No place at preschool - an admissions question

[MustHaveaVeryShortMemory]

So, dd (July birthday) has not been admitted to the local preschool as they are full even though her name has been down since she was a few months old. I'm told this is because children are admitted who have been on the waiting list longest. And as she is one of the youngest in the year she never stood a chance. Is this normal? Is there any way to appeal this?

Seems a little unfair to me. I feel she is already at a slight disadvantage by being one of the youngest and now see that there was never any chance of her being admitted to the pre school which joins the primary school she will attend.

Your thoughts???

Thanks.

So what answer do you want, another child not to get a place instead of your dd?

Talk to the pre-school, ask them where she is on the waiting list to gauge if anything might be possible. If it is supremely oversubscribed might they consider running more sessions?

You could suggest to the pre-school that in future perhaps a few days could be offered to all children rather than full time to those at the top of the waiting list.

If not find another nice preschool - primary school will sort itself out when she gets there.

Yes that would be ideal!

But what I really want to know is, is this common practice? Is it something I can appeal - in the way you can appeal a primary school place?

I have found another preschool but not entirely happy with it and wondering if I should revisit the original one.

Can't you go for the next intake where she will be top of the list?

The school only has one intake a year so there are unlikely to be any places available before she starts school in September.

Just seems a bit odd to me.

I would sooner have a lottery system than 'if you're born between June and August you've got no chance of a place and there's nothing you can do about it'.

Wonder how other oversubscribed preschools manage this problem.

Suppose I could hold her back a year to get into the local pre school. Seems quite an extreme method to use as being the only way to get her in at the local pre school.

Our preschool works the same way. It is decided on time on the waiting list. In my experience this doesn't disadvantage children who are summer born, but does give an advantage to siblings whose parents knew to put their child down early. So we have a huge amount of first time parents who didn't realise they had to put their children down early who miss out.

We discuss every year if there is a fairer way to do it but to be honest it is really hard. Some places do it by date of birth, which definitely excludes summer born children. A lottery system is very hard to do fairly - and especially to prove you are doing it fairly.

Last year we decided to do it by time on waiting list but then limit to the free 15 hours (except exceptional circumstances). It seemed the fairest way to go. I'd be interested if anyone has a better way of doing it though.

How I wish we had that problem! Our pre-school is very lovely but we are really struggling to fill sessions.

Seems some areas are under subscribed and others are over.

I'm the administrator at our pre-school and our policy is to admit in date of birth order. But there truely isn't an easy answer to how to go about admitting children. We had to tell people in May that their child wouldn't get a space in Sept as there just wasn't the space. Some parents weren't happy but quite what they expect us to do I don't know! Unfortunately some pre-schools are more popular than others and your child may not get a place. It must be really annoying and I do appreciate that people take a lot of time choosing a pre-school but what I don't like is being had a go at because we have no space. I have had a few parents do this.

You can't appeal the decision. not really. We had someone right to the manager and committee to complain and we just wrote a letter saying that whilst we appreciate the disappointment we can do nothing about it and stated once again our admissions policy.

I suppose the only other thing you could do is contact Ofsted but I don't think you'd get far.

Your best bet would be to contact the pre-school to see where you are on the waiting list and stress that if a space comes available you would like to be contacted. I did this for one of the people who complained we didn't have space in Sept and as it happens a space has come up to start in Jan so she was very happy to take it up.

Pre-school admissions are tricky to sort out. It'd be lovely to fit everyone in but Ofsted do limit how many children you can have and there are also various rules for allowing spaces for emergency cases blah blah blah.

It's a nightmare!!

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences.

We are 7th on the waiting list! OFSTED wouldn't be interested unless I first wrote an official letter of complaint and was then unhappy with the response.

You're right camdancer, parents in the know register their children the week they are born. I thought a few months old was more than soon enough.

Still, I suspect that by being a summer birthday she never really had a chance of getting in.

I'm told that some children may leave in April if they don't get into the school (not all are in the catchment area for the school!) and a place may be available then.

Thanks again, I don't think there's an easy solution but would love to hear from anyone who thinks their method is fair.

I'm not sure there is a fair way, there isn't enough Pre-School provision and because the funding is o low and paperwork so daunting very few people want to set more up.

When the provision for economically disadvantaged 2 year-olds is extended then there will be a further squeeze. What I can see happening then is that these 2 year-olds will 'jump the queue' and there won't be room for the less economically disadvantaged children at 3 which really won't please those on middle incomes.

For us it works on application date, distance from the pre-school and if any siblings went there or to the attached school recently.xx

How odd - I assumed it was all done on distance [naive emoticon].

I'm a preschool administrator.

I chop my waiting list for each year into 3, based on when children are eligible for a funded place. So this year I have a September 2010 sub-list, a January 2011, April 2011 and then September 2011 and so on.

I put children on the relevant sub-list depending on when they are eligible for their funded place. So if your child's 3rd birthday is today, 16th November, they would go on the January 2011 sub-list.

I then sort each of these sub-lists by registration date, i.e. who has been on the waiting list longest.

If the committee decide we can take 30 children, I take the top 10 off each sub-list. This means that we don't disadvantage summer-born children.

Obviously, the drawback is that no.11 on the January sub-list might have been on the waiting list for longer than number 3 or 4 on the April sub-list. And then no, it's not really fair. But as I think Eddas says in her post, there's not really a way that is guaranteed to be fair to everyone. I feel that the way I do it gives everyone a fair crack at it, irrespective of when in the year they turn 3.

But if it's any consolation, in my experience, waiting lists change shape very frequently. Often, people who put their name down a long time ago move, or change their work patterns, or some other thing that means they don't take up their place.