Primary school admissions - 14 miles apart

[Ruralparents]

Hi all

I thought I’d join to mine your collective wisdom!

We live in rural Cambridgeshire, 6 miles from our nearest school in one direction and 8 miles from the next nearest in another.

Back in the depths of lockdown we had to a choose a school for our eldest to start at in Sept 2021. My wife teaches at the school 8 miles away and so we chose it because it would be handier. We didn’t know if our eldest would get in there but she did. And it turns out that her catchment school, 6 miles away, was oversubscribed.

Now, in 2023 our daughters school is over subscribed and our youngest has been placed at the catchment school. These two school are 14 miles apart! We lost our appeal and have now got the prospect of trying to manage a 28 mile school run, twice a day.

Cambridgeshire council don’t care, they are hiding behind their protocols and passing the buck.

We asked if our eldest could move schools to be with our youngest and they’ve refused because her year group at the catchment school is oversubscribed.

Out of catchment siblings get the same priority as in catchment siblings in Suffolk and Norfolk, but not Cambridgeshire. And when you live 6 and 8 miles from the two schools it’s fairly obvious you’re going to be at the bottom of the admissions list when either school is over subscribed.

Has anyone had any joy appealing on the grounds of unreasonable journey times etc? I just don’t think anyone should be made to do over 10000 miles a year on the school run. School transport hasn’t been offered but even if we can get it, someone still has to be available to put a 4 year old in a taxi and to collect them etc, it doesn’t help the logistics.

There is an ombudsman, but I think they have just rigged the whole system in order to do as they please and screw those who live out in the sticks.

Well said. Clearly many on here have absolutely no idea what farming entails, that not all farmers employ staff, that few ever even have holidays.
We farmed for years, it’s frequently a thankless job and this thread demonstrates the widespread ignorance by those with strong open yet no insight.
Good luck OP, we experienced something similar years ago where one of our DCs couldn’t get into the village school a mile away and was allocated to one 9 miles from the farm. I worked nights and it was a logistical nightmare.

The reasons pupils can be classed as excepted pupils are set out in the admissions code. Having DC in different schools is not one of those reasons.

I appreciate it is a very difficult situation OP but hopefully the third school route thats opened up gives some breathing space.
However, the amount of posters blithely telling you to "keep appealing" and demanding 'flexibility' have absolutely no understanding of admissions policies and law. There are some fabulous experts on MN who regularly spend considerable time on threads giving really helpful (and honest) advice about how best to appeal, what chances look like etc - including some who have popped on this thread @PanelChair @PatriciaHolm @prh47bridge - I imagine they're sitting on their hands in an effort not to give chapter and verse as to why some of these suggestions are not viable!

As your youngest child is summer born @Ruralparents, why don't you defer for the year. Then 4yr old can spend the year with you, learning how to work on the farm? My friend's summer born 4yr old did this on their farm. Then you try again for the 8mile away school for the following year, either trying to get them into Reception year or Year 1.

Remember that school is not compulsory, full-time education is, so your child can be educated at home, that does not mean sitting at the kitchen table with workbooks all day, life on a farm is learning. Full-time education is only required from the term after their 5th birthday, so your child is not of CSA until September of the FOLLOWING year, so 2024.

So, you could delay this mess for a year. I know you may think it's not ideal having 4yr old on the farm with you, but it can be done and you can make it a wonderful time for you both.

I teach in Norfolk and this doesn’t always happen. I’ve taught a child in Year 2 in my school whose younger brother had to start Reception in a school 8 miles away. They moved house in the end as it wasn’t manageable.

@ReadingSoManyThreads are you serious?
Then 4yr old can spend the year with you, learning how to work on the farm? My friend's summer born 4yr old did this on their farm
Do you have absolutely no idea about how dangerous a farm would be having a 4 year old wandering around? There is absolutely no way the OP could do his job with a 4 year old in tow.
I’m sure the OP would not want his 4 year old dc on the tractor or combine Ffs!
This is probably the most ridiculous comment I have read in MN 🙄🤬

My advice is to put your youngest on the waiting list for your wife's school and suck it up. To be honest, you are asking for the council to make allowances for what was a personal choice. Appealing is pointless, you chose this situation and there will be other families who didn't get a choice who deserve to be considered first. I am also a bit confused - is there absolutely no way that you can run the youngest to school on the days your wife is working? Is there absolutely no childminders who would consider doing the school run for you? Why is your work so inflexible that you can't do it? I'm assuming you work on the farm/at home? Am I missing something about your place of work/duties at work that would make the school run impossible 3 times a week?

No advice but i feel for you. I am in Cambridgeshire as well and having issues with 2 kids in different primary. One is starting special school and the other starting at mainstream, young 4. Been told not allowed transport but both kids finish at the same time. Can't get childminder for special needs child. So much stress.

Hope something changes for you and a child moves school

What's the point of a sibling policy if you are in the catchment anyway?

You are entitled to school transport. Don’t assume this will be an individual taxi transporting your dc straight from your door to school. It is much more likely to be a minibus that goes round local farms and villages picking up children. This means if you are near the end of the run (which at six miles you are likely to be) she could be picked up and dropped off up to 45 minutes before school start and end times. This would mean your wife could well have time to get to and from the other school.

Appeal the transport refusal for your DC with EHCP. SENTAS can support you with challenging the decision.

Because often there's not enough spaces for everyone in the catchment.

^ this.

You have way more autonomy and flexible than someone who works 9-5 for an employer.

I don't understand why your wife would give up her job - surely your DD would still have to be taken to her school anyway?

Yes, it's shit but I don't see why you can't make it work?

You might think that, I couldn’t possibly comment!

Every year, I promise myself I’ll “retire” from school admission threads, but then people charge in with very poor advice like “appeal again” you can only appeal once per academic year , “sweet talk the headteacher” who’ll probably say they’d be delighted to accept your child, if only there was a vacancy, “write to your MP” who probably doesn’t want to get involved because for every constituent they placate, they’ll probably alienate someone else, and so on and so I get drawn in again.

My kids go in tractors and combine all the time and the 4yo can pretty much drive a forklift independently so It’s more common than you think.

In which case it’s totally irresponsible imo. I know of a farmer who’s 4 year old fell head first from a tractor when he was in the cab too, fractured skull, permanent brain damage. Another nearly killed hi young daughter when he couldn’t see her from the forklift and ran over her (she had wandered outside to see her dad). Had bilateral amputation both legs.
Health and Safety would have a fit, quite rightly too.

I'm glad you have a third option OP, although to be honest, it doesn't sound as if will be particularly helpful. I'm so sorry that you have been given such a rough ride on here and have been constantly berated by people who have presumably been so over-endowed with the gift of foresight that every decision they make is a brilliant one and who have never, ever found themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place because something they have done in good faith goes tits up later down the line. Oh that we should all be so lucky!

However, this would be my solution were I in your position. I'd write to every relevant local councillor, your MP and Gillian Keegan outlining the issue and stating that they have 24 hours to come back to you with a reasonable proposition before you take the whole thing to the press and if they don't, send a detailed press release to the Daily Mail, the Guardian and The Times (which has set up a special education commission to investigate how and why education is going so badly wrong in this country). You need to provide a precis of the story to date and the things you need to emphasise are the fact that your wife, an experienced teacher in a rural school, will have to leave her job in order to transport your children to their different schools and the fact that this situation has arisen because the government, in their desire to expand housebuilding, have given no thought whatsoever to the provision of the vital services that new developments need, especially those related the health and education. You should also send the press release to your local and regional radio and TV studios too. Once you've sent the press release, ring all of the recipients to ensure that they have received it and send a copy to the local council, councillors, MP, Keegan et al. I think you have an excellent chance of this being covered up various different news media and a very speedy resolution. Good luck!

What's the point of a sibling policy if you are in the catchment anyway?

It is a common misconception that ‘in catchment’ means ‘is guaranteed a place’ - and as a result, some areas use terms like ‘priority admissions area’ instead, as thus more accurately describes the situation. Children from that area have priority over children from elsewhere in admissions, but are not guaranteed a place. This has benefits in terms of the planning and resourcing of schools over a wider area, but can be difficult for those who live at the edge of catchments.

Say, for the sake if argument, you have a square town, with 4 primary schools right in the middle of each quarter. Each quarter ls designated as the ‘catchment’ for its corresponding school. There are 120 children requiring Reception places in the town this year. However, 35 live in catchment fir school A, 25 for school B, 28 in school C (which has an Outstanding Ofsted so everyone applies to it) and 32 for School D, which has just gone into Special Measures.

In a ‘pure catchment’ model, schools A and D both need to have an additional Reception class, as infant class size law says that under most circumstances, class sizes for R-Y2 cannot go under 30. Meanwhile, B and C run under their normal capacity (and nobody out of catchment can go to C, despite it being desirable and having spaces)

This is obvious inefficient use of resources. So using parental preferences plus over-subscription rules, exactly 30 children are allocated to each school. The children furthest from School A within its catchment may be allocated to B or C, and those with the strongest out of catchment claim for C will get in and potentially free up additional spaces elsewhere .

By combining a ‘priority admissions area’ with rules for where children have priority elsewhere, the council in this hypothetical case have 4 full Reception classes, not 6 each below full capacity but needing a teacher, classroom, etc etc.

I’m wondering who was finding time to take DC to nursery? Surely with both parents working on some days, this was already an issue? Or is nursery just down the road?

Livestock do not need constant attention. DF was a farmer. It’s 7 days a week but the hours are flexible. There are times when it’s ultra busy but most people make friends and share the school run. The OP isn’t working in a hospital with patients.m with defined starting times. Who is looking after the 4 year old now after nursery when mums working? Someone must be!

Also op hasn’t given proper consideration to admissions policies, the law and their responsibilities in getting Dc to school. It’s the responsibility of parents but in certain cases transport is available, eg unsafe walking route. Of course families take this option. However it is not available if you don’t use the catchment school. So this was done to the op to find out and plan accordingly.

themaghag

In this case, where absolutely no admissions rules have been broken, appeals have been administered correctly, and the problem arises because of a choice made by the OP, what do you think going to the press and politicians would achieve?

Had the OP applied to the catchment school for their eldest - which they were perfectly able to do but chose not to - the problem would never have arisen. The system is working correctly, and the OP has been caught out by a foreseeable risk.

What they can and should do if contest any decision not to provide hone to school transport for their younger DC, if thus is refused once they have applied for it. I can understand that the OP would prefer not to use this transport for a small child, but it should be available and, as I understand it, must be provided.

If you're not lying about this then you deserve to be prosecuted. Everyone who's involved in any kind of agricultural work knows, or should know, that it's a dangerous industry and that accidents around machinery are the most common. Round here (rural west) we had one farmer working a steep field crushed to death when his tractor tipped over and another killed when loading 1-ton silage bales on a fork-lift. Case studies here:

https://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/experience/children.htm

I used to live in an area where ‘sadface’ articles in the local (and occasionally national) press about children not getting into the local secondary were a routine part of the annual news cycle. As were letters to the local MP, local authority, Education Secretary etc etc.

The answer in every case was always ‘there were x children with better claims than you for the available spaces’ (and often eg ‘the family moved out of catchment way back in primary’ or ‘unfortunately using grandma’s address doesn’t work’). Yes, children did gain admission in the regular ways of appeals and waiting lists, but never through political or newspaper pressure.

Why is it all down to his wife? Does no one here expect a man to be equally involved in parenting? Is to only wives who're capable of driving children around? Is he too important to do a 12-mile school run?

The OP works from home on a flexible basis. He has far, far more flexibility in his day than his wife who has to be at work at a certain time and can't leave before a certain time. He has no reason for not stepping up.

This happened to a friend of mine and we're not even rural.

She started working at school A, which was across the LA (not even a county boarder just a different LA) and got her 1st son in under criteria 4 (children of staff) which came after SN/LAC, Siblings in Catchment, First or Only Children in Catchment - they live 2 miles from it.

No defined catchment area and the actual catchment school was 8 miles away.

When it came to her 2nd son starting 2 years later it went down to criteria 3 only so he missed out on a place and was put in the school 8 miles away.

She couldn't make it work, no matter what she did and couldn't get her older boy into her younger ones school.

Her husbands job paid more and was more important.

So she quit her job so she could do the school runs and make it work.

School lost out on a brilliant teacher they've not been able to replace. All for 8 miles.

Isn’t there some obligation on the LA to provide transport if more than 3 miles away at primary??? I appreciate it only works if applied and no school was within distance or applied to closest school that was within distance and got allocated further. I have heard of DCs going by DBS checked taxi with child seat. Not ideal but keeps the LA on their toes due to cost and logistics int a better solution arises. ?