Ex refuses to agree to DD’s choice of big school - school starts in 3 days

[NooNooMummy]

Please help!!! How do I help DD? Will local authority listen to her if she can advocate for herself? How can she?

It’s 3 days til school starts.
Agreed a court order last year that set out which schools we agree to apply to. (I went along with it to avoid trouble from ex). Offered a place at DD’s favourite, some friends going there etc etc. it’s v pro-girl and they’ve been v supportive. Accepted the offer, DD super excited. She also has a full bursary for a really, lovely non-state school but DD’s not as keen on it.

Another offer arrived from the school that is set out on the state-school application form as our 1st preference, and ex insists that DD go there. Spent whole summer faffing about in court and told, with an apology, that it’s too late to change the earlier order. DD is distraught.

Ex has weaponised this whole situation for the last 2 years (amongst other things since DD was 2). CAFCASS found him to be coercively controlling and noted the impact on DD’s emotional wellbeing of this abuse. He’s chosen to have minimal involvement in DD’s life other than causing trouble like this for us. Have an upcoming hearing for a non-mol, which I should have done years ago.
But what can I can do right now for DD?

Yes, I know. But when it’s through the actions of an abusive ex, is that right or fair?

Seems so unfair, someone who isn't dad of the year has most say about the school, especially as he will have nothing to do with getting DD there etc. and only sees her 2 days a month. Never mind how much the abuse to her mum will have impacted her

How about ‘the very good reason’ being that it’s only because her controlling arse of a father wants her to go to a school to spite his ex wife?

…she did express her wishes to CAFCASS who recorded it in their section 7 report.

Given the original court order agreed the ranking of the schools, and OP went along with it, this isn’t going to wash.

You need @prh47bridge who might be able to offer some advice until you can speak to your solicitor tomorrow. He may know what the potential consequences would be if you sent your DD to the school your ex objects to. There is a risk if you send her there that if there is still a place available at your ex’s choice, your DD might be forced to change schools.

Am I correct that the local authority has agreed to keep both school places open for now so your DD has the option to go to either choice?

Why do you and your DD not want her to go to your ex’s first choice? Why does he object to the second choice school?

What an absolute selfish arse he is. I don't feel I understand the Court situ so I won't advise, but in the long term he is sabotaging his relationship with his daughter to point score.
She will remember this for life and you'll both have learnt some valuable lessons about covering your bums for A' Levels and other things he might have PR for.

That’s where we are. Hence my question about what else I can do

Well nothing - you’ve tried the legal
route. It didn’t work. She needs to start, and as I suggested before, give it a really good chance - this will need you to big it up, point out the good things, the clubs etc etc. Give her the tools to cope and be positive. Then re-evaluate once she has been there a while.

I don't think there's much you can do. No1 school is expecting her, exh has pressed the button and the court decided, with all the info including DD pref, to go with that school as no1. You've tried to get this changed and they've said no. So not much you can do.
I suspect the other school will have now released the place anyway.
Try to make the best of it and offer her an option to switch later if it doesn't work out. She will be old enough soon to say she doesn't want any contact and then you can go back to court

Let this be the lesson! You cannot rely on an abusive ex to do the right thing for their child/ be reasonable at any time. And don’t fail to get a non-mol when advised to do so - I wish I had now.

Can you go back to court? How horrible of him, I doubt she'll want to spend any time at all with him after this. Surely a court should listen to an 11 year old?

I hear you. Trying to be positive like that is how it ended up as No1 on ‘our’ list of preferences.

Horrible. What a coercive monster.

I say this as a mother who has been through a lot of court shite with a controlling ex, at 12 ds stopped wanting to attend contact, found myself being threatened with change of residence when he was 14 due to claims of parental alienation which were entirely unfounded. The stress of this fucked us both up really badly. OP your instincts are correct that you need to tread carefully and the consequences of you simply breaching this court order could potentially be quite severe. Family court judges particularly hate mothers who don’t do what they have explicitly been told to do, even when what they’ve been told to do is actually impossible. I feel like they would come down on you quite heavily.

your child needs to speak up with her dad, that is simply a fact now I’m afraid and it’s a terrible thing to have to put on a child, but if she only speaks through you, you are going to put yourself in a situation where people say you are influencing her

I think part of the thing about being in family court proceedings is that your agency as a parent gets overridden and it’s so hard, you want to protect her from disappointment but actually you have the legal system taking that power out of your hands

In reality, I think the best thing you can do is help her accept the disappointment, try to make the best of it, and as someone else said, prepare to potentially take it back to court if she really isn’t happy there. You do not want this getting weaponised against you, things could escalate if you just ignore the order. If you had the sort of child who would simply refuse to attend the school they didn’t want to go to It might be easier in a way but it doesn’t sound like this is what your daughter is like.

I’m sorry, it’s shit and horrible, but in this instance I would recognise that your ex has probably won this particular round and try to make peace with it and think about potentially moving around Christmas if necessary

How on earth did that get ignored for the preference order?

Does the judge thinks ‘Dad knows best’ ?

Quite possibly 😞

how a man who literally wants nothing to do with his daughter day to day can have the most say in the school she goes to is absolute madness…

Your DD needs to talk to her dad otherwise she’s going to a school that she doesn’t want to, make it quite clear to her that it is her Dad that is making her go, not you.

thankfully, it won’t be too long before your DD is an adult and he can’t use and control her. How horrific.

Given how close to term it is, I think you need to move and make this as positive an experience as possible for you daughter.

given you agreed to put in your preferences form at all means that you are reading about happy with the school itself, and form the sounding she would have been if more of her friends had gone there. The friends thing seems huge but in practice many many children don’t actually end up having that much to do with primary friends at secondary. New friendships kick in (which can be quite tricky if old friends move in) or being in different forms mean the friendship becomes effectively an out of school relationship.

it’s too late now to change - you need to lean into this school so that she heads off with as positive an attitude as possible.

Perhaps make sure, after all the to-ing and fro-ing, that the school is actually expecting her, and write to them to make very clear that your dd’s parents operate very separately so all communications need to be sent to both and no decisions taken unilaterally by him.

So if I understand ….

Dd lives with you 28/30 (31) days.

Your ex took you to court and insisted on an order of preference for applying to schools. Court agreed it.

You were offered a place at 4th choice school and accepted and remained in list for 3 preferred schools?

Place came up at 2nd preference which was subsequently accepted and DD wants to go there?

Remained on waiting lists and now a place has come up at school listed as 1st preference and so her dad has accepted that and court have said she has to attend?

In a world whereby Jolene can force a father to pay maintenance or adhere to court ordered contact how do they get to do this to their children just to assert control? I thought coercive control was now recognised as illegal?

Unfortunately whatever school has been accepted is the one you’ll have to send her to as it’s court ordered.

But I agree about applying to court to change school if she is really unhappy after a term.

I went to NYAS and they visited DD without parents present. Then submitted a report to court - which the judge takes into account.
Find your DD an advocate quickly, submit a report to court saying we went with dd choice of school. She's 11, a judge will listen.

Wasn’t the nyas report court ordered in the first place?
I don’t think you can go to them as a parent and get them to quickly speak to a child, my understanding is that it requires a court order to get them involved and then months of waiting for a guardian to be appointed.

eta- and then judge can ignore recommendations if they feel like it, just like they do with CAFCASS

No it wasnt court ordered. I self referred to ensure dd had a say in contact (not schools).

How you help your DD now is get incredibly enthusiastic about the school she’s going to in three days time.

It seems from your first post that you agreed the school choices with your ex and that was enshrined in a court order. The fact you agreed the choices to avoid trouble isn't relevant. What matters is that you did agree them and allowed them to be put into a court order. A place has now come up at the first choice school and the court has said you cannot change the agreed order now. Your daughter will have to attend the first choice school. She cannot attend her preferred school as she no longer has a place there and they almost certainly don't have a vacancy - her place will have gone to someone else.

You should do everything you can to help her with the transition. She will make new friends there. Even if she did go to the school she prefers, it is likely that, within a few weeks, she would have new friends and would have dropped many, if not all, of her primary school friends.

If she is still unhappy after the first term, you can think about applying to court to be allowed to transfer her to another school. But right now, you have no choice. The only place available to your daughter is the one at the school you agreed (albeit unwillingly) should be the first choice, so that is where she will have to go.