School Admissions mistake help

[Kaystar89]

hi all,

as some of you may know it is National offer day on Tuesday. I logged on to the admissions hub on Friday and my top choice of school, the one where my other child attends and where we are in the catchment area is not on my list of choices at all - it does not appear. At this moment I dont know if this is my mistake or the council's but I have been in tears all weekend and I am understandably very worried. This school gets oversubscribed every year - does anybody have any similar experiences?

Oh honey. I can’t help, but I understand your worry and upset. I really hope it gets sorted out for you.

Did you apply online? Did you get a copy of the application emailed to you/can you see your application online?

@JanglyBeads yes I applied online and no I didn't receive any email confirmation, no idea why not! Also, my application says it was submitted on 9th November and was last changed on 10th November. 10th November I was travelling and definitely not amending my application so something seems off... I just checked my history and I definitely didn't go on the website that day

@Norgernert thank you xx

Bumping

Any chance your partner/other parent could help changed it?

Unfortunately I think you have to wait until tomorrow, see the allocation and ask them to investigate if you feel your application has inconsistencies.

Fingers crossed for you.

I am afraid that this is not going to get sorted very quickly, so you are going to have to remain calm about this and take the long view.
First thing to do is to accept the school which is offered, because this gives you a fall back position.
Normally there is some kind of feedback mechanism for most LAs which confirms what you put down as your preferences, so I am surprised that you received nothing immediately you applied.
My immediate question to you is whether or not what is on the admissions hub does relate to other preferences that you submitted. If you were allowed 3 preferences, are there three preferences on the form and if there are three are two preferences those that you submitted in the order that you submitted. If that is the case then I am afraid that this suggest you made a mistake in the initial application on the 9th November.
What I cannot explain is why there is a references to a change on the 10th November.
You need having accepted the school offered to then request you go on the waiting list for the school that has gone missing of your application and any other schools that you want more than the offered one. You should be fairly high up the waiting list given you have a sibling in the school but again it will take time for all this to filter through the system.
You also of course need to make a complaint against the LA about why in your opinion the system has some how failed on your application. I have to say that this is unusual as the systems most LAs have have been running for years. The LA need to explain to you what went on the system on the 9th and then what was changed on the 10th November. Whilst I accept that you say you were travelling on the 10th, the reality for the LA is that you could have dialled in from any where in the world and altered your preferences, so they are going to need some strong evidence to convince themselves that there was a system glitch.
You can also appeal but again the onus is going to be on you to prove that there was a mistake made and not any mistake by you.

@admission thanks for your advice, I think our best hope now is getting on the waiting list and hoping there is some movement between now and September.

Nobody else had access to the portal - I went back through my history and Google activities which basically track everything I do on my laptop and phone and wherever I'm signed in to Google (pretty scary actually) just for my own sanity to make sure I hadn't done it and forgot and I definitely made no amends the day I was travelling, although my history matches up with when I submitted it. But I came to the same conclusion - I will have a hard time proving that! Its just a case of waiting and seeing. The three choices listed on my submission were my 2, 3 and 4 so it's like number 1 has just disappeared. I am not in catchment for any of these schools on the list and they ate all oversubscribed so I am worrying where we will end up at this point

Have you checked back through your spam email for any confirmation from the time? It would be very odd for any system not to have provided any sort of confirmation.

How many preferences were you able to put up on the system? Was it 4 or another figure?

@PatriciaHolm It could have gone to spam, but I wouldn't be able to see now as that deletes itself after 10 days. Also, I have applied previously and the emails never went to spam before
so it would be strange, and I am in the habit of checking my spam folder every week or so to make sure nothing is I there that shouldn't be. That said, there is a possibility I've missed it.

@admission we get 4 preferences, I only have 3 listed so it's like number 1 was deleted and the other three have bumped up the list