Moving areas, different LEAs - how do you get into new school & is it too late for this school year?

[cthea]

IF we sell and move (getting hopeful it might happen) the new place is in a different LEA. How would we get DS into a new primary? There are two, both good, close to the new place. I don't know if they are oversubscribed. Would it be too late for the new school year? Not a September start but maybe by January.

It probably varies from area to area but if your child were goign into the first year of school (so locally reception or Year 7) then those places will continue to be determined by the LEA until October halfterm when the waiting list is then handed over to the school andhendled by them thereafter. If you were goign into a different yeargroup then you would apply to the school directly. If there is a space available you would start on the first available date unless you are looking at reception when again it would depend on the school's policy.

I would call the new LEA's admissions number and find out which of the local schools still have places (if any). Some children don't show up at the beginning of term so if your new home is quite near the school you should be able to get a place. Around here (SW London) even the most heavily oversubscribed schools have places come up all the time. Reception year tends to be the worse for places. Good Luck !!

Thank you. I am in SW London and hoping to move to Kingston LEA. DS is starting year 4. I'll wait until the move is more imminent and then ring the schools. We could commute to his current school for a short while, I suppose. We also have a DD in nursery, hoping for the same school's nursery.

we moved a couple of years ago, just as dd was due to start school. different lea's do this differently but this is what we had to do. fill in an application form for new area, dd was then put on the waiting list ( you can be kept up to date with position on the waiting list), dd was no.9 as the top criteria for school entry was address, and as they could only go on our old address which was miles away (we moved from the north west to the midlands). during the time we were waiting to move, 5 places came and went. she could only move up the list once we had exchanged contracts, which only happened 2 days before we actually moved. once we got there and could provide evidence of new address, dd went to top of list as she was the only person on the list within the catchment area, this was mid july, and we just had to wait. at that point, she didn't have a place at any of the schools in the area.

within a couple of weeks, she'd been offered places at all 3 primary schools so we got to choose. you need to fill in a school application form, get your ds on the waiting list for your preferred schools, find out the admission criteria. for us, catchment area being the top one worked in our favour in the end, but since then, it has all changed and special needs is now the top criteria here (school is below national average for pupils with special needs)

good luck with it all, it's stressful enough moving, without all the additional stuff to sort out

This is Kingston's Primary admissions booklet - see p 26:"Moving into Kingston upon Thames after the allocation process
If you move into the area after the allocation of places, you will be able
to apply on the common application form and name your three preferred schools. You will be offered a place at one of your preferred
schools if this is possible. If all the places at your preferred schools
have been allocated, your child?s name will be added to waiting lists in
criteria order."

Thank you for this. The idea of being on a waiting list sounds scary but at least we could commute to his current school for a while. Thanks for the link to the booklet, I hadn't realised it's all spelt out so clearly and above board.

We did a mixture of contacting LEAs and schools. In the end we got further through just working with the school who did the rest for us.

twinsetandpearls - have you moved?? I think we were on a thread a while back about moving houses (or not, at the time). That wasn't too long ago.

Yes we moved at the beginning of the month.

Well done. We are still trying to. We dropped the price further (another 10%) and things seem to be moving a bit now, getting hopeful with a couple of the recent viewings we had but no offers just yet. The other people are still waiting for us.

We couldn't sell, my sister is in there covering about half the mortgage. We did take it off the market as we had two tenants in there but as that has all gone pear shaped we will put it back on

Very slow here as well. Good luck with it all. We could be here another 2-3 years but would like to move. OTOH it might be a better time to move in 2-3 years' time.