School Admissions Service Letter

[Gracie123]

I've just received a letter from the school admissions service stating that we 'must apply for a reception year place no later than 15 January 2012' after receiving information from the NHS that my son is born 'within the appropriate date of birth range (1 sept 2007 to 31 August 2008)'.

Do I have to respond? Can I just ignore them, or do I need to tell them that I am going to home educate the kids?

You write back and say "thank you for your letter, but we will be making private arrangements for our children's education"

Ignore it. We had them for both of our children. I ignored them and threw them in the bin carefully filed them. With DD we then had 2 or 3 reminders and with DS 2 reminders. They were also carefully filed.

Thanks ladies. Just wanted to check.
New to all this!

ommmward suggested 'You write back and say "thank you for your letter, but we will be making private arrangements for our children's education"'

I think it would be wiser to ignore the letter in the first instance if you hope not to have to deal with the LA later on. You haven't been specifically asked to supply information about how you are educating your child, and the education people may not have a permanent record of your child now.

At the moment the NHS list is being used to produce a mailing list for the purpose of bringing the admissions process to the attention of parents who might not understand that they have to apply now if they want a school place for next year. But the education part of the LA isn't supposed to retain this data or use it for any other purposes, I don't think.

However, if you respond at this stage, then you're bringing yourself to their attention, they may make a permanent record and may follow up to request more details of your child's education.

I think that is how it usually works. It's how it worked with my kids anyway. We applied for a school place for the eldest, then when one was offered we turned it down. The LA wanted to know exactly where she was going and was not content with my vague replies of "private education". They did extract from me the fact that we were going to HE, so I was stuck corresponding with them about that child in the following years. On the other hand, when my younger child was three we received the standard letter inviting us to apply for a school place, which we disregarded and never heard from them again.

Unfortunately I think we've missed the 'fly below the radar' boat. My son was diagnosed with ASD a few months ago and we see an early years therapist a couple of hours a week. She keeps nagging me about applying for school places and 'have you reconsidered...?'
I always feel a little awkward having the conversation, but not awkward enough to change my mind!!

that Saracen, she speaks good sense.

Thanks ommmward.

Gracie, it's still worth hoping you could remain unknown. My 5yo has had lots of services including speech therapy, OT and PT and remains unknown to the LA. The same is true of some other families I know. I don't think there are automatic mechanisms in place in most LAs to pass information on to the EHE department. I think it's just a question of whether individual professionals take it upon themselves to contact the EHE department. Obviously the more of them you see the higher the chances that someone will do that, but you may be lucky.

Good to know Saracen. Although I suspect we've already met those who would take it upon themselves to inform. One woman rings me on a regularly basis to ask if I've reconsidered enrolling him in school yet.