Totally confused

[abbevillemum]

My DD is not yet 10 months old. However this morning I was having coffee with some local Mums (local being Clapham in London) and they all had their babies on waiting lists for private day schools . I couldn't believe it - I'm still trying to work out how to get her to sleep! How do these things work? Do you need to put babies on waiting lists for state schools as well? Any advice gratefully received.

You don't need to put babies on waiting lists for state schools . You can safely wait until your daughter is 2, and even later if you don't want a nursery place.

Teehee. The rest of us can only snigger, but sadly in West London private school land, some schools insist on you registering before your child is 6 weeks (yes, that's weeks old).

If you want private schools, and you want it at nursery/reception, then you'll probably have to play along, although there are schools that are not so over-subscribed. For academically selective schools you can generally register later, as they're not on a first-come first-served basis. But even they may close their lists once they have a certain no. of applications, so worth checking.

Meanwhile in state-school land, you generally need to apply about 9 months before your child is due to start. There's no advantage to applying earlier, and now it's all done centrally through the LEA you may not even be able to apply before your slot as it were. There are good primary schools in your area, so I can't really see why so many people get hung up on private. I have friends with children at Honeywell and Allfarthing, but others are meant to be good as well.

Thanks. I'm really shocked. I just gave DH a call and he couldn't believe it either. We would prefer for the little one to go to a state primary school but I felt the other Mums were looking at me as if we were naive to consider it. Crumbs.

Oh yes, I get that look sometimes too and we're in (gasp) East London. The thing to remember is that people who are paying upwards of £10K a year for little Fenella to mix with other white middle-class kids have a vested interest in believing that state primaries are a jungle full of shaven-headed, foul-mouthed, asbo-ridden, gun-toting, lowlifes. You'll be relieved to hear that that isn't the case, even in the deepest East End, and it certainly won't be the case in Clapham. Which is not to say that things couldn't be improved in state-school land, but even quite rough primary schools are generally okay, and the good ones can be fantastic.

And it's free.

I know of people from my ante-natal days with August-born children who couldn't get them on some waiting lists even though they called the school within weeks of their birth, because the list had already filled up with children born from the previous September onwards.

Yet another way in which being summer-born seems to disadvantage you educationally in this country ! BTW, both my August boys are at our local state primary school.

Thanks everyone. In the last few days, I phoned a few independent schools - all of which don't accept applications until a year before the kid joins but that's because they are selective schools I think.

I still plan to find a nice state school though. For one thing, I don't know how we could afford £10k a year for each child! FOr second, I would quite like my child to mix with loads of different types rather than just Claphamites.

It's amazing what you learn on here! Something that's never ever crossed my mind - having an August baby and realising the school waiting lists are full because of September babies!
Hurray for state schools!

I remember my aunt being shocked when she tried to put her ds name down for pre schools when he was about 1 (having been warned to do it early), then found out they were all full, cos people put their kids names down b4 they were born

Round here at least they won't let you do it until the child actually has a birth certificate!