What normally happens when you move house?

[AccidentalMum]

Is it that unusual? Did you find a school with places in various years, then move? Or must you be in situ first? Did anyone end up home eding one or more of their DCs for a time?

Basically I don't want to be where we are for the next 8 or 10 years (when DD1 or DD2 finishes primary school) but it is a difficult time to move this summer (to make a December application to reception for DD1) because DSD is only 13.

Does anyone think schools should make provision for entrants outside the normal intake? ie. starting with eg. 29 on roll as a matter of course, or is that a silly, unenforceable idea?

Really interested in experiences and viewpoints on this.

We moved from Kent to Wiltshire in 2007. Checked out areas, looked at schools near houses we liked and sort of matched up the two. The first house we offered on had a good school very close but no availability in dd year but space for ds. (the sale did fall through) We also didn't proceed in an area after a vendor told us he had probs getting his dc into any local school and was travelling across town.

Think extra intake provision is difficult to enforce.

Think also you have to consider that all the 'good' school are more likely to be full and it gets more difficult the more children you have to fit in obv.

Read somewhere that rule of thumb is move before age 9 to minimise impact of move

HTH

also applied for places once offer accepted on property and solictors in place etc

Thanks PS.

We will still be renting which makes moving quicker and more flexible but wouldn't consider owning a care which means we are less flexible on school distance.

Hate the idea of settling for a school when we could move now and have them somewhere amazing and near my family.

....owning a car...

We moved twice mid-year with dds in primary. the area we moved to (Devon) does have a policy for children who move into the area mid-year. They guarantee your children a place at one of the two closest schools ((Devon operates a catchment system and strongly encourages children to go to their catchment school). So if the nearest school to your new address is officially full, you get offered a place at the second closest school. And if that one is full, then one of the two schools HAS to make room for your children.

So for us it wasn't that hard. Dp phoned round possible schools to find out about places when we were in the process of moving, some had places and some didn't, but we did know that the dds would get a place in a school close by.

Then we moved again (we rented for a few months), only 1.5 miles, and our new/2nd school was unfeasible in terms of travel, though not far away. The new local school (in the village we'd just moved to) was officially full and oversubscribed. BUT the nice people at the LEA admissions office encouraged us to appeal, we did so on the basis of living near the new school and the other school being a drive away, though not far in miles it was impossible to walk or cycle. and they admitted my children to a school officially over-full.

so it can be fine. it seems to really depend on your lea and its policy for children moving mid-year.

Hampshire and Surrey seem quite dismissive....just 'join the waiting list'. GLad you had good experiences.