Moving to Stoke Bishop

5 replies

poshdjc · 31/10/2011 11:16

We're a family of 4 currently in the process of buying a house in Stoke Bishop. I have two ds, one who will go to reception in Sept and the other is 10 months old. Obviously we can't apply for school places until we exchange contracts but does anyone know what the LEA are likely to do given that most of the schools in the area seem to be over-subscribed. Our closest school will be Elmlea.

Deborah

OP posts:

ApuskiDusky · 31/10/2011 11:30

Hi posh, we're not living in that area but very nearly bought there recently so looked into all of that. What date do you think your purchase will have happened by? If it's by the 15th Jan, then you will be able to apply in the same way as everyone else, choosing three schools in order of preference. It looks like you have to be really close to Elmlea to get in, but with what was St Ursulas (think it might now be called Brecon Road) being one of the options for the first time in that area, things should get a little easier.

If you can't get moved by 15th Jan, then it will become difficult - you'll be classed as a late application and end up on waiting lists. They might offer you Seamills, although that has ended up full last year as well I think.

Do everything you can to be in by mid Jan. Life will be much easier!

PosiesOfPoison · 31/10/2011 11:33

Elmlea is massively over subscribed.

CHST · 31/10/2011 11:46

Hi there, I thought I would tell you about my experience. My son started this year at Elmlea and we were very lucky. We were inbetween Stoke Bishop and Elmlea schools and the allocated areas shrank over 100m in one year. We were offered Stoke Bishop school which we were absolutely fine with. We had moved to Bristol in 2008 and started renting and agreed we would buy after we had got a school place as I had heard stories of people buying houses to get in schools but then were unsuccessful. I wanted to keep my options over. We looked for a house and looked in a pretty wide area but when it came down to it, I couldn't move out of my comfort zone and we settled on a house closer to Elmlea than we were before. We exchanged contracts last week of July and were literally offered a place at Elmlea a few days later. The offer was waiting for us when we moved in. I am so happy it all worked out for us, especially as we are now literally round the corner from Elmlea. I'm not sure what happens if you exchange before they allocate places whether you are considered as a late applicant or not but there was quite a lot of movement on the waiting list between first allocations and start of september. Two more came available in the second round, and then at least 4 on the waiting list after that. I think maybe the new academy helped that somewhat but hopefully it will ease things for this year too...

Original poster

poshdjc · 31/10/2011 13:55

Thanks for your experiences - its a crazy process isnt it?

Looks like we are going to exchange in the next week or so. So all we can do is apply and cross fingers and then blow a gasket sometime next year!. for the moment I'll just be glad to get in our house. its taken a year (with a new baby) to move from London.

OP posts:

ApuskiDusky · 31/10/2011 14:30

This is a really useful website, as it shows the furthest distance places were offered at in the first round of allocations last year. Bear in mind that Brecon Road was not included in this - so another 60 places became available there after allocations had been completed. So Elmlea furthest distance was 0.617km, and Stoke Bishop was 1.299km (which was a fair bit further than the year before, so don't rely on this).

HTH

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