my dd didnt get into any of preffered schools and was offered place in very crapy school,please help,what to do?

[helenbicari]

Hi, I just received letter from school addmission and my dd not only didnt get into first choice school, she didnt get into any preffered schools and was offered placel in the worst school in our borough,Im soo upset, crying all day as i made all the effort,even moved closer to the school and missed the place by 0.018 mil. the school she got place offered is over a mile from my house and i have a sick husband, who has a back problem, one year old baby and cant drive,so i really dont know how would i manage to take her there every day,cos my husband cant help either with walking her there or looking after the baby. im going to appeal for the school, but can anyone give me some tips, how to build a strong case, cos i dont know if what i just has described will be enough. also im thinking to contact MP and if nothing helps, im gonna home school her until she gets place in a good school. do you think thats a good idea? i just dont want her to go to that school, the ofsted is 3 and i just really hate that school

As well as appealing, makes sure that your daughter is on the waiting list and keep in touch with the school of your choice so that they know how much you want your dc to go there.

There is still 5 months to go before September and so there may well be children dropping out before the start of term or even in the autumn term. If you live in an area with lots of private schools you may find that parents are holding on to a state school place until the last possible moment but will be giving it up to go private

If there are children in the school who live in villages outside of the catchment, then you are more entitled than them if they could actually go to their own local school.

Our primary is very popular with parents from nearby villages but who do actually have their own village school. Our school secretary said that although it's never happened, theoretically, the child from the village could be asked to leave.

So you could get someone to double check that.

agree with crystalglasses. we moved house after the cut off date for school applications when dd was due to start. came to new area with her not having a place anywhere but i was amazed by how much movement there was on the waiting list. dd was 9th and did get a place in the end at the 1st choice school.

Agree also with other posters. Don't panic, loads of movement between now and September. Keep in touch with the schools and the LEA. For my son it was a case of waiting to see who didn't turn up (we arrived in the country late). Some children don't turn up. The LEA system doesn't always take children off of waiting lists when they have been placed in another school. Good luck

Agree with the others who say don't panic & go on the waiting list for the preferred school. However, one mile is not far to walk to school and I can't see a reason why you can't put the baby in a buggy and walk - surely you would have done this for your child if it were your preferred school?

It's likely you are near the top of a waiting list so just sit tight and see what happens. No reason you can't walk a mile each way though

Personally I wouldn't contact your MP. They cannot get you admitted to a school that is already full. Only the appeal panel has the authority to do that.

You are probably at or very near the head of the waiting list so you have a decent chance of getting in anyway.

If you want to appeal you could try using your husband's back condition and argue that it wasn't possible to take your child to a school one mile away but I doubt you would be successful. The first question is whether or not this is an infant class size case. If the school would have classes of 30 children in Reception, Y1 or Y2 if it was full your appeal would be infant class size. That means you should only win if you can show that a mistake has been made and your daughter would have been admitted if they'd got it right.

If it is not infant class size you have a better chance. You will have to show that the prejudice to your daughter through not being admitted outweighs the prejudice to the school through being forced to admit an extra pupil. To do this you need to look for features of your preferred school that are particularly useful for your daughter and which are missing in the allocatetd school. Don't talk negatively about the allocated school. That won't help your appeal and may damage it.

Arguments based on transport or child care difficulties rarely win appeals I'm afraid.

Firstly OP, a mile is not a problem for a fit and healthy 4yo to walk each way.

Secondly, Ofsted of 3 is not unusual these days - my DCs' junior and secondary schools both were rated satisfactory in the last 12 months and I am very happy with both.

Are you basing "crappy" on the Ofsted alone or are there other problems? Have you viewed the school? If not, you may be pleasantly surprised.

WRT appeals, Pr47 talks sense as ever

I know that walking shouldnt be such a problem, but still why shall i walk that far to a bad school if i have outstanding school just round the corner? if it was a good school, id walk even 2 miles, but this school is just not worth it. its not just ofsted, i used to go there to children centre and right from the begining i didnt like the school, before i even read the ofted. Also the school has got a very bad reputation and no one wants to put their children there. it was even in a local paper that the school needs a big improvement.The first choice school is briliant and very very close to my house, the problem is half of the places was offered to the siblings this year. I try not to panic, but its hard, cos my daughter likes to go to nursery and loves to socialise so the idea of her being home another year is very sad, but there is no way im gonna put her to that school. I really hope that some children will drop of,i already instructed my hubby to put her on waiting list for the school and plan to go to school just to get some more info about the chnaces of her gettin there.

Okay, so the distance to the school is completely irrelevant if you'd happily walk twice the distance for a good school. In your OP you said you didn't know how you'd manage to get there and back, which isn't actually true.

No-one is criticising your disappointment, we're just saying don't bother including the "mile to school" thing in any appeal letter, because a mile is hardly anything.

Sounds like you have a good plan for the rest of it, though. And do listen to prh47, he is smart.

No it isnt completely irrelevant cos it would be very hard for me, its actually more then mile and quite difficult way and also i actually move house just to be closer to that school so i dont have to walk far and made sure i was in catchment area. anyway i will base the appeal on something better then just long walk.thanks for tips guys, im just trying to get my daughter to the best school cos thats what we all want after all.

It's not a 'problem' that the school offered sibling places. If you get your dd in there you will want the baby to follow her won't you?

If you do have to take her, the walk will not be a problem. A miles is not far at all and will take about 25 minutes at a 4 year old's pace. Our nearest school is a mile. Everyone walks. Even with a pushchair.

Secondly, you can keep your daughter in nursery until she's five, so you could go on the waiting list for the new school, but she'll behind when she gets there.

It's this bit "if it was a good school, id walk even 2 miles" that made me say that the distance was irrelevant. If you'd walk it for a good school, you can walk it for a bad one. And I'm not unsympathetic, by the way; I live in a steep, rural area with no pavements and a lot of blind corners, so I know that not all miles are created equal. But I'd have thought that a mile or so is a pretty average distance to go to a school, surely? All of mine was a lot longer away than that.

Find out where your daughter is on the waiting list. As others have said, there is a lot of movement. My DD was 11th on the waiting list for our first choice school and got a place on the last day of the summer term. She was 33rd on the list for our 2nd choice school and moved to 3rd place by June!

I would also suggest visiting the school she's got into and talking to the head. All your feelings about it are based on the Ofsted report, local newspaper reports and your experience of the Children's Centre, which is separate from the main school. Keep an open mind and visit it - if you still hate it, fine. But you may not. This is what we did with the school DD originally got into (which we hadn't even put down as a choice) and I really had my eyes opened. I still prefered the school she now goes to, but the one she originally got really wasn't that bad. Just because people say something is bad doesn't necessarily mean it'll be bad for your child.

Good luck. It's sickening not to get the place you want I know. But don't despair!

OP you will have to appeal...and make sure you are on the witing list....call the school and the education department and ask if you are n the list....keepp checking on the progress every month. Appeal and you my get in.,

ok guys,dont beat me on that one, the most important thing is the school is crap and im not putting her there, i was just asking for tips for an appeal, i prefer her to stay in a nursery for another year until she gets a place in a good school, im sure she will catch up, cos there are children coming from abroad, speaking no english and they catch up soon. and also i said i will home school her.and when i said the problem is too many siblings were offered the place i meant it was too many siblings this year, i mean from 60 places 27 got siblings, so that narrowed my daughters chances of gettin there.of course i want my children go to same school and understand that.

MissM and Skinit,thanks for ur support, i was beginning to feel like people are judging me for being lazy to walk, thats not the case at all, it would be hard, but im sure i would manage even with my hubby being sick and not helping, i mean there are single mums who have to walk and cannot rely on husband, but i just thought its not fair that i did everything i could to be close to the school i like and still didnt get the place. i will defo do what u suggested, talking to head and keep checking on the progress. we send the letter asking to put my dd on waiting list and also for appeal papers

Yes...and call them up to checkthat they got the appeal forms and to doubl check that they put your daughter on the list...they should tell you where she is on the list...first, second or whatever.

God luck and hang in there.

The other posters were not unsympathetic, helen.

But you have to see it from the panel's pov. If they let every child in whose mum just wanted this place, then the school would get overcrowded and the education of every child in the school would suffer: there would be enormous classes and not enough teachers or seating space to go round. They simply can't let every child in the area into the good school and nobody into the bad school- because then the good school wouldn't be a good school any longer.

So if you go to appeal you would have to motivate why your child deserves special consideration, why your child is different from all the other children who also didn't get in. And in an infant school, they are very strict about class sizes, so it would have to be something pretty serious; usually to do with the authorities having made a mistake in applying their own admissions criteria. But you could also try if there was something about your dd that really set her apart from all the other applicants and meant she needed your preferred school in a way that was different and more important than the general wanting-the-bst-school that is going to apply to every child.

I appealed for secondary school, which is far far easier, on special needs (wheelchair bound child- disabled access) and we got in. But the parents who could only tell the panel they wanted the better school didn't stand a chance.

The other thing to consider is that going before the panel is stressful even if you have a very good case. The school will be there to explain why taking an extra child would prejudice their ability to offer a good education (I found that stressful to listen to), the panel will certainly pick holes in any distance argument if you haven't thought it through (as per your previous posts) and they will have no hesitation in telling you that your dd doesn't deserve the better school more than any of the other children on the waiting list. Your only chance is proving that she needs it more. If your only reply is "I won't put up with anything inferior" then they will wonder why other parents should put up with what you won't.

Do everything you can not to alienate the panel.

Another thing to remember OP is that even if your appeal fails this year, thee may be a chance for next year as some children will leave.

If the intake is 60 and your daughter only just missed out on a place this year, I should think your chances of her getting in later on are excellent.

You say you are prepared to wait for a place at the school. Out of 60 children, surely some will move out of the area at some point in the next year or two.

Your daughter can stay on at nursery until the term after she is five, and I'm sure you will find many other opportunities for her to socialise after that. School is not the only place children are to be found! If your preferred school has an after-school club (by which I mean on-site after-school childcare for working parents), it is probably open to children not attending the school, so she could get to know some of her future classmates that way. That could be quite handy as you live so near.

I agree with you that starting late is a non-issue academically. Your daughter would follow the same EYFS curriculum if she stays at nursery as she'd get in Reception. If you felt she needed a bit more work on anything it is not difficult to do at home. And besides, as you say, other children who join school late generally catch up quite quickly even if they have to learn a new language in the process!

I know this may sound a bit rich because I am not actually in your position, but I think you should not worry at all. It isn't a tiny school, you live quite close so you'll be high up the waiting list, there is no urgent need for your daughter to start in September. She WILL get a place, you just have to be prepared to wait a bit. Which you are.

Just remember that the waiting list isn't static. ie if someone moves into the area and lives closer to the school or meets other priority conditions, they will be bumped up above your dc.

I am not unsympathetic but I am afraid Cory is right. With an admission number of 60 this is an infant class size appeal so you should only succeed if you can show that a mistake has been made. Those are the rules. Transport difficulties, the distance to the allocated school, childcare issues and the quality of the allocated school are all irrelevant for infant class size cases. It doesn't matter how good a case you think you have, if no mistake has been made your appeal should fail. Sometimes you get a sympathetic appeal panel who will admit even though no mistake has been made but I'm afraid that is unlikely here. Even the most sympathetic panel isn't going to admit because the allocated school is over a mile away and you don't like it. You won't lose anything if you appeal but you should be realistic about your chances of success.

As others have said, you should have a good chance of getting in through the waiting list. Make sure you are on it. Given the information you have posted you should be near the top of the list.