Moving to Oxford from the US

[BessFromTheUS]

Hi all! I read an older post about areas of town and schools, but I wanted to start another. We are moving in late summer to Oxford for my husband to go to graduate school. Coming from the US, I am perplexed by the difficulty getting my daughter into primary school. We will live in Jericho, so I applied for St. Barnabus. Since we were late, we did not get in. My other choices were not available either. My daughter would just be in foundation, as she is 4. Are there any other options for me? We are on a student's budget, which means we can't afford to pay for school!
Thanks in advance for your help!

If your application was late, then you're in a really hard situation.
I would make sure you're on the schools waiting lists.
Depending when daughter's birthday is, you could hold out and hope for a place in January.
Have you been offered a place at any school??

Have you appealed the lack of place with the Oxfordshire County Council. They have to offer her a place somewhere. I would also apply for a transfer to start in January.

I moved here from the US when my son was 3, he's 5 now but goes to a private school so I'm no help there. Phil & Jim's is the other state school I know about, it's in Summertown. Otherwise, it is a complicated situation and St. Barnabas is a popular school and probably difficult to get into. Even if you were on time with your application you may not have gotten in. Like choc said, you will have to appeal to the council. I think you'll find the process a lot more frustrating than in the US, I certainly did. On the plus side, Oxford is a fun place to live! Good luck.

I don't really know the answer to this one but wanted to say hello Are you likely to be working too? My impression is that the home education sector in Oxford is pretty busy, so you might be able to work things out that way if it's of interest - maybe sharing some education time with other parents??

I would ring a support person at your husband's college and see if they have any advice.

Did you try for St Ebbes as well - easy cycle ride from Jericho? It's popular too (and very lovely) so I would imagine that's not much help. Botley primary school on Elms Road would be a bit of a hike but not TOO bad, but unfortunately there's a reason it might have places - it had a bad inspection 2 years ago. I don't think it's so terrible - the facilities are good although it's close to a major road which is not great. Might be worth a look.

I can thoroughly recommend ds's school but unfortunately it's also fairly chocka at the moment. If you want to know more about it, do contact me via the link at the bottom (top? somewhere) of the page.

You can go on a witing list for a place at any of your chosen schools; people do move relatively frequently, so a place might come up before September. But it might not. Oxford primaries have been over-full for some time, although the LEA have been trying to increase capacity. have you been offered a place elsewhere in the city?
Other options: not sure if you're going to be working as well, so will make a difference

1. Keep daughter at home: foundation year is entirely non-educational (mainly about socialising!). there are loads of child-friendly activities going on in and around Oxford, so needn't be socially isolated
2. Children don't have to be in school until 5; nurseries will keep them until then. Depending on which college your partner is going to be attached to, you may be able to get subsidised nursery time at the college nursery. University also has nursery places.

Older thread, sorry, but keep yourself on the waiting list for ALL schools which you are interested in - places could open up at any time as families move about.

We had to wait five months for the council to allocate us a school place in Year 1. The system simply isn't set up to cope with people who move into the area and are unfamiliar with how schooling works in the UK.

I should add that I'm only counting that five month period from the day we put our child's name on the list directly with both individual schools and the council. It excludes the earlier period when we wrote to them as soon as we knew we were moving to Oxford and the schools just didn't bother to reply to e-mails. Not to this day even. So much for equality of access to education and so on. The local county council website blurb is also quite discouraging about home schooling, which would be one thing if they were able to provide formal places in less than five months to people who didn't know at conception that their family would be in Oxford by Year 1.

We've recently moved back to Oxford so I know a bit about how things work; you cannot apply to schools directly, you have to fill a form stating 3 schools in order of preference and send it to the council. They then try and get you in your first choice school, if not then second, etc. If you can't have any of your three choices, they still have to offer you a school place somewhere in Oxford (and possibly provide transport to it if it is far). They may not let you know till the school year has nearly started, though.
You never know, a place might become available last minute at your first choice school - Oxford is a very transient place, people come and go all the time.

Foundation stage is particularly difficult as places get allocated well in advance, but still - there have to be some places out there!

As your daughter is 4 she could go to nursery instead, whilst you apply for places for next year. All of the Oxford Colleges have good nurseries which are heavily subsidised, so if you haven't already, do ask at your college for assistance