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.

"The other failed applicants were placed in a school 2 miles from their chosen school, it's the opposite side of the school from us, we weren't offered that and it is now full."

Have you got your younger one on that waiting list, too? 10 and 8 miles away in the same direction is probably preferable to 6 and 8 in opposite directions.

It is really frustrating that things have become so rigid, because it can be a real problem in rural areas. Our village primary did manage to negotiate a temporary increase to its PAN when it looked like they weren't going to be able to take everyone in the village - that most have been a great relief for those furthest from the school. If that hadn't happened, then the common sense approach would have been to look at which of the neighbouring villages had spaces, and turn down the kids on that end of the village, but of course the system doesn't work like that, so it would have been three kids from each corner, and double the journey for the ones from the wrong corner.

This is a good point, we haven't put him on the list there as with everything else being up in the air we weren't sure it would help much, but it is certainly something to consider.

Ah, yes you're right. I only skimmed the document long after our appeal to see what other counties did, I think I must have misread page 21 as putting siblings 3rd or possibly found an older admissions document online.

Thankyou, I have contacted my local councillor, the councillor for my house is not the same councillor for the school however. He has asked questions on our behalf but as yet without response.

Some of the responses here suggesting I was a patriarch out to game the system were uncalled for, for one thing, as a tenant of the Cambs County Farms, we're hardly in a position to be able to move houses in and out of catchments to game the system, they have all our details on file and signed tenancy agreements behind them!

The whole process has left me very jaded, you can never get a response from the relevant department, councillors and MPs all promise to respond but rarely do, and the whole admissions system locally as far as I can tell is mired in local politics between the Lib Dems and the Tories as to who wants to expand which school and who's got the votes to do what etc.

All that said I have been snappy and sarcastic on here when I shouldn't have been, and I apologise to all.

As for the appeals panel it was very amicable, we explained the situation as best we could, one of the ladies was familiar with the situation, the others didn't seem to be, i'm not sure what more we could have done there.

You might even find other families with a similar split between those two schools, if that's where most of the rejects from the one you teach in ended up - in which case you might be able to get someone to bring DC2 to your school while you hang on to their older one.

I realise they are full at the moment, but if they filled up slower then hopefully there might not be much of a waiting list and you might get lucky.

Have you applied for school transport?

Not yet. We still have an application going through with Suffolk LEA to see if he can go to the school that’s 7 miles from our house but in a more manageable direction. 🙈

If, as seems likely he ends up at his catchment school I have resolved to draft in temporary staff or something to free me up to do the school run at least initially, it won’t work long term but we both feel that he’s too young for wraparound care, and want one of us to do drop off and pickups till he finds his feet, and also to help us get to know the other parents. He won’t know any of the other children as it’s the opposite direction from our house from his pre-school.

I would have to be there for school transport anyway so it’s not adding to the logistics much to drive him in. I think a childminder would be a better option, but again, we aren’t willing to put him with a childminder the moment he starts school. The office staff at the catchment school have been lovely and fully understand the situation, they have recommended childminders that others use.

He still naps in the afternoon occasionally, so the step up to 5 days a week is going to take some getting used to. But also we don’t want to delay him starting school and find him behind his peers.

Once your younger child starts the older will jump up the waiting list. But will it solve the problem if they are both there? On the days your wife is working the children still need to get to school and will be dropped off too early unless there is a breakfast club, ditto problem in the afternoons although ideal on her days off. Ideally they would all be at the nearest school! No way to giving up work but hope you find a solution soon.

No it won’t, there is a breakfast club and after school club at both schools, our eldest is probably going to have to go into it 5 days a week this term, to keep the days shorter for our youngest the days my wife doesn’t teach.

It’s just instructive that neither child can move, for all the protestations of the councillors and the education department that they will do all they can to help, in reality no solution has been offered.

2 years ago the then head was totally supportive and encouraging of my wife having our eldest and then youngest in that school, as is the current head. My wife being long term staff and SLT. They feel that situations like this make recruiting teachers of parenting age to rural schools far more difficult, particularly females.

As has been pointed out here at length, we took a risk by doing this, which I certainly hadn’t fully appreciated, although at the time with the eldest child’s school being undersubscribed and the catchment school being oversubscribed it didn’t seem such a risk.

Obviously parents who aren’t teaching staff would feel they were being overlooked if it let our youngest que jump, I appreciate that, but at the same time they’d mostly say they want good long term teachers in their village school?

To us, as a teacher and a council farm tenant we feel we took the best decision at the time, with the backing of the school leadership, and the admissions service, to enable my wife to keep teaching in a school she loves and in which she seems to get good feedback from staff and parents, and also to enable me to keep doing my job as a council tenant.

2 years later and we feel that it’s landed us in an impossible situation in which we can’t move either way. Maybe we can next year, maybe not.

The view of many on the thread differs as I appreciate!

Surely then there's not a real issue? You haven't even applied to the 3rd school that would be the best option. Your wife is now slt, earlier it was a pt job she might have to give up now its pt deputy head teaching yr6.
Also childminders are generally for younger kids so the moment he starts school would be fine, he's been to pre school.

If you want to campaign for change, maybe concentrate on staff children being higher rather than siblings (as this seems to be what caused the initial situation). Its only likely to be one child or so a year anyway, so shouldn't overly effect catchment.

Or maybe it’s about school capacity? Is there a mismatch between where children live and where the school places are? Population changes sometimes mean that LEAs need to alter the distribution of school places. This can be very difficult in rural areas, where small schools might not be viable if they became any smaller.

SLT is the rung below deputy. Job shares are common in all year groups.

We have applied the the 3rd school, and are waiting to see if it’s an option, we bustiers the school before the end of term and it’s now for their admissions service to respond if they have a place, it all takes time. It’s 7 miles in another direction, it’s the 3rd arm of a t-shape looking at a map, it only really helps because I work in that direction.

Sometimes in life, you don’t know which way to jump, I only posted here to see if this sort of thing happens all over the country and what solutions had been found, maybe there aren’t any, the thread has snowballed!

I think it’s really about the eldest child’s school having applied for 2 form entry and having had that application turned down? The schools all need to get bigger to cope with the house building schemes the council have passed.

There was a call a while back to move staff children up the list, it was rejected when out of catchment parents stood against it as it would disadvantage their children apparently.

In any case, the school is so oversubscribed this year I don’t think it would help. Panelchair has put his finger on it, it’s a school size problem, really the village needs a new, larger school to be built. This has happened quite a bit in other towns and villages in the area.

I doubt any expansion would be retroactive and applied to this years intake though.

I mean it would have disadvantaged their children.

Is there a way to edit posts on here?!

Op I think you’ve had a hard time here

I think it’s fair to say rural families are disadvantaged by the system to some extent -we are urban and if for example my two sons didn’t get in the same school chances are one of them would only be 5 minutes away, not 5 miles. However wherever you are when applying for the first child for a non catchment school you take a risk that unless there is specific sibling priority there is a higher chance that 2nd child will not get in compared with the catchment option.

round here non-catchment sibling priority comes after catchment children (and siblings) but before other non-catchment children, which I think is fair.

your best bet is as PP said to get both children on the waiting list for the other school- this is not committal in any way - make plans for the coming academic year and see what happens.

in our school there was quite a lot of movement throughout EYFS and KS1. Kids moving areas and so on. Less so in KS2.

It’s just instructive that neither child can move, for all the protestations of the councillors and the education department that they will do all they can to help, in reality no solution has been offered.

At the moment. And thats the crucial bit. And why you should put both down on the other's waiting list in September which you don't seem to have actually done after finding out where one is at the moment.

Before your youngest starts, there will be lots of parents trying to get into a particular school of their choice often out of fear of the one they've been offered. A month or two down the line once their child has settled into their allocated school less will be inclined to try and still get into that school.

And equally once the younger one starts at their new school you elder one goes up the priority list.

People do move. Then you have things like entries to private school which are often Yr2 going into Yr3. So you have kids that leave for that. So that opens up spaces too.

Its worth getting their names down to give you possibilities rather than dismissing the possibility as remote. It won't be as usual as you think.

DS is now going into yr4. Since reception there have been five kids in his class alone who have moved on and someone else has moved in. And its a two class year.

Its a well respected school in a nice area - the amount of movement is more than you'd perhaps expect.

Right now you seem to still have your head up your arse complaining about how unfair it is, rather than being more proactive and positive about solutions to the problem. If you get your head into these, you are likely to be better off.

I would also strongly discourage you from holding the younger one back from school. There's a few reasons for this: firstly, you could lose the place you have been allocated at the nearby school. In this scenario you could well make your problems worse not better. The council only have an obligation to give you another space within the county. They may have to provide transport for this, but you could find they get allocated a place some considerable distance away which really won't be in your child's interests either. They probably won't be obliged to provide transport to a closer school in a neighbouring county. Cos thats often how it works. This also mean you shoot yourself in the foot in terms of potentially moving the older one to the same school - which you might have been able to do once the younger one is at school and the elder one is prioritised as a sibling. Thus it actually works against what you are trying to achieve rather than resolve the issue.

More than that though, your youngest will find themselves really socally disadvantaged. Being in school when 4 will help even if they are still in the process of having naps and are one of the youngest. They are less likely to drop some of those habits and gain independence if they remain at home. And there is the question of what are you going to do with them if they stay home. They will be too old for nursery and won't be able to continue there. Are you willing to effectively go down the home schooling route? The purpose of reception is to get them used to the environment of school not to do a whole lot of academic work and to start to form friendships. If you are a late entry you have to work against the groups and pairings of friendships that have already formed - you can make friends but you are disadvantaged. Delaying them doesn't mean they will start next year in reception if they are a summer born either which is a major misconception with delayed entry. It means they will go straight into yr1.

I really can't see how delaying entry will help your situation in any way for these reason. You will have a child care issue rather than just a transport issue. And you may well find it makes a bad situation over distance even worse not better.

Your problem has largely been caused by you decided to try and effectively 'beat the system'. I'd have thought that this thread had made the point that you can't do that - the system is set up a certain way and if you try and game it, you often become a cropper and this is actually for a reason. To discourage people from doing this. You need to use the system to your advantage by understanding it properly and how it can be used to better your situation rather than trying to beat it. There are definitely massive pit falls if you try again to go outside the way its set up as you've already found out to your cost. Don't try and play that game again! Just stick your kids on waiting lists and find before/after school solutions. Its not that hard, stop trying to make your life even harder but refusing to accept the situation cos its really not going to solve the issue.

And thats what strikes me the most from your posts. Your unwillingness to accept that you haven't got a place and your appeal was never going to win. You are so stuck in a 'its not faiiiirrrrr' mentality that its affecting your judgement and ability to resolve the problem.

OK usually slt means senior leadership and in primaries that does not usually include anyone other than the head and the deputy who often also has a full class. If it is a large primary 2 or more form entry there may be more staff on the leadership pay spine but that would be unusual. It would also be very odd for slt to not be involved with and fully understand admissions tbh. Maybe you mean she has a tlr.
Not the point just makes your story / attitude quite hard to understand from a teachers point of view.

OP you seem to be taking this really personal, it's not, it's just the schools following the published admissions criteria.
I've seen another poster ask this but haven't been able to find a response, has the admissions criteria for your eldests school changed between her starting and you applying for your youngest?

I think you’ve somewhat misread my character and personality to based on a few typed internet posts to be honest! I spend my life growing crops and keeping chickens, if I couldn’t deal with half a dozen things going wrong before breakfast, I’d do something else for a living.

All I’ve done here is respond to questions and suggestions, if that comes across as head up my own arse then so be it.

We haven’t got the eldest on the list for the youngests proposed school because we were still waiting for the response from the school over the border into Suffolk. Whether we put her on the list immediately after the appeal or in the next week or two won’t make much difference to her chance of getting in.

As it happens in it’s just been confirmed today that the youngest can have a place in the Suffolk school over the border.

This gives us another option, and we think it the least worst, obviously we need to see if our eldest could have a place there as well in future otherwise we could end up in the same situation. As described above the sibling policy out of catchment is different and works in our favour.

However they don’t have the same oversubscription problem historically as it wasn’t a great school with a poor Ofsted, but, having asked around and spoken to the head it seems they have made great strides in the last couple of years under new management.

We have discussed holding him back but rejected it for the reasons you outline, I think that was a suggestion from others on the thread, not me?

But we have been working on such options as there are busily behind the scenes.

Brilliant, likely there will be a place for your eldest if it was undersubscribed before then. Great news op.

Fantastic!!! I’m so glad you’ve found a solution 👏

Thanks!

Thanks, it feels more workable. Still a long round trip, no prospect of school transport in the future, but we can keep youngest on the waiting list, I can manage pickup and drop off a bit better as he can stop at my mums a bit if needed, although she can’t really do regular pickups due to ill health she can have the children at hers, and we can reflect on my wife’s job situation and mine at more leisure etc.

Theres a lot more thinking to be done over the next day or two.