Surrey County Council Primary School Admissions - Incompetency or Freudian Slip?

[MatBackFeck]

I recently completed my online application for primary school admissions for Sept 09 for my son. I have now received an extremely disturbing letter from an Admissions and Transport Officer and am wondering how to interpret it:

I'll try and be brief, there are 4 schools in our area, 1 excellent, 2 good, 1 terrible (failing, about to be merged with a junior school to bring it up - obviously a lot of pressure to send children here as is only one not oversubscribed in area with severe shortage of primary school place - crisis couple of years ago in the press etc etc) lets call them schools A B C and X. We are equidistant between A and X and B and C are next nearest (B is a church school). For school X, apart from reputation, it is not walkable from our house wheras the other 3 are (only access is an unpaved, unlit road cut through the separating range of hills i.e is suicide to walk). So we would not, for both reasons, want school X.

On the form we listed A B C in that order and in the "reasons for this choice" I listed the fact that we could not walk to X as being a reason why we were "preferring" A B or C (would be happy with any) and indicated that X would be unsuitable to us for this reason (health and practicality - son cared for by grandmother when I am working who does not drive and familial history of heart disease (dad died at 50) mean we really want him to be able to walk to school).

So our form says A B C. I received a letter yesterday stating that, if I wanted the medical reason to be taken into account as a "Special Medical Circumstance" I would need to obtain a Consultant's letter (I didn't and indicated this on the form - it was part of my general reasons). The disturbing part is that the letter contains the following lines:

re: Application for Admission to School X
Thank you for your application form stating [blank] School as your first preference
and
Should your application for admission to school X be unsuccessful, your child's name will automatically be placed on the waiting list etc etc

Just to reiterate, a letter thanking me for my application TO A SCHOOL I DID NOT APPLY TO. I have phoned the contact centre who have confirmed that my son has the correct 3 preferences listed against his name on their systems but who were very cagey and would not discuss it further. The person who sent the letter does not start work until 2pm and they have asked her to call me, or, more likely, I will be calling her.

What am I to conclude from this?:

1. Surrey County Council Admissions and Transport are incompetent idiots and it is an error?

1. They have immediately pre-allocated him school X (even though they claim no decisions are made at this stage and that it is some inscrutable software application that makes the decisons) and this letter indicates a Freudian slip?

We are in Surrey too. I would say 1 - they can't just dismiss your choices and they have to be fair and follow admission criteria - in fact it would not serve them not to as it makes no odds to them who gets in. However, if they good schools are oversubscribed and you don't get in (other applicants live nearer) then you they will allocate you school X unless that is full too. That happened in our area 2 years ago and some children got allocated a school miles away that was closing down the next year as there were just too many applicants.

This being a local council department, I'd suspect cock-up rather than conspiracy - and I'd chase it up straight away.

yes I am going to. They wont discuss with me but have said the woman who wrote the letter is in after 2 and will call me. I have also got her number from switchboard. Thanks. I thought cock up too but it just seems such a slap in the face when we specifically indicated we didnt want that school on the form (for all the good it does, I know) but I have already been in conversation with them where they indicated to me that my son "would probably get allocated an overflow school and wont get one of his 3 choices" (before I applied) so it would piss me off if they were already doing that and weren't even following the correct procedure (as was proved to have happenned 3 years ago when a load of children got sent to a school in a different town - are we in the same place hedgehog?)

I am resigned to the fact he will get X or even Y out of area (the oveflow school) and we are already preparing the appeal (that is how bad it is here). I knew it was bad but to see it in black and white was a shock nonetheless - cock up or freudian slip!

hmmmm

yes I am going to. They wont discuss with me but have said the woman who wrote the letter is in after 2 and will call me. I have also got her number from switchboard. Thanks. I thought cock up too but it just seems such a slap in the face when we specifically indicated we didnt want that school on the form (for all the good it does, I know) but I have already been in conversation with them where they indicated to me that my son "would probably get allocated an overflow school and wont get one of his 3 choices" (before I applied) so it would piss me off if they were already doing that and weren't even following the correct procedure (as was proved to have happenned 3 years ago when a load of children got sent to a school in a different town - are we in the same place hedgehog?)

I am resigned to the fact he will get X or even Y out of area (the oveflow school) and we are already preparing the appeal (that is how bad it is here). I knew it was bad but to see it in black and white was a shock nonetheless - cock up or freudian slip!

hmmmm

I don't think we are in the same place as the merging school does not ring a bell. I am in Walton on Thames.

oh IM in Hersham LOL

hey! I'm walton too! a bit concerned now as I only made two choices. You'll probably have an idea of my first and the second is 3½ miles away because the choice in north surrey for primaries ain't that good.

I'll be watching this thread with interest...

Ouch. Stinks of something doesn't it?
Id LOVE to see this software that allocate childrens places at school.

Me too - and to be honest, I think it is bullshit.

My involvement with them started nearly 6 months ago when I innocently made a query asking them to clarify the "child nearest school" criteria as it is not clear in the booklet (they publish in the PAN number of children who got in as "nearest school" and "others" - my query was what is the difference between these two when this is the bottom criteria anyway) - becasue we are equidistant between two.

To this day I still dont know and they are completely unable to answer it. From my discussions and those with the local councillor I really dont think they know or understand how their own system works and I think most decisions are still made with a manual element.

I'd suspect cock-up. She was writing you a letter relating to what you'd said about School X, she had "School X" running around in her head as a result, so when she came to write the name of a school in the first line she wrote School X rather than School A.

But yes, definitely wise to get it clarified and officially corrected.

I've just spoken to the woman and she says human error, of course and is retyping the letter. Hmmmmmmmmm we shall see.

yes, we shall see in february.... what a long time to wait!

yes, she said they are currently processing over 30000 applications and it was merely a mistake - and when we do get school X in in Feb they can always say well you would have got it anyway - they dont give you any proof - you just have their word. I am obviously going to keep the original letter as it might be useful for an appeal but the problem of course is that by the time you get to appeal stage all the places have gone. You never know, maybe the fact that they know they have cocked up might make them give us school A - you never know.

That is what people would do in the organisation I work for to hid their mistake

Hi MatbackFeck... sounds like we are in the same town... we all want to be in school A!!!!!

Oh Yes!!

It is actually our nearest school but doesnt make much difference - especially when you hear about all the lies and scams people use to get in there.

Still, lovely place to live with great schools, even if you can't actually go to any of them.

To be fair, I would be happy with school B as well but they don't want us heathens and I was actually very impressed with school C as well but we are over a mile away and no chance there either, apparently.

What order did you put? Not that it makes any difference I suspect

Surely no school would accept familial history of heart disease as a special medical circumstance for a child

I mean they can exercise other than walking to school!

No they wouldn't I don't think which is why I didnt put it as one - they've misunderstood.

ah I see sorry

Well I would go in and see them in person and clear it up

Are you in Surrey? Have you tried phoning the contact centre? I tried to get someone from the school admissions team to talk to me for weeks and all they would say is "Apply, Fail to get in, Appeal" They are not interested amd massively underesourced probably like everyone. There simply arent enough primary school places in our area and no plans to build a new school as no funding - known and published fact. I guess they get a lot of flak and don't want to deal with the public. The woman I spoke to was at least apologetic (as opposed to rude and obstructive as they always have been in the past) so once I get the corrected letter I think I will write to her to thank her and put my concern at the mistake on record just in case.

All this is the way it is and you have to deal with it. What pisses me off is they persist with the illusion of choice(or preference as they call it so you cannot complain when your wishes are not fullfilled). i.e they tell you to go and vist schools, make your choices carefully etc, you take time of work to go to all the open days, really think about where your child would fit in and be happy etc etc when you might as well not bother as it is all just a random lottery that only a few lucky people who live in the next few streets or who are unethical enough to blatantly cheat can win.

I have been going on about this on here for months. It is frustrating and won't change. What really pisses me off is they treat you like you are a pushy, priveledged middle class parent that just wants your child to go to the school with the best ofsted report when you just want the best for your child. There are parents like that i am sure but the majority I have met in in our town in this situation have considered all the options really carefully and just want their children to be happy. For my child, a school that he cannot walk or cycle to with his Granny that is demoralised and depressed would not make him happy or healthy. I don't think that makes me a middle class snob to recognise that (as "parents like me" were referred to by someone from SCC)

ho hum

Can you not go in?

my DS goes to ST Js Wey . lovely school

have tried ...... same answer in person. anyway, doesn't make any difference, I cant change anything. I just want to make sure the proper procedure is at least being followed nominally. I really dont think they understand it themesleves though or why would they hide it? I worked in software development and I know there will be a ruleset somewhere.