteria. They should check that first.

@Sahm101

Application was late. Therefore I think it will get looked at after all the others regardless of where she sat on priority list.

However assuming she is automatically on waiting list she would probably be at the top of that given siblings.

I read on here the other day that you can ask where you are on the waiting list. Perhaps find out first, then decide if it's worth appealing.

@MMfanalltheway

Btw - could you sort out the mixture between your SIL and niece as I think you're talking about yourself here. Or you are mixing up your SIL and your niece. Or something like that.

I don't see any confusion. OP talks about her SIL, who should have applied, and SIL's daughter, who is OP's niece.

SIL needs to accept the place. That will have no bearing on waiting list place or chances at appeal, but does mean that she has a place come September - having made her an offer PM the LA does not have to come up with another. And as a late applicant, whose preferences were already full with on-time applicants, this will have been the nearest school with a vacancy.

Then she needs to check she is on waiting list for preferred school, and any others preferebalt to this one.

Then think about an appeal

Transport and family issues won't count in an appeal.

You need to appeal for this school and why the prejudice (ie detriment) to your niece in not attending is greater than the prejudice to the school and all its other pupils in going over numbers.

Start by finding out both the PAN and the actual number in each year group in recent years. If the school has regularly has numbers higher than PAN, it becomes a little harder for them to say they cannot cope.

Then you need to look at what it is this school offers that would be if unusual benefit to your niece - does it offer triple science and science clubs and she have a demonstrable interest (as opposed to offerend school which only does double), does it offer a language she has a link with (other doesn't) or perhaps has orchestras and ensembles and she's a passionate flautist?

Your poor niece. I think the most important thing is to not tell her so she does not worry. It is such an important transition and it has been a very tough year for most people. The family works, it is Corona, they have 4 children, mistakes like this can happen and it was only 2 days late.

If she has siblings and lives close she should hopefully be at the very top of the waiting list. If there is no movement, I hope the appeal will be successful.

I'm sorry to stick the boot in but that is so sad for the poor child. Who cares what the last date to apply is? There is a months long window and if the school is "excellent and 5 minutes down the road" it was a no brainer as well, not like they were stuck with making the right choice. I'd feel so awful if I were them to have let my child down so much :(

That aside. A 50 minute walk is going to be a 10 - 15 minute bike ride. Why can the DN not cycle? It will be a good healthy practice. I had a 45 min walk to secondary school and I did it every day. It's not impossible to manage.

Only option is waiting list as it's the parents fault. Siblings and close means she's going to be high on it. As for a 50 minute walk, I walked that far for secondary and I'm an August birthday. We had to walk past the dodgy secondary to get to my marginally better one (still bad, this was London in the bad days)

Most likely way to get in will be via the waiting list.

However you can appeal anyway.

• can try the sorry we screwed up (especially if eg NHS workers you never know you might get a sympathetic panel)
• can try siblings etc
• best bet is to find reasons why the school is particularly better that aren't results or distance. eg niece is musical, chosen school has orchestra, other doesn't.

Well it's clearly their fault, why should they even get to appeal, that's not fair to everyone else who did their application on time is it. You dont even spend time with your siblings at school so why should that be a factor.

I dont know the system but I'm going to guess that every parent doesn't submit on one single day, there is a deadline but you can apply before that, surely. So they've chosen to not bother applying until the very last seccond and not even bothered checking that date. Tough shit that they work, it's their mistake, they need to get her to school, it's not fair that she now has to walk because they screwed up, they need to show her how to take responsibility for your own mistakes and work out a schedule so they can drive her or get her taxis.

I don't think they will win an appeal. They can put in for a mid year transfer though, and she can go on the waiting list.