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

Hi All,

I am new to this and have recently applied for my DD to get into reception. She got her third choice and I am waiting till May 2nd for the waiting lists to become available to find out where she is on the first two schools she missed out on.

I am very gutted, but the school she has gotten into is a good one so I am not too disappointed. It is mainly that she will not be with her friends and cousins who did get in.

The first two schools are very over subscribed so I am not too surprised, but was wondering with the new system in place is there likely to be any movement before the September term?
It just seems that everyone had to accept their offer for fear of losing it, so seems unlikely that any places will be available.

Let me know if this is not the correct thread to post this in and I will move it. BTW the schools are in Barnet, North London.

Some people will prefer to get into a faith schoool, others in private schools and some for one reason or another will miss the deadline for confirming that they do accept the given school. So a school which takes 120 students might get e.g. 115 confirmations within the deadline. After this is done the waiting lists are formed sometime in May.

In our case they told us how far we lived from all 3 schools and how far the last child given a place lived only after we appealed for all 3 of them!

Hi guy,me again. I just found out dd is 14 on waiting list for our first choice,obviously big disappointment here, as the intake was 60 children, so I really don't keep my hope high, however she is 14 on the list for my 3rd choice school, which is even better, but I put her as third cos we were well outside catchent area, but this school had intake of 120 children, so obviously there is a bigger chance. Anyway what I want to ask is, dd's friend from nursery lives in building next door and she did get in. I understand that she is closer and we missed it by few meters, but how comes she is 14 on waiting list.is there a chance LA made a mistake? When I went to council I asked tkem to show me how they messured it and they said the system did it and there is no way it could make mistake.

Most LAs use a computerised system which has a datum point on the school and a datum point on the home in question, so the accuracy of the system can be measured down to cms if it is straight line distance. Obviously if it is on shortest walking route then the accuracy is slightly less but still good.

So the only way it can be wrong is if the wrong datum point has been put in on your home. Can the LA make a mistake? Well in most cases no, but human error says that it is possible but unlikely. Could you ask your neighbour what the measured distance was for her daughter? If it is only 15 to 20 metres difference then yours is probably right if it is say 100 metres then there may be a mistake.

When it comes to being 14 on the waiting list, there can be two issues. First is that you have to think that any straight line distance is all around the school, in other words through 360 degrees so whilst the next building may only be say 20 metres away, you are considering all pupils who live in a 20 metre circumference all around the school, which in a built up area can actually be quite a few pupils. The second point is that a waiting list will now have been formed and it will include pupils who were late applicants and actually live closer to the school than you do and also anybody else who may not have considered the school in the first round of applications but is now.