Anyone moved area/changed school after Reception?

[DontLurkNow]

Probably going to have to move out of the area in a year or so, but very worried about whether we'll get a school place nearby. Dd currently in Reception.

Has anyone done this?

Might be worth posting on forces seethearts topic as they move fairly often, I know that at least one child in DD's reception class will be moving on this year.

yes, we do it all the time. dd1 is in yr 6 in her fifth school. you just have to plan as far in advance as you can and visit schools you think might be suitable if you can.

the other two are only in their 2nd and 3rd schools, so not quite as bad (but they are younger lol). we'll be moving again next year.

all military families do this. it's not that unusual.

lol 5, x post.

Thanks very much Five and Nick. Five schools by Year 6 is pretty impressive. I did wonder about forces families. I thought perhaps you might get priority or something because of the nature of the job. Do you just have to take your chances with the LEA like everyone else every time you move?

Schools round here mostly very oversubscribed.

we just to have to take our chances the same as everyone else, and never get told of a posting in time to fit in with the standard allocations system...

it's always a bit of a gamble, but so far it has worked out ok.

dd2 is statemented as well, so we have to take our chance with waiting lists for therapies/ assessments too.

but visit as many as you can. they can usually hold a place from 6 weeks before the end of the summer term, so if they have a space at the end of june....

Thanks Nick. That sounds very hard. Thank you very much for the reassurance. I scared myself by reading some old threads on here where people seemed to be saying that moving after Reception was the worst possible thing you could do to your child...

really? dd1 is still top of the class and has loads of friends... i think if you have a child who struggles with change (like dd2 ) it's a bit harder, but most kids are fairly resilient.

even dd2 copes quite well now. it's just about preparing them for what will hapeen and talking it through. we try to let them visit the school in advance of the new placement so they at least have something to focus on. i always check out local out-of-school stuff too - dance/ swimming/ whatever they like, so they know there are lots of cool things to look forward to.

That all sounds good. The thing that was worrying me, and what the poster on the other thread mentioned, was the possibility that there might be no places at all available at any of the reasonably near schools. Have you ever had to use a school that was a long way from where you were posted?

There is a difference between forces children moving school because of posting and others. Whilst it does not say in the admission code that they must be given a place it does say that the LA must allocate school places in advance if accompanied by an official government letter.
As such most appeal panels take a very lenient view over such situations and will admit where-ever possible.
However I do not believe this is the situation for you Don'tLurkNow and if the school is full you will have to go to appeal. The probability is that as a year 1 child that Infant Class Size Regs will be relevant and as such you will have only a very small chance of appealing successfully - the law will simply not allow panels to admit, no matter how good a case you have.
Sorry to be pessimistic but you need to be realistic.

We moved a few months ago when DS was coming to the end of Year 1. I had a spreadsheet of schools in the area we were moving to, and looked at Ofsted reports as a first guide although that only discounted a few.

Then emailed all the schools left on the list to ask about available places. I felt there was no point in applying to a school that was full given there were others nearby that weren't.

I then came up here on two occasions and visited schools that had spaces. Combined that with finding a house and we moved to a school with places for both DS and DD (who starts reception tomorrow).

Was hard work but worth it. I did find looking at schools first better than houses first. The secretary at one school I visited said that some people turn up the day after they've moved and assume a place will be there - I think this would be rather risky.

That's very helpful, thanks Noah and admission.

It's all a bit of a nightmare as we are going to need to move soon but are priced out of the area we currently live in. Have phoned a few schools in cheaper but still commutable places but so far all have said that they are full with waiting lists. Will have to widen our search. It's going to have to be a big spreadsheet.

admission - never used that system. no idea it existed, but suspect it only says you have to have a school place, not one at the nearest school/ school of your choice. they aren't going to ignore PAN for a few military brats. they are now tracking military kids through the system with a marker so that schools and leas know where they are/ how many, byut i think that only started last year. if schools haven't got a place, they haven't got a place, whether you are military or not.

i once had the kids in 3 different settings (one at each end of large town, and one across the county border) so the school run was a bit more complex, but the nearest schools were either full or not suitable, so we were pleased with where they ended up. sometimes you have to think outside of the box a bit.

it's easier to get a year 1 place than yr r usually (like rocking horse dung if you're out of the normal applications sustem) and it obviously gets easier as they get older (save secondary admission, which we'll be at with dd1 - should be applying in a month or so, except we have no idea whre in the world we'll be. ) we should move in august, but won't know where (which country, let alone county or town until about easter, when all the secondary places will be allocated. ah well, no point stressing over it yet!

hope it works out for you x

You can appeal for a place at a school following a move, LEA told me that this was good grounds, if you have just moved into the area. So even if the school is full you may get a place. Worth doing as it can help children to settle if they can go to a school in the community in which they live, as opposed to having to travel miles from their home.

I've been surpirsed at how much movement there is at dd's school. 3 children left her reception class of 30 in July and have been replaced by 3 new ones in her now year 1 class. The other class in the year lost 4 and has replaced them. The school is hugely over subscribed and lots of people who have managed to get these spaces wouldn't have got a reception place.

Thanks everyone. Now it seems a little less desperate. The logistics are still bewildering me a bit though. If you phone a school before you move, presumably they won't hold a place for you if you don't currently have an address nearby? So you just have to hope that a place will still be available once you've moved?

Yes, you'll need an address to apply for a place, as the waiting list is held in admission priority order which (after LAC, special need and siblings) is usually on the basis of distance to school. If you apply from your old address, you'll probably be low down the list but will move up once your address nearby is confirmed.

You can also check what your LEA's Fair Access Protocol says about moving into the area after YR admissions time. Usually, it only says that you will be helped to find a place at the nearest school with a vacancy, but it's certainly worth checking in case they go further than that.

What Admission says about appeals is spot-on. If it's an infant class size appeal (ie class size is 30 and the class size rules apply) then the scope for winning an appeal is very limited. The panel may well sympathise with your situation, but they can't order your child to be admitted as the 31st child unless (broadly speaking) there has been some serious error on the LEA's part.

Thanks. Infants is up to year 2 yes? So if we were able to hang on here until the end of year 2 (a big if admittedly) would we have a better chance of getting a place?

Oh, and LEAs have now taken over the job of dealing with casual and in-year admissions, so you need to speak to them about where the spaces are, rather than individual schools (unless they're foundation schools which manage their own admissions).

I mean is it generally easier to get a place in year 3+ than in yrs 1 and 2?

sorry x-posts - that is useful to know, thanks.

Yes, it's easier (to some degree) to get a place in Y3 onwards because infant class size rules won't apply.

You would probably (I guess) find that the LEA will still not be enthusiastic about admitting a 31st child to any Y3/4/5/6 class - especially if other local schools have vacancies nearby - and undeniably there will be issues about space/capacity etc, but you may still be able to convince them to offer your child a place. The real difference, suspect, is if you take the matter to appeal. Because the ICS rules won't be relevant, the appeal panel will have a freer hand to order your child to be admitted, if you can persuade them that the prejudice to your child in not being admitted to your preferred school is greater then the prejudice to the school through admitting her.

It's just occurred to me that a lot may depend simply on the year the child was born and whether they happened to be part of a "birth surge", which unfortunately I think mine probably was. However will try not to get too pessimistic about it. Thanks everyone for all the advice.

DLN,
You are correct certainly around my area current year 1 is a bulge year, whereas current reception year is not quite a big.

Any admission appeal for year3 onwards is always going to be easier than infant classes because the ICS Regs preclude the appeal panel from offering places in most instances. That is not to say that you will definitely get a place because it depends on so many other factors.