Advice on in-year secondary school admissions in Croydon after bullying

[KillerMoth]

Hi all, my yr8 child struggling in croydom school due to bullying, school has made it worse by pulling bulling into a room with my child a number of times. Bully has attacked, spread a hate campaign, and used intimidation. Have been im constant talks with school but each step seems to make it worse. Looking to do in yr admission for another school but its a minefield!
Anyone successfully completed in yr admission in Croydon secondary schools? Any advice welcomed!!

You’ll need to find out which schools have places in the year group. The LA should be able to tell you, or you could contact individual schools and ask.

Thanks @Buscobel appreciate you taking the time to read my post. Thanks for your advice. We have tried, and most schools are less than fourthcoming regarding spaces. At a bit of a loss now as it seems like we have to play a waiting game 🤔 Wish there was a more straightforward route to changing schools!

Schools will sometimes be reticent to say, Yes, we've got a space in year X, because although that may be true at the very moment you ring up, by the time you put in a formal application, someone (or several someones) will also have done so and the place will have gone. Or more than one application received at the same time and someone else was ranked higher against the oversubscription criteria. Without a formal application, no place is 'yours'.

Schools which handle their own mid-year applications are still required by the Admissions Code to inform their LA that someone has applied and what the outcome was, but the information the LA holds won't necessarily be completely up to date, so the best they say for those schools is that they had a place, or not, as at the last date information was given to them regarding leavers / applications.

IME, the best thing would be to apply for as many schools as you would deem an acceptable alternative to where your DC is at the moment. Actually applying gets you a decision - an offer of a place, if one is available and your DC is the only or highest ranked applicant, or a refusal, with a place on the school's waiting list / continuing interest list (if held) and (which may be important) the right of appeal against the decision not to admit. If you apply now for immediate entry, a refusal now triggers the right to appeal for a current year place. If that is unsuccessful, you can then apply for year 9 entry as soon as applications are accepted (it would be May half term here, but authorities vary) and if refused again, you can appeal again.