Primary school waiting list. Dd has gone from 6th to 10th!

[Panyanpickle77]

I am sooooooooooooo annoyed. Today I called my LEA regarding my daughters primary school place. She has been offered a place at the local "failing" school, and we are waiting for an appeal hearing for our nearest school (less than 0.4 miles away). 2 weeks ago she was number 6 on the waiting list (it takes a roll of 77 per year, legally leaving possible space for 13 extra children), but today she is NUMBER 10! Why, you may ask.......because of "Late Applicants". Obviously 4 sets of people "forgot" to apply for school places in December!?!?!? Therefore my daughter gets pushed to the back. The lady at the LEA was lovely and very sympathetic, but I am very very frustrated about this. I can't see that it is physically possible for 77 other kids to live closer, and I'm sure they have not filled the places with siblings alone! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ............................ RANT OVER

We went through this last year - after the places were given out (38 out of 60 spaces went to siblings within catchment), there was a spate of famiies moving (renting) even closer to the school (as well as the usual 'late applicants' from families moving into the borough). We are 3 roads away and ds went plummeting down the list from may onwards. There were 30 children within catchment that didn't get a place and all siblings from outside catchement were refused places. It's a very frustrating time.
Ds now goes to a different school and is loving it - he was offered a place at the local school on the last day of the Autumn term but he likes the one he goes to so much that we turned it down.
Hang on in there - sometimes the 'faith' schools send out their places after the state schools and you get movement away from the state school, and move up the list.

the late applicants may well be from families who are moving into the area. from what i've been told (my own dd is a late applicant as we are in the process of relocating), the criteria for oversubscription will be being applied. this may be different for each local authority so you would need to find out from your LEA what that is to explain why she's moved down the list.

in the area we are moving to, its based on address only, so at the moment my dd is 9th, but when we move she will become 1st when we can use our new address.

the late applicants may well be from families who are moving into the area. from what i've been told (my own dd is a late applicant as we are in the process of relocating), the criteria for oversubscription will be being applied. this may be different for each local authority so you would need to find out from your LEA what that is to explain why she's moved down the list.

in the area we are moving to, its based on address only, so at the moment my dd is 9th, but when we move she will become 1st when we can use our new address.

The lady at the LEA "advised me that the late applicant were children with older siblings at the school. We have just had new nighbours move in next door hoping to send there dd to the same school. They dont actually live next door, but appear to pop in every now and then. Unluckily for them they don't appear to have rented close enough!!! If the new applicants were new to the area I'd have no problem, but the fact that they a just plain late is very annoying.

They might still be people who have just moved to the area - if for example, they have a 7 year old and a 5 year old and move to the area and get the older child accepted at the school (which is a lot easier even in oversubscribed schools as they usually have space for 1 or 2 children per year higher up the school), then the younger child would move up to the top of the waiting list for reception. (I know people in this situation, moved house before Easter, got places for older children and now waiting to see if have place for reception for youngest)
Still frustrating for you though!