Moving house - school admissions process

[MikeTyrrell]

We have a three year old daughter and are trying to decide whether to move out of London to unspecified commuterville now or in three or four years time.

We understand how school admission processes work for reception classes and think we understand the theory of how they work later on.

Does anyone have any practical experience of moving to commuterville and getting your child into satisfactory (state) schooling?

(To us satisfactory means "average or above" - not "outstanding")

Not sure where you work but if its the city then Sevenoaks is great as there are fast trains to London Bridge and Cannon St. You do have to be very close to get into the good schools though. Also applications go in Jan/Feb before they start in September so you are right to think about moving now.

If you move later then certainly in this area the class sizes increase from 30 to 32 so it may be possible to join a school. Guess it depends on how well your DD would settle into a class where friendships are already formed. IME girls can be rather cliquey age 6+.

Hello there.

We moved, and as I'm sure you know, we just had to contact a lot of schools, and see which ones had places. Usually, quite a few will have places, so it's a question of taking the place that is acceptable and do-able.

You can then put your child(ren) on waiting lists for other schools, that perhaps fit your criteria better.

I've had friends who have completely lucked out, and suddenly found that a place has come up at a waiting-list school/first-choice school the day they move. some have had a place come up after a few weeks, and moved their child(ren).

It is quite hair-raising: you may be facing a situation where your children are in different schools. And you should check in the area you're moving to what their pupil turnover is - are places likely to come up?

Our move was within London, so the movement of population is high, and that did make things easier. Friends who've moved outside London have had a variety of experiences, but most seem happy with their choices.

Is that the sort of thing you were asking, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I think I would say to you that the best time to move is before you have to apply for your child to start school. So that would be effectively within the next 12 months.
By doing this you will have a reasonable chance of getting into a satisfactory local school.
If you try to move when your child is in reception, year 1 or year2 then you run the risk of having to appeal for a school place when infant class size regulations will apply and the chances of getting a place are effectively nil.
So leave any move till you child is in year 3, when any appeal panel can admit over the 30 pupil limit that the ICS Regs set up. Still does not guarantee you a place but a better chance, but no where near as good a chance as moving now!

And also bear in mind that LEAs now have responsibility for in-year and casual admissions, so if you move once your child is of school age you need to contact the LEA - not individual schools - to find out where the places are. As Admission says, your chances of getting a place in your preferred school, either on first application or on appeal, are probably greater in Year 3+, when infant class size regulations no longer apply.