Moving - school waiting lists/ home educating

[Upintheairnow]

Hello all
Has anyone moved to a new area with children and tried to get them into local schools that all have waiting lists and ended up having to home school them until a suitable school place comes up?

My 2 girls are in year 7 and year 4. We want to move house/area but every school in the new area has huge waiting lists (over 35 for the school for my Y7 daughter!) so not only are we looking at houses that fall in the catchment areas for different schools but now it seems every school has huge waiting lists.
Just wondered if the home schooling was set up through the council if you don't have a set school to send work out like they did during lockdown?

You won't be no. 36 though unless you are the furthest away from the school and fail to meet any other criteria though.

Just wondered if the home schooling was set up through the council if you don't have a set school to send work out like they did during lockdown?

if you’re home educating schools do not provide you with work - if you’re home educating you do the educating yourself.

If you home school, nobody sends you work out.

The local authority has a duty to provide your children with an education so they need to offer you a place somewhere - but it will be your nearest school that does have places and may not be very near at all. You may also have your daughter's needing to travel distances in opposite directions too, depending on where there are places.

There are websites that can help you with home learning but they will vary from very much DIY ( eg Oak Academy) to a full online school experience that you have to pay significant amounts for like Interhigh.

If you choose to home educate and indicate that to the council, they have no further obligation to find or offer a school place.

The council has an obligation to find each of your children a school place, which might involve transporting them to schools out of your area. If there's no vacancy within a reasonable travelling distance, they have to do their best to create one, for example by directing a school which is full to take an extra child anyway. Have a look at the council's Fair Access Protocol. If there is some emergency which prevents a child from being offered a place at any school - for example if the child has special needs and no school in the area can meet their needs - then the council must educate them in some other way, which might involve home tuition.

But if there ARE school places available, but those places are at schools which you wouldn't accept (is that what you meant when you referred to waiting for a "suitable school place"?), the situation is different. If the council offers you a place and you turn it down, then your only option is to home educate while waiting and hoping a place becomes available at one of your preferred schools. You wouldn't get any help with this, as it would be your choice. This is called elective home education.

Is a move to this particular area necessary ? Would it be better to look at another area with available places ?

As a bit of a back story we moved from Hampshire (where most of our family and friends are) almost 18m ago to the coast (Dorset)thinking it would be an amazing opportunity. Turns out it wasn't and we've made a massive mistake and are really regretting it. Both my husband and I are miserable here (our marriage is fine, we just both don't want to live here anymore) We had savings which we've ploughed into the new house and we are now really struggling and feeling very isolated and lonely, so we are tentatively thinking about moving back to the area we came from; maybe getting a smaller place so we can pay a bit off the mortgage and have room to breathe again, plus be back near our family and friends. Obviously moving again has massive costs involved. But I'm just so worried about the girl's schooling. We would have to move back to basically the same area we lived in (which is fine but we moved away in order to have more outside space and be somewhere less busy so it'll be a compromise but we can live with that) Currently they are doing well here in their schools but do really miss "home". It's all totally my fault as I found this house. I'm in bits everyday trying to figure a way out as it's my mess so I'm doing my best to sort it but I feel so guilty. We would need to move before my daughter gets to Y9 really.

I know it’s impossible, but try not to feel guilty. You made the best decision you could with the information you had and the best intentions

If there are 35 on the waiting list for yr7, most of those will have started in another school and be getting settled and might not move even if a place came up.

And, as others have said, it is not held in time order but in criteria order, so if you are closer to the school or meet other criteria eg faith, then you will be higher up the list.

Yo will be fine school-wise if you move back to Hampshire. They have great schools and lots of them are applying to reduce down their PAN (at both primary and secondary schools level) due to falling rolls.
You might not get the particular school you want but you should definitely get a place somewhere for your children.

www.hants.gov.uk/aboutthecouncil/haveyoursay/consultations/admission-arrangements26-27