Is there a lack of primary school places in your area?

[Rosenotinyorkshire]

Just out of curiousity really. I live in an area of Surrey which has proved to be appalling this year for primary schools being (very) over subscribed. I was lucky to get my DC into our first choice on the sibling rule but many friends have missed out on 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices and are finding themselves low down on waiting lists at preferred schools. How has it been for others in different parts of the country?

(pardon the typos in line 2 - should read "article) are a C of E school and a Catholic school - both of which stipulate you have to be"......my laptop is getting as indignant as I am and erasing words in error....

@panelmember - what did you think of the article? I am guessing the parents all (delightedly) made their acceptances more or less immediately. (Surrey council is computerised, and you can recheck the info the council has over and over online).

www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/news/Families-distraught-schools-fiasco/article-3519792-detail/article.html

Where it gets murky is how the council thinks a church school that controls its own admissions can be counted as a "nearest school" - this church school insists that the parents have to be worshipping at their services regularly, or at another Christian church, with proof. This is pretty much in line with other church schools who stipulate something similar. In fact the school is actually giving priority to families who worship at their church but whose home address might be miles away - so you can see how school places would fill up very quickly at this school. So actually the families are right that Wray Common is their nearest and the council is wrong. Of course, it might still mean that there are 13 pupils whose home address is nearer the school, but that is not the excuse that the council is giving.

www.stmatthewsredhill.co.uk/Admissions/

The only way I can see out of this mess is that the council/LA simply have to give the places to all families involved now and sort out an extra class with the school - which lots of schools in Surrey have done anyway. Instead of building extra school buildings, they ask some schools to take an extra class every 3 years, so some classes are in a portacabin (!!) but at least that's fairer than what they are trying to do here.

Yes the school on question wray common is not va. It had an extra class for reception to ease pressure of numbers locally last school year (09/10). Surely they will have to do so again?

Wray Common is apparently definitely having an extra class both this September and next! Does this mean all those places are already taken?

www.wray-common.surrey.sch.uk/news/school-expansion-faqs/

Giddy I couldnt agree with you more but I saw one of the mums today and she says that Surrey County Council LEA are still maintaining they have lost their originally offered places.

Bear in mind that there is a huge political agenda going on here as well. The only school (vaguely) in the area that is not massively oversubscribed every year is Sandcross School where most of these 13 seem to have been sent - SCC grand plan is to force more middle class parents there (historically had big issues) so this suits their agenda.

SouthoftheThames -I haven't read the article and (forgive me) have only skimmed this thread. I am very happy to give tips to anyone on MN who asks for help but with the appeal hearings about to start I need to get ready for that and don't really have a lot of time left over for speculative discussion about what might be going on at any particular school/LEA. But, in very broad terms, the things that jump out at me here are

there are two distinct issues here, even though they overlap: the LEA (in my view, based on what I've gleaned from this thread alone) does not have the power to retract the offers of places, and even if it did have that power at one point it forfeited it when it took a fortnight to notify parents of the error and* whether the admissions criteria have been correctly applied.

• My LEA never uses the 'for which it is the nearest school' category but I've also heard appeals in LEAs that do. It seems (and I stress that this is just my personal view) to create as many problems as it solves.
• In the first place, there needs to be absolute clarity which about which schools are counted under this criterion and which aren't - in a recent thread, the LEA's own schools were included but not VA (faith) schools. That seems to make sense, in that faith schools are likely to make these children a low priority after LAC, special/medical needs, siblings and members of the faith community, so a priority which still leaves the child way down the list probably isn't much help.
• In the second place, I'm not convinced that the 'nearest school' category adds much more value than a distance to school category and I wonder whether people over-estimate the power of the 'nearest school' category to help. The problem with which this only really tinkers is that the uneven distribution of schools and pupils means that some neighbourhoods are relatively over-supplied with school places and some are under-supplied, so that pupils end up being allocated schools that are some distance from home.
• In the case in question, I think much revolves around what the published admissions criteria say about whether VA (including faith) schools will be included in the calculation of what is the nearest school. If they are included in the calculation, then (arguably) that does create an anomaly, if the nearest school (at which the child is supposed to receive priority) is a VA school which actually places them in a low admissions category. As for the extra class (if there is one) then extra places can be filled either by going back to the original admission list and offering places to the next [30] children on the list (this, I think, is technically correct but obviously full of pitfalls as those children will have accepted other places by now) or* by offering places to the first [30] children on the waiting list. If 13 children have been offered places in error, than that reduces the number of places to be filled (whatever the method) to 17.

Sorry. That's a rather long and inconclusive stream of consciousness!

Yes, GiddyPickle, I so agree with you......the truth is staring at them in the face - how can they "unoffer" a place?? After it's been accepted too!! And all 13 families!! Yet they tried to get away with it.

Panelmember - about the distance thing, it's ironic but one thing I have learnt is that the council (at least, ahem, my council) doesn't "give you your nearest school" (as they claim they do!) but instead they "give the school their nearest pupil!".

This is the whole point about postcode lotteries and house prices going up accordingly I suppose. I worked out several roads where if you buy/rent a house there, you can be within a surefire, pretty much guaranteed (short of an apartment block suddenly being built opposite a school) catchment area of 2 schools and 2 different faith schools (but of course you can only have one faith at a time - one hopes!) so that's a total of 4 schools. I still think it is highly ludicrous (as one family pointed out in the article) that they claim to give you your nearest school though - and they ended up getting the one several miles away. What they then ended up doing was treating all 13 families as "late applicants" which of course they were not.....as in order to give them the actual nearest they would then have to displace some other people in several different schools....it sounds like a Gogol novel, but it's happening right here in our backyard!

@Befuzzled - Sandcross used to be a middle class school I understand! I don't know why it isn't still considered "middle class" but hey ho, I don't live in the pricey part of town so maybe I am missing some subtle social gossip ;-) Not sure whether my neighbour last year thought she was middle class or not but she thought it was mad that her son wasn't sent to the (equally unpopular) school very near her home instead of Sandcross. In her mind, she didn't mind about Ofsted reports or parental consensus but if he couldn't get to school on time because it was so far away (she didn't have access to a car) he wasn't getting an education at all!

Re: Wray Common's news about the additional class (fingers crossed this is the one that can accommodate the 13 mistreated families and not one they had already planned prior to this fiasco) is very good, let's wait and see how it pans out. Hoping all 13 pupils get their rightful places back.

SOTT - I think the point here is that (if you don't get a place at any of the schools named on the application form) you will be allocated a place at the nearest school with a place. At times when there is almost no slack in the system, the nearest school with a vacancy could turn out to be miles away. Again, I haven't read the article, but if the 13 families whose places were revoked were offered alternative schools, this same principle would have applied and so the places might well have been some distance away, because (as you say) other children can't be made to surrender their places to make space for them.

I am very interested to hear of the outcome for this.

surrey LEA have systematically closed schools around us over the last 3-5 years and it is only because the independent ajudicator kicked the proposal out of my nearest infants shutting that we don't have a complete nightmare here yet. Now all the schools are full and more flats and social housing are being built...........they were warned about all of this but they stood in those meetings telling runneymede borough council and all the local families that we were wrong.

Sadly, I think the wray common extra class was already planned so I think they must all be full at this point. Soutofthethames not interested in any middle class snob bullshit, heard it all before, nothing against sandcross juniors, v good school seems to me, sandcross primary which was orchards when we applied 2009/2010 was a failing school that was closed and all record of it (ofsteds etc) expunged from the public record. I know they have poured lots of resources into it and i am sure that when they move to the junior site (september?) the transformation will be complete, but this still does not make it ok to force people to attend a school they do not want/know, 3 or 4 miles from their home, past 3 or 4 other suitable schools, away from where all their friends are going, because cramming everyone into the one historically less popular school that still has some space is their only response to the schools place crisis, not building more schools or classrooms.

@panelmember - hope am not being boring about this thread, I still just find the whole thing inconceivable....although as they say, truth is stranger than fiction. I just think the 13 pupils and their families have been treated very badly over this. As one family pointed out, fine, if you want to give us the nearest school, but they haven't - and in effect the 13 of them are being treated like late applicants which of course they are not. They have in effect now been failed by the council twice over.

@befuzzled - my worry was that the extra class that you've just found on the school's website might have been planned before this fiasco, so where are they going to put the pupils....one hopes that someone at the council might have had sense not to allocate another 13 places to different pupils but I don't think this is the case.

Re: Sandcross - I only know it from one or two families whose children went there ages ago. I see now where the confusion about the name comes from. I agree - just cramming pupils from far away is not the way to go. Especially as they are going to need the extra school buildings and classes as more families move into those newly built houses and flats springing up everywhere in east Surrey.

@CarGirl - which infant school were they going to shut? It's in the Runnymede area? Seems very similar to what's happening in the Reigate and Banstead area.

Fingers crossed for all the families involved.

No, SOTT, not being boring! I can see why you think it's unfair to treat the 13 families as late applicants - and it would rankle with me too, in their shoes - but you need to think what the alternative would be. To treat them as in-time applicants implies turning the clock back to the day on which applications were processed (and I don't know whether the LEA IT system even has the capability to do that) and revoking 13 (or perhaps more) offers in order to make the offers that these families should have received at the time. If it's wrong to revoke their offers, it must be equally wrong to revoke offers to make spaces for them now. Then there is the factor of the infant class size regulations - a child admiited to rectify an error is a permitted exception to the class size regs, but there are still issues of capacity and overcrowding to consider.

Bet there are some heads rolling at Surry County Council at the moment!

@clam - heads must definitely roll (not literally but maybe in the payslip sense). It's one things letting one child in but letting 13 is virtually a whole class in some schools. The question everyone is dying to know is whether that 4th class at Wray Common was before or after this fiasco. But the only fair solution is a new extra class, although if that were 133 can you just imagine assemblies and so on........one year will take up half the hall, and that every time they move up there will be more teachers required. It is definitely a head rolling situation. The whole thing sounds like a plot from a Monty Python movie or a Gogol novel.

However, I suspect they will just say, "sorry, we messed up. You'll lose your friends and waste an extra £150 in petrol each year from now on. Sorry but that's all we can and will do" (the area they are in is not best connected for buses, and a lot of East Surrey is "you-have-to-own-a-car territory" anyway, especially if they are talking about sending pupils to out of the way schools like Sandcross and Furzefield where there is no direct bus to their home.)

If they are very lucky some pupils may have private school places and decline their offers, leaving them just about enough room to squeeze one or two pupils in per class, thereby saving their asses (pardon the language).

Presumably if they've been placed more than 2 miles from home they will be provided with free transport?

Look up Draft Determination - Addlestone RE-organisation. Surrey actually spent ££££££££££££££s converting an infants and juniors both into primaries and then the independent adjuticator kicked out their plans so the net result is an extra 15 infant places per year but there are now 2 infant schools with a PAN of 30 each that have no junior places.........

Plus they shut a Byfleet school a couple of years previously so some dc that live in Byfleet end up having school transport to other schools!

Having just reread the document I am so incensed all over again I'm cutting and pasting to show up Surrey LEA for what they really are. They spend £2.5 million making alterations to 3 other schools as originally they wouldn't have had to go the adjuticator and they fully intending to shut Darley Dene regardless of the public consultation.

The conclusion is at the very end, the fully document if you can face it is very interesting reading indeed.

Objections to the Proposal
20. All submissions related to the discontinuation of Darley Dene Infant School and in summary stated that:

? To sell the school site for purposes other than a school would breach the covenant on the school site. Even if it were possible, it would be inexpedient to sell this central site since it might be needed in future and could accommodate a Children?s Centre.
? The proposal takes insufficient account of current demographic data indicating that more, not fewer, school places will be needed in future. Therefore, Darley Dene Infant School needs to be retained.
? It is wrong for the proposal to be financially driven rather than child centred.
? Closure of the school would further deprive an already deprived area and would reduce parental choice for those in the east and centre of Addlestone, by removing the option of a discrete infant school.
? The Review Team gave assurances that the proposal would be based on the academic achievement of schools. Therefore, Darley Dene Infant School (as a good school) should not be closed and pupils transferred to Sayes Court School where there are continuing concerns about standards.
? Transfer of pupils to Sayes Court School would increase traffic congestion because there would be no remaining school east of the A318 Brighton Road and parking would prove insufficient. Those living closest to Darley Dene are least likely to have cars, resulting in nursery and infant age children having to walk to Sayes Court School.
? Low numbers at Darley Dene Infant School are a self-fulfilling prophecy due to the longstanding threat of closure dating back to 1991 and not attributable to lack of confidence in standards. Although the per capita costs are high, mainstream pupils make good progress educationally and socially. The school also provides very good education for the Special Needs Cluster pupils whose complex needs would not be met at The Hythe.
? How the additional cost of £900 per annum to educate a pupil at Darley Dene (by comparison with Sayes Court School) has been computed, has not been clarified with the Governing Body, despite being cited as a highly significant factor in the proposal for the discontinuation of the school.
? The local authority undertaking related building work in advance of the final decision being made has undermined overall confidence in the consultation process.
? The proximity of Ongar Place Infant School to the M25 means that its future could be jeopardised by the proposal to widen the motorway. Therefore, it is inappropriate to enlarge this school instead of retaining Darley Dene Infant School.

Consideration

The Consultation Process

21. The final proposal upon which the consultation (which started in May 2005) was based identified how 40 primary school places could be removed ? predicated on the assumption that Darley Dene Infant School would be discontinued and the Special Needs Cluster transferred to The Hythe. When reconfigured on this basis, future primary provision in the area would be:

? 30 infant and 30 junior places at Holy Family, Sayes Court and Ongar Place Primary Schools respectively.
? 60 infant and junior places at St Paul?s Primary School.

22. Meetings were held with headteachers and chairs of governors of the schools named in the proposal, followed by meetings with governors. Subsequently, meetings were held with the staff of the schools involved. Three public meetings were held at which a consultation booklet was issued. Ongar Place Infant School, Sayes Court Junior School and St Paul?s Primary School all signified support for the proposal?s content, whilst Darley Dene Infant School rejected it.

23. Major points in favour of the proposal cited its potential to:

? Remove surplus places and provide better value for money through the creation of all-through primary schools.
? Remove the potentially disruptive change of schools between KS1 and KS2 for both mainstream and Special Needs Cluster pupils - thus providing greater continuity and progression between the Key Stages.
? Facilitate parents/carers and support community cohesion by creating all-through primary schools.
? Reduce school related car journeys through the provision of primary schools either side of the M25.

24. Whilst acknowledging that the formal consultation process was carried-out by the local authority in accordance with statutory requirements, I am nevertheless concerned that the protracted period involved contributed to insufficient cognisance ultimately being taken of developments which took place during the interim period. This is with particular reference to the current demographic data submitted to me by Runnymede Borough Council relating to both significant housing development and the rising birth rate in the relevant area; and also that Sayes Court Junior School, having been deemed to be ?satisfactory? by OfSTED, needs to continue to raise standards and demonstrate a capacity for continuous improvement.

25. Submissions made to me criticised the length of the consultation process and identified this as having precluded the possibility of the proposal being referred to Surrey Schools Organisation Committee for a decision, before it was disbanded. Such submissions also criticised building work beginning before the final decision is made: thus suggesting that the proposal had already been ?rubber stamped?. Also cited in submissions to me were criticisms of the negative attitude towards photocopied submissions received from objectors known to come from an area where there are adult literacy problems; lack of clarity about the right of appeal against the decision; and also about the tenor of the Darley Dene parents? meeting, where it was felt that the parental/community viewpoint was not valued or given due consideration.

Conclusion
44. Having given the proposal full consideration in the context of the relevant legislation, the information provided, and the views of interested parties, I conclude that the proposal to discontinue Darley Dene Infant School, establish Ongar Place Infant School and Sayes Court Junior School as primary schools and to establish KS1 SEN provision at The Hythe Primary School, would reduce the diversity of provision and parental choice in an area where a discrete infant school is widely considered to provide the best opportunities for the educational and social development of the community?s children; and also that the discontinuation of Darley Dene would remove from the community the significant contribution the school makes to community cohesion and integration. I further conclude that:
? Whilst the proposal satisfactorily sets-out the logistics of the Addlestone Area Re-organisation, it fails to provide information regarding how quality transition to all-through quality primary provision is successfully to be effected. Similarly, it fails to identify the process by which high quality curriculum development and delivery would be procured and financed.
? Relative to the removal of surplus places: I consider the proposal has taken insufficient account of the demographic projections indicating the unprecedented extent and nature of current/near future housing development in the Addlestone area and of the projected upward trend in the area?s birth rate.

? Whilst the consultation process has been duly carried-out in accordance with the associated requirements, I nevertheless deem the manner in which it was conducted and the precipitate action in starting building work before the final determination is made, to have contributed to a lack of confidence in both the consultation and the democratic process.
? Because the proposal?s recommendations were not considered by Surrey County Council?s Executive Committee until September 2007 - with the matter being referred to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator in October 2007 for determination ? I deem the timescale for their appropriate implementation by 1st September 2008 to be unrealistic: particularly if it is to take full cognisance of the educational implications.
? Given the proposal?s fundamental dependence upon Surrey County Council being successful in revoking the restrictive covenant on the Darley Dene Infant School site, and that no alternative means of funding the proposal has been identified, I cannot be sufficiently sure that the proposal is financially secure.

45. I therefore determine that Darley Dene Infant School should continue to be maintained; that Ongar Place should remain an infant school; that Sayes Court should remain a junior school; and that the Darley Dean Special Needs Cluster should not transfer to The Hythe School.

I live on the borders of Merton & Surrey. Merton is hideously over-subscribed. I did not get any place offered - inc the nearest to my house. (973m) we are 29th on the waiting list. There were 60 places and HALF went to siblings. I have added a couple of schools in Kingston as other choices but I dont have hope.
We were given a list of schools with places, including EIGHT in Mitcham (about 5 miles from me). My DD is an only child and the most important thing for me is her making friends that are local. How about closing a couple of the unloved Mitcham schools down and building one in Raynes Park perhaps...Actually, why not close down the whole of Mitcham and be done with it...(sorry if you live in Mitcham - I am currently v bitter) x

@Clam. Heads should roll but most probably wont and we will be hearing more horror stories next year and son on.

I think things have got worse in Surrey since they introduced the Equal Preference system about 5 years ago. This has led to people who live near several schools having a far better chance of getting a school place than those who only live near one school.

Before this system was introduced people tended to opt more for their nearest school whereas now they might chance their luck on a more popular school slightly further away knowing if they don't get it they would still be higher up the list than others for their second choice school even if the others had put the school as first choice.

Jojo I think your right. I think the other problem in Surrey is the category 5 child's nearest school. It means if youre nearer school is oversubscribed you're screwed as you're then category 6 other based on distance to the school for every other school and only 3 or 4 very close category 6 children get in at best and you, by definition, aren't as close because your closest school is the one you faile to get into. It also leads to crazy situations like happened to us where a load of children have to drive past our house to get into the school we failed to get into because they happen not to live near any other schools in other directions as are out in the sticks where we are in the town centre so do, but didn't get in any of those either as now sobfar down the priority list.

Honestly, my 6 year old could design a better system. How do they get away with it year after year after year?

We have just found out our son has not been offered same school as sibling, (we live 20 meters from catchment for school) we havnt even got catchment area school either, the one they have given us is miles away. Lots of people are in the same boat with siblings in one school and been offered another school miles away not even second or third choice, some are on waiting list and not even offered a place at all. Its disgusting the council have had this information for over a year and will have know all this time. The reason for this is that where we live has had a mass developement of new homes but the council approve these housebuilders plans knowing they are building new family homes so have really let us down. Everyone has maxed their mortgages to move here primarily for school, we pay a fortune in council tax too. Loads of mums are in tears at the school gate thinking what a logistical nightmare this will be juggling jobs, out of school clubs, school run with there kids school being miles apart from each other.