school admissions

[mumoverseas]

we are living abroad at the moment but want to return to the UK next summer and for DD to start in reception next September.
We own a property in the UK and have applied for a place for DD at the local school. Apparently we find out on or after 1st April but really need to give notice to leave here before then.
I've just checked and the school is 0.2 miles away. I've heard so much about how oversubscribed good schools are and how difficut it is to get a place but bearing in mind the distance, do you think we have a good chance?

Is the house currently let to tenants, or do you have evidence in the form of council tax bills, electoral roll etc...
And if you have tenants, do they have school-aged children who might already be using your address?
0.2 miles sounds close, but it depends on how many classes the school has, and how many of their intake will be siblings.

Hi clam, no, have never let it, have owned it for 17 years, pay all bills, on electoral roll etc.
I think it has 3 classes in reception year so we are quite hopeful but I'm new to all this as DC1 and 2 went private
Sounds quite hopeful though?

Sounds like it, although pr47bridge (?) and admissions are the people to advise best. They might pop up shortly.
The only thing is, you need to flag up your existence in order for the LEA to send you the forms. It used to be based on GP records (long time ago), but am not sure now. Lots of LEAs do on-line admissions, so google their website and check.

Sorry, just re-read your post and see that you have already applied and are waiting to hear. Good luck.

Not if the local authority hear you are not resident at your UK address; you will only be eligible to apply from your UK addres when you actually live there.

We are registered at the local doctors and dentists and do live in the house for part of the year. We are obviously 'in the system' as they sent us the forms in September. Last year we were there for part of February, March and June and the whole of July, August and part of September and again in December and January.
This year we were there January, June to September continuous and then a few weeks in October and November. It is arguable therefore whether we are resident or not? I could understand them being a bit funny about it if we hadn't lived there for years but we are there probably at least 4 full months a year, if not longer.

Dunno. Do they have to know?

Hi again mumoverseas, I don't want to worry you, but it depends completely on the particular catchment area you fall into.

Where we live we're fine, there's no competition for places and DD was accepted into a school not just outside our catchment area but outside our LEA (keeping fingers firmly crossed for DS this year). On the other hand I've got friends who applied for a school two streets away (5 min walk) who didn't get a place because of the incredibly high demand.

As another poster said, talk to the admissions department. They'll let you know how over/ under subscribed the school was last year and the forecast for this year. If it's looking tight, book an appointment to take your DD to look round the school and make sure you meet the Head. If it comes to it, Heads seem to have a bit of discretion, even if they say they don't.

Good luck!

Heads have no say over admissions in the state system. None at all. LEAs are under huge pressure, quite rightly, to apply the admission criteria scrupulously fairly. Imagine the outcry if there was any "discretion" being applied.

The LA will have to apply the admission criteria exactly as stated in their booklet. The most important bit is that it will state that the offer of places in based on you being in residence on the date the places are offered.
The LA have obviously got your address as the one that is 0.2 miles away from the school in question, so they are making an assumption that you live there. Different LAs do different things about residency but it is by no means unusual for them to send people to check whether people are residence, if they have any doubts.
Based on what you have said in your 2 posts your current place of residency is wherever you are abroad, because that is where you spend the majority of the time during the school week. (that is how all LAs will decide on residency when there is dual addresses involved.)
If the LA finds out that you are actually abroad most of the time, then they could remove the place and you will then have to accept whatever other school place is available after all others have been allocated places.
I would suggest that you need to be in residence by the date of the places being offered to be sure of not running foul of the system and preferably not then going abroad again for extended periods.
As far as the school is concerned, if you look on the LA admission information on the web there is an admission booklet which has all the schools in it and information about how many pupils were admitted last year and what admission criteria was used for the last admission. Whilst nothing is certain from one year to the next, that should give you a good indication of where you stand on the probability of getting offered a place

I can't tell you about your case but we were living abroad. I was moving back. Had flights booked etc and moving straight into my mum's house. We were not allowed to apply until such time we were able to prove resident status. It took us 3.5 weeks to get the kids into school. It was only when they had found us the place that we had to show proof of address so if it was me and I had a property that I wasn't letting out I think I would apply with that address and then if they query it I'd still have paper work that I could show.

Thanks for all your comments, admission, yours was particularly useful. Am tring to find the admission informationw now.

So difficult knowing what to do. DD is happy at the moment and doesn't want to leave her friends but she misses big brother and sister who are already settled back in the UK. DH has to give at least 3 months notice so its such a huge step. Its looking though like I may have to return earlier than planned and just hope DD gets a place.

To be honest, it never really occured to us there may be a problem with regards to our 'residence' as I have never given up my UK residency and adopted residence abroad. DH has, he did it before we met but I never have. Wonder if it will come down to whether we are domiciled or habitually resident

You seem to be confused between Resident for tax purposes and resident for school admissions. They are separate issues, your tax status does not give you rights with respect to school admissions.

However in some areas schools are not hugely over subscribed, in others 0.2 miles might be too far away.

Are you going to move back to the UK whatever? Why are your other children at UK schools? If you are going to come back to the UK in the next 5 years, it could be much easier to get your child into your desired school at the start of reception rather than later.

Good luck.

Agree with admission and mummytime. Tax status and the like are of no interest in determining school admissions. The only thing that matters to the LA is whether or not you are actually permanently living at the address given at the time the offers are made. Some LAs go further than that and may require you to be living at the address for a few months before the offer date. Check what it says in the LA's admissions booklet which you should be able to find on their website.

If the LA believe you have obtained a place fraudulently they can take the place away even after your daughter starts school. I would therefore advise you not to take any risks. I would think about moving back as soon as possible even if your husband remains abroad for a while.

With respect, although I appreciate your responses, I hardly think we have applied fraudulently. We were sent the information and application forms without applying for them as clearly in the system and have completed and answered all questions honestly. There is nothing on the form that asks whether we live there permanently. Where do you draw the line? What about people who go on extended holidays?

mummytime eldest children in UK schools because A) A levels offered abroad were not suitable for eldest and B) wanted to get other child settled back in the UK without the possibility of distruption before/during GCSEs due to uncertainty of DHs job.

We applied for places(R and Yea 3) while living abroad , using our UK address. The LA were more than happy to correspond via our overseas address.

Lizs really, that is very interesting (you really do know everything about schools in my area) Help me fathom this one out, I have (eventually) found the document that prh and others very helpfully referred me to but I really don't understand something on it
It says about how many places for the school last year, ie xx places, how many offered, ie xx places, how many refusals zz and then has another column headed 'oversubscription point at allocation date' and then a figure which is along the lines of 123.12 underneath 'out of area'.

It appears that one requires a degree in educational jargon to understand all this

Also, I just remembered that when we viewed the school last summer they knew we were abroad a lot of the time as they made us a special appointment to view when it wasn't normally 'viewing time' and they seemed to have no issue with it

blardy hell, looks like just under 100 children in reception! Is that normal?
I assume that you don't therefore have to invite the whole class/year to DC's party then Where we are now (temporarily/ad hoc etc) it appears that the whole class is invited

Bear in mind we came under a different LA , just. No idea about the figures. Surely they can't allocate more places than their maximum intake ie 3 classes of 30. Oversubscription may be the total number of applications made in any order of preference

sorry, I probably explained that badly. It said the number of places available and obviously the full amount were offered and it appears (on my crap figures) that 23% didn't get places.

might be getting the tape measure out at the flagpole again

I think if I were you I would move back to the UK with your child now and live in your house, your husband could then join you later in the year.

Know a local primary used to send round the vicar to call at people's houses during the evenings to check people were properly resident; they had so many people trying to rent properties to get into catchment.

Would have thought the key dates for living in the house would be:

Date you submit the application;
Period between application and notification of school place (you would be told to notify changes i.e. you are living abroad);
Period between being awarded school place and starting school.

Thanks LL, a lot to think about. Problem is, me returning permanently now has a lot of knock on effects on DH and eldest two DC.
I had no idea it could all be this complicated and am a little surprised that the school didn't mention this when we visited at the begining of the summer.

Right, DC4 awake so he calls

Did you actually tell the school you were living abroad? If you just said I live in X road or my address is X, you wouldn't expect them to say are you actually living there?

However, if they do know the situation then they are colluding to get a nice middle class pupil (not unheard of) but it probably means you will be less likely to get caught.

mumoverseas - You have misunderstood me. I did not say your application was fraudulent. My words were "if the LA believe you have obtained a place fraudulently". They can come to that conclusion even if your application was not fraudulent if they believe they have evidence that you are not actually living at your address in the UK. That is why, if it were me, I would be looking to move back to the UK as soon as possible.

The fact that you have been sent information and application forms without requesting them is irrelevant. That just means that the LA assume that you live there. If the LA conclude that you do not in fact live at the address you have given on your application form, the fact that you are on the electoral roll and paying council tax and other bills will be irrelevant.

If you look at the information you were sent and/or on the LA's website, you will probably find that it contains phrases like "the child's usual home address" and "permanent home address" in relation to the address that parents should put on the form. Picking one LA entirely at random, Camden say that the application must be based on the address "at which the child usually lives" and that "your child's permanent home address on the closing date of 15 January 2011 will be used to determine the distance to school". So what matters in Camden is your child's permanent home address on 15th January. You may believe that your UK address is your child's permanent home address. The question is whether the LA would agree with that interpretation. Of course, your LA may have different rules.

Read the information you received from the LA carefully and see what it says about the address you should use.

Ladylapsang yes, were very clear with the school what our situation was and they sent us paperwork/prospectus etc to our overseas address and arranged a private tour when DH was able to take time off work to return to UK.

prh sorry, you misunderstood me, I didn't say you said the application was fraudlent (if that makes sense) there were just a few comments about fraud and wanted to make it clear that this was not the case.

It does sound very odd that the school were very happy to make arrangements for us to see them outside normal times and were very aware that we were temporarily abroad if in fact they should have advised us that we had to be actually permanently resident.

DH did the application so will check with him with regards to all the paperwork.