No school places, head told us there were on the date we applied ?

[SkelleyBones]

We looked around a school 16/6 and applied the same day for the two places we were told were available.
I've just had a phone call saying there now aren't any and would I like bogsvile up the road.
Can I make the admissions team prove when the other applications went in because tbh I am gobsmacked this has happened.

We still have the places up north, I must have had a feeling in my bones this wasn't going to be straight forward.

Have you been to look round the satisfactory school? I think you need to see it before writing it off.

We are 400 miles away, hence why I'd narrowed it down to the outstanding ones with a place, not to mention of course today is the last day of term for most schools, I doubt they would even be able to show me around.

Ok. Here are some thoughts on the matter and I dare say Admission and Prh47bridge will be along later, too.

1. School admissions are handled by the LEA not the school, so it may be that the information you were given by the Headteacher was out of date or simply wrong. Maybe unbeknownst to him/her the 'vacant' places had already been offered - quite likely at this time of year when last minute offers are being made/accepted/rejected.

1. The offer of a place usually depends on the LEA having evidence of where the child - not just the parent - lives. This is in large part to stop fraud of the 'but my child really lives with grandma' type. Could this be the problem here? What evidence did you submit of the change of address? Were you asked (as many LEAs do) for council tax registration, utility bills etc?

1. By all means ask the LEA when they accepted and took action on your application and when the vacant places were offered to other children. You can also ask why the other children were (it seems) placed ahead of you on the waiting list - if you live so close to the school, it would probably only be looked-after children, siblings and those with social/medical need who would be placed before you.

1. I didn't notice when you applied for the places - if it was outside the usual admission round you should check what the LEA says in its Fair Access Protocol (usually available on its website). That should guarantee you a place in a school somewhere, although this might have been the basis on which you got the offer of places at the other school. An offer made under the FAP won't necessarily be at your nearest or preferred school.

1. How old are your children? If they are in KS2 it will be easier to win an appeal than if they are in KS1, where the infant class size regulations apply. You can read dozens of threads about this in primary education. For an ICS appeal you would have (broadly speaking) to demonstrate that there had been an error which had deprived your children of places - which there might be, if the LEA has somehow overlooked your application in favour of children who should have been a lower priority - but for other appeals you can argue on the basis of the prejudice (ie disadvantage) to your child of not being admitted to the school.

1. There are several things here which would make an arguable basis for an appeal - not least, the need for your children to be in school, to settle in the new area and be reunited with their dad. However, any argument about the allocated school not being good enough or only an outstanding school being acceptable to you is immaterial to the appeal and may well antagonise the panel (for all you know, their children may attend the school that you disdain). Appeals are decided on their merits but if the panel is weighing up the relative disadvantage to your child and to the school, you want to win them over, not alienate them.

1. Bear in mind too (not that you have suggested this) that the other gambit which parents sometimes use - rejecting the offered place and telling the LEA/appeal panel that it's the preferred school or nothing - also doesn't work. Rejecting the offered school doesn't give your children any additional priority for the preferred school and LEAs and appeal panels don't like to feel that a gun is being held to their head.

Well I think you have to make a choice of either not moving to a house you've bought and therefore living 400miles away from your DH and paying 2 mortgages.

Or accepting a school which Ofsted deem to be satisfactory, ie; OK.

Or if you want a better than average education for your kids then the other choice is to pay for it.

Could your DH not go and look round the other school tomorrow?

When we moved DD it was a spur of the minute decision and I was ringing schools at 9:00am to make appointments and they all said come this morning. I was looking round the first one at 10:00am. You could view it tomorrow. Or you could at least talk to the head on the phone and discuss the points I mentioned in an earlier post.

Dh as a complete coincidence is up here for the next 4 days so there's no time, we will pay or stay here.
Am still pissed off though and they aren't returning my calls, just makes me wonder if there were any other issues how efficient this authority would be. There have been other cock ups with my eldest's application for high school too.

Having read your recent posts I would have to say that, personally, I would ask DH to view the school you have been offered tomorrow (if it is still open) as paying 2 mortgages & living 400 miles apart really does sound like a very difficult situation to manage . Be kind to yourselves, he may love the "satisfactory" school & even prefer it to the "outstanding" one - you never know until you look. If, however, he hates it then you will know for sure that it is not the place for your DC's now - rather than being in limbo until September.

Remember, you can still accept the school offered and remain on the waiting list for your preferred school. Not ideal but maybe better for your family & finances than the staying put option?

How large is the school? Makes a big difference to the speed of waiting list movement.
How oversubscribed is it? (LA website may well say).
Your 4 children may count in your favour in that if a place crops up for just one of them during the summer (or in early September more likely) then suddenly the other 3 become "siblings" and shoot up the waiting list.

And tomorrow you need to talk to the school secretary. File down the rougher corners of your personality (nothing wrong with being a bit prickly on MN, that's what we're here for, but you need to be extra lovely but slightly vulnerable for this phone call), and get the low down on the waiting list, and normal movement because you desperately need to know how likely you are to get places between now and October if your appeal doesn't work.

x-posts - just seen that a visit tomorrow isn't possible . Good luck with what you decide. I don't envy you the prospect of two mortgages & the long journeys.

You could also accept the places offered until you have actually seen it, even if that isn't until September.

That would keep your options open. You're unlikely to get 2 places in a decent, local private school for September at this point in the academic year tbh.

Don't ask the school secretary for waiting list information. The school have (possibly) already given out misleading information once, so why ask again? Waiting lists are held by the LEA so that will be where you'll get the most up-to-date information. And it is the LEA which is under a statutory obligation to give you any information which you might need for any appeal.

God they are hopeless, do I want the shit school, no says I ? Oh well in that case you'll have to reapply, oh right and who has places then ? Oh I can't tell you that you tell us what school you want and we'll say no in a few weeks time.
Fecking hell, thank god I can get my cheque book out if I want to and what about those who can't, it's a bloody joke.

as a teacher I have worked in a school in special measures, a satisfactory school and a good school. My own son attended an outstanding school. Out of all of these the most personal, child driven and happy school was the satisfactory school.......in fact my son's school was the recipient of many a complain from myself as all they cared about was the results and not the child

Are you going to have chance to look round the private school before they start? What's the Ofsted report like for it?

The ofsted is outstanding and the prospectus is shiny lol

So what is the point of ofsted exactly then ? Other than to wind up parents who think they are being short changed and to make work for teachers ?

My ds goes to a supposedly "outstanding" school and tbh the teaching he has had this year has been nothing short of crap.

My friend's child is at a "satisfactory" school and getting on famously.

Another friend is trying to move back to the Midlands but can't get her house sold, so has had to turn down two places both at High School just this week, her husband has already been up there for nearly 18 months and they will need to continue now with her husband coming back at weekends as her ds is about to go into Year 10 and start his GCSE coursework. Luckily for her she has managed to hold on to his place at his current high school and her other ds has secured a place into Year 7.

I thought on the other thread you said you were getting legal aid. I thought that was means tested.

So what is the point of ofsted exactly then ? you answered that question Other than to wind up parents who think they are being short changed and to make work for teachers ?

Panel what I meant was a secretary (admittedly a friendly one) tends to know about mobility withiin a specific school.

There's no guarantee it would be same sec; many schools these days have a few admin assistants and one 'proper old stylee' sec.

Good point hocuspontas. On the other thread the op was involved in some kind of legal dispute with her dh and was on legal aid. Wouldn't have thought that was possible if she has the funds to spend £500k on a house

I'm confused - you posted about 10 days ago about areas and schools in one particular town - is it the same one or do you have second house already? Until you actually have an address from which to apply (evidenced by lease or exchange of contracts at very least) they can't formally allocate your dc places or even put them on a waiting list. A private school with spaces now may be a worse option than a "satisfactory" state school.

My legal aid will be paid back at the end if I can keep my job with all this moving or not moving and the family home doesn't come into calculations you can't sell your house to sort out the kind of legal disputes that I am involved in, hth

I have to agree with cricketballs and others have said. As an ex teacher, I often struggled to find any difference whatsoever between satisfactory schools, good ones and outstanding ones. When we lived in Cheshire our local 'outstanding' school wasnt somewhere I'd ever want my kids to go so we paid. Now back down south and my kids are at a school graded good which is so much better in so many ways that the outstanding one. I have also taught in an outstanding school whose only priority was sats. I hated it as it legt so little room for creativity. So I'd have chosen the satisfactory one up the road if we'd lived there to!

So in my opinion both as a teacher and a mother, visit and base your judgement on that. Ofsted reports must be taken with a pinch of salt.

I would disagree LIZ about the private option the one I might be forced to move to seems very popular and highly regarded.