so why do children in care get priority over children who live with a parent?

[pukkapatch]

i dot understand that. why should they be entitled to priority over chilcren with parents? whats the deal there?

YES.....thankyou.....STABILITY.

foster care children NEED the school of choice for decent STABILITY.

thankyou for supplying my word for me

I dont have a problem with this & I cant understand how anybody would.

At its very base, children in care are priority because they need to be in local-est school. Not all children in care have no parents either

Because the children who have parents, have parents.

Cared for children make up around 40% of those involved in youth offences. They are unlikely to achieve well, regardless of ability. They often have hugely debilitating family circumstances. They are an extremely vulnerable group.

So priority in school is just about the only advantage they get in their whole experience of life. That's why they should get priority over children with parents.

I must also add - children in care often need to be enrolled in a different school very very quickly, and not under the best circumstances - I have heard of cases where a child's estranged father turned up at her school and dragged her out by the hair after threatening the teacher.

When this child was taken into care, she of course needed to be moved away from him. Should she have stayed in her original school until a place turned up?

I'm with harpsichordcarrier. I'm amazed you question this. These children have the toughest start possible - the least we can do is give them priority over schooling.

Not sure why it bothers you either - there aren't enough of them to make a material difference to your school selection.

its not that theyhave the priority over the best places.

they are given priority because they are moved about a lot, often during the academic year. they are placed in the nearesy school to where they are staying.

they NEED to be able to get a place at that school as they will not have a parent to drive them to another thats further away.

it is purely practical and nothing to do with wanting them to go to the best schools instead of your child.

i do however find the attitude that children misfortunate enough to be placed in care should also therefore only be able to attend the slump schools quite upsetting from an mumsnetter. i assumed we were all of an intellect level where we would have a good level of understanding of what these kids go through

because they're very vulnerable. Amazed you find this unfair tbh.

I'm a tad perplexed why you ask?

Are you applying for local primary and worried all the places will be taken up by those 'higher up the list' than your DC?

Or are you genuinely thinking that a child that has possibly had the shittest up bringing known to man deserves to go to the scummiest most rundown schools?

And do you apply the same questioning to statemented children and those with SEN? because they are next on priority place list

Quite Mumofmonsters.

What everyone else says. I can't believe anyone would have a problem with children in this situation being given a slight chance of some stability in their lives. Also the practical issues Katymac highlighted.

Perhaps we could ship them all off to Australia like we used to do.

also to add......

if a child is under the social services, but not in 'care', but still vulnerable, they also get given priotity as then their parents are guaranteed to be ale to get them to school properly.

I was bought up by my aunt and uncle, so not 'in care' as such but obviously not with parents. the fact that I could go to the right school to fit with my circumstances and so have the stabilty of my friends helped me enormously.

oh, and I never under-acheived as I felt listened to with regards to schooling, so made sure I appreciated the effort all involved gave to ensuring my stability!

Some numpty mother at the nursery DTS attends was blabbing about changing her first choice school because they now have a SENCO unit and will be able to take more children with autism.

She said that children like that are so disruptive in school and she did not want her daughter exposed to that.

There are a lot of irrational people out there. If they had their way, anybody who did not fit into their narrow-minded world would be locked away. Oh I forgot, they use to that in the Victorian era.

The situation is as dilbertina and Kewcumber describe it.

I can not see why on earth somebody should have a problem with a very disadvantaged child being given a little assistance.

If you look at the stats for the allocation of primary school places you will see that so few children actually get in under this rule anyway. Are you really that selfish, pukkapatch?

Are you aware of how ignorant your first 2 posts read, Pukka? (Don't want to sound rude, honestly)

I really hope the rest of this thread has answered your OP and you are now able to see this situation in a different light

at this question.

spokette.

the woman should be gratefull it was you that overheard her not me.
i think i would have smacked her!

not aware of non-statement children with SEN getting priority. but other than that, agree with everyone else...

Mamazon, my nephew is autistic and believe me, I wanted to knock some compassion into the ignoramus.

why don't old people just get bumped off instead of putting them into a nursing home? they are neither use nor ornament imo and use up tax payers money that could be spent on more prisons for layabouts to rot in

If you're talking about applications to schools that might require parental assistance (e.g. going over past test papers or putting together a well-argued case on grounds other than social and medical for that particular school), then a child in care would almost certainly be disadvantaged in that respect.