Just been told DS1 hasn't got a preschool place for January - what options do I have?

[firststeps]

We have been told they are not having a January intake as they took their full quota of children in September what other options do I have? Sorry if this is a daft question but I am a first timer!

Are there other preschools?

Hi Lou - yes there are, but we are just on the waiting list in case not all of the places are taken up. We have been told not to hold out much hope though as the places are usually all accepted. ROund here you are only allowed to register your child at 1 pre school nursery so all the other children will have been registered at their chosen school since they turned 2 which is what we did with DS.

Oh, I see. Sorry, where I live there is not a massive demand for preschool places, so no issues. Bumping for you.

It is a case of ringing around. I don't understand why you should only apply to one if a place isn't allocated straight away, unless they are wholly government funded or attached to schools. Privately run preschools, playgroups and nurseries don't normally operate that way and you may find a place comes up at one fo those where someone has hedged their bets Check out chilcarelink for alternatives or ring the LEA for a list of childminders if you feel the need to bridge the gap. Presumably he is still quite young ?

firststeps, we have just had the same thing happen. We're looking at a private preschool which does amazingly have places (they are usually very popular). DS was on the w/list from 18 months old and we are 3 streets away from the school. Gutting, really as it means we're unlikely to get him into the school either.

I would back up LizS about the ringing around. I was totally stuffed last May when my ds1 (who had been in preschool for a term and a half by this time) brought home a letter to say the preschool was closing, which left us with absolutely nowhere for him to go.

Anyway, although a lot of places said initially that they were full but then phoned back to say that an allocated place wasn't being taken up because the family had moved / changed their minds. So we got 3 sessions in the end.

Good luck.

hi
what area are you in? i know a day nursery that has a preschool with places.

I would also ring around, the same happened to us as missh, but thankfully they have opened up a pre school at DD's school, there were places at a few other nurseries but due to timing issues he couldn't go, so now he does 2 sessions a week there, and will do his 5 sessions a week when they get funding set up.

mrsgboring - if you're talking about a state school the admissions procedure for reception is totally separate. Unless your school admissions criteria specifically has something about kids in the preschool having priority, they usually don't.

We were in this position (there were 11 places between ds and a place), my choices were to travel further, to go for private nursery, hoping I could afford to up the days by summer term or not to bother.

Some one wise told me that whatever we did would be the right thing - and they were right!!

We ended up travelling further, but two days after accepting the place, our first choice offered us a place - so you never know.