Help! My ds is not at school

[anothermadamebutterfly]

We moved to the UK, coming from abroad and applied to the LEA for school places at the three local (closest to us) schools for my dd and ds. Dd got a place at our 1st preference, and started last week.
Ds however, has no place yet. He is 6 and will be going into year 2. I went to see the LEA yesterday and it seems he is 1st on the waiting list at preference 1 school and 1st on the waiting list at preference 3 school, and 3rd at preference 2. The council seem to have come to a standstill at that point, talking to them is like banging your head against a brick wall.

Where do I go from here? Just wait? Seems idiotic - my ds is 6 and should be at school, dd is happy at her new school and is already making friends, while ds is getting more and more miserable and homesick for his old life. Neither of them have ever been to a British or an English-speaking school before and my ds seems very far behind by what I see here - he can't really read or write much (he was at kindergarten before, children only start formal education at 6 or 7 where we were living), and I am beginning to worry about him falling even further behind. I must add that neither my husband nor myself were educated in the UK, although I am British, so we are a bit confused about what to do.

Would it help to contact my local MP? Should/can we appeal about the 1st school not having spaces and would we be likely to have a chance of winning an appeal? Should we just wait and see? Dd's school (our 1st preference) is a large school with 3 year groups per year, so I imagine the chances of getting a place there are good in the longer term, but what do we do in the short term? I am self-employed and have already started having to turn down work as I can't do it all with my ds at home all day.

I would be grateful for any advice or opinions!

Would it be worth looking into home education in the short term? I understand you want to get him into a school so definitely chase up via local MP etc, but perhaps look for a local home education group which you could take him along to in the mean time, at least this way you would have access to aspects of the curriculum (depending how structured the group is) and he would be able to interact with other children in an English-speaking environment.

Also, not sure but maybe it would be worth contacting the heads of the schools directly? I'm not sure how much power they have in this situation.

Thanks - I have thought about home education, and I didn't realise there were groups, which could be a good idea for the time being, just to help him socialise a bit, as he misses his friends and doesn't seem to be moving on. We sort of think the best thing would be to wait until something come up at dd's school and keep him at home in the meantime. I guess the main problem is work - I am part-time self-employed, and in about two weeks I am also supposed to start working in a different job two days a week. I guess I will have to find a childminder for that.

The heads of dd's school is very sympathetic, but it seems they have no power - it is all in the hands of the LEA now (only since September this year, so we were a bit unlucky!).

bump

Keep chasing the LA. It is up to them to find a place for your son. If necessary escalate your case to the Admissions Manager and the Director of Children's Services.

If the school has 30 children in each class you would only be able to win and appeal if you could show that the LA has made a mistake by refusing admission, which is very unlikely in your situation. As the school has 3 classes in each year they probably do have 30 children in each class. However, if the classes are smaller than this you should appeal.

If the LA continue to be unhelpful I would appeal anyway. Faced with a choice between breaking infant class size regulations or leaving your son without a school, an appeal panel may be sympathetic and admit your son.

If you had asked this question last year I would have advised you to ring round all the schools in the area to see if you could find one with places. However, as you have found, this is now up to the LA and many of them are in chaos as a result, struggling to handle this new responsibility. Keep chasing them. Good luck and hope this gets sorted soon.

You only mention your 3 preference schools - what about all the other schools in the area? Ask the LA about any schools which have places - they are not all completely full are they? Maybe put him in to one which has spaces with a view to moving to one of your preference schools as and when a place comes up?

Thanks for your answers, the LEA are no longer even answering the phone, and haven't been since Monday! It simply goes straight to engaged, you are not even put on hold any longer. I have spoken to several other people in the city council (education welfare officers and some other officials) but none of them can help me on.

I have asked the LEA about approx. 10 schools in the area and they simply say they have not processed the waiting lists for those schools yet, so they don't know whether another child has a greater right to any places that there could be. So basically they have no idea about what is going on. But we are living in a densely populated urban area and there is a shortage of schools places, especially in the infant classes. Apparently we were unbelievably lucky to get my daughter a place at her school (she is year 3). One of the people I spoke to said that because he was 1st on the waiting list at two of our preference schools (which are both large schools) then the best thing to do would be to 'hang on in there' until a place became available at one of them.

I will try to escalate it, I went in to see them on Monday and the place was in chaos - loads of frustrated parents in exactly my position and a general feeling that the LEA was totally overwhelmed and unable to deal with any of it.
Ah well, off to do something else now and try to not get too frustrated about all this!

make an appointment to see your MP about this immediately!

It is a disgrace, your DS has a RIGHT to an education, the LEA are breaking the law. Their inefficiency is NOT your problem!

MPs are great at cutting through the bureaucracy and sorting out this sort of thing. It is what they are paid for!

You can find out who your local MP is by looking on the House of Commons website.

DancingHippo, I love your name!
I went to see our local MP this morning and he is taking over the case for us, so cross fingers something will happen soon.
I will let you all know what happens, thanks for the answers again, it was my first post on mumsnet ever.

Thanks another, it was inspired by my favourite weekend pastimes!

Well done on getting on to your MP. I am sure you will see some VERY fast progress with this now. LEAs have to sit up and take notice of MPs.

Oh I had written a very long message and it got lost as I had to register first as a member in order to post it
Nevermind, put it down as a newbie's mistake.
I was saying that we are exactly in the same situation (2 years' kindergarten where kids only play, don't even learn to write their name).
We decided to put DD in a fee-paying school, she's in a critical age where the attainment gap can only increase if we kept waiting for a place in a state school.
Tell us what you did in the end , good luck!

MumOnBus,
Good to see another newbie! How old is your dd? I haven't even considered private because we would find it difficult financially, but it sounds like a good solution for your dd. We are getting nowhere very fast here, our MP is pestering the LEA but they simply say that they can't allocate any school until the schools finalise their lists blahblahblah. We should be hearing something today they say, but I am not exactly holding my breath.
I am thinking of sending him to stay with my parents until something is sorted out so that I can start work.

Meanwhile, dd loves her new school and is very happy. So far the school seems brilliant, they have good results, and have a high percentage of children from minority communities who speak English as a second language, so I guess they have a lot of experience dealing with children coming from abroad and helping them catch up, which is good for us and dd.

She did the first year of primary where we used to live, and seems at about the right level for year 3, except that her spelling is dreadful because she doesn't yet get English phonetics, but the teacher seems to think that will sort itself out.

I hope your dd settles well at her new school, and will post on here when we have sorted out ds.

Have you got a steiner school near you, you will have to pay but as you have come from abroad it may be well suited to your ds as in steiner they don't start reading till age 6/7. You may find a steiner group near you if there is no school.
I'm in the midlands and I know there is one in Birmingham.

Ask the LEA to provide Home Tuition for him.

Just a quick update:

First, thanks for the other comments - I didn't even realise anybody had added anything since my last post until I opened the thread to give an update this morning.

Since my last post, and with our MP's input, we have been offered two schools, the first was dreadful and very far away (even though the council would have provided transport) and we said no, so I went in to see them again and we were immediately offered a place at another school (apparently the letter was being printed as we talked), which is very close and is actually the best school in this area according to Ofsted (whatever that is worth in reality, haven't been in the country long enough to know) and so far seems really nice. Neither of these were our preferences, but we are very happy with the outcome, and ds, after 10 days of school, seems to be settling in well. He will remain on the waiting list at dd's school for the time being, as it would be nice to keep the option to have them at the same school. He started school on the same day that I started my (postponed) first day of work, so the timing was amazing in the end!

Thanks so much for all the answers and suggestions,