All a bit quiet considering today we find out about primary school places

[MindySimmons]

Just thought it was quite strange that here and in the media, it's been rather quiet, considering there is a significant shortage of places and many of my friends throughout the area didn't get first choices (mainly in Bristol City, I'm out in South Glos and have been OK).

How did everyone get on?

I feel so sorry for all of you caught in the schools place shortage mess. Been on the phone for lots of today consoling friends who are gutted

northernrock That sounds awful...no buses??? What do they expect you to do? Surely that alone is grounds for appeal into either school? Can you only appeal one at a time?

fingers crossed pinkjenny et al - really hope they dont send the letters out 2nd class as you will be at the mercy of the post office. Sefton generally use 2nd class for postage as a rule unless you specifically ask for 1st class.

Just checked - and they send them 1st class - phew!!

northernrock without wishing to pry into your private life, I don't know if you know but if you are on a low income and have to travel more than two miles you can apply for help with school travel costs, including in rural areas a taxi where it is inappropriate due to age for the child to walk that distance.

Oh good point whomoved! It has to be more thann 2 miles...you're right! That is worth looking at Northern!

We can get a bus that would mean the walk would be 30 mins, but not exactly ideal.
I can appeal for as many as I like (and I will)
I just really want my ds to go to a local school, with his friends.
The thought of having to go in a taxi (if that is possible) to a crap school miles awaywhere we know noone is just horrible to me, but yeah, if it come to that I guess we will have no choice.
I am just really really angry with the whole system, and the fact that a couple of years ago another local community school was knocked down, thus helping to create this situation.
I also think it is sooo wrong that young children cant just go to their nearest school due to a bunch of pushy middle class parents (hypocritically) attending church to get their kids into a state funded school.
That school NEEDS a divorced single atheist mother who drinks too much red wine and shops at Top Shop on their PTA damnit!

northern - my sympathies - I am moving and one of the problems we are having is finding a village with a school which can take both my children because smaller schools are being closed down. The only thing I would say is that you can go on the continued interest even if you lose the appeal because there is a lot of shifting goes on in the next few months. I know someone who recently got in on continued interest who was twelfth in the queue

I find out 3rd May. One week to go...

I live in Northampton - does any-one else?

Thanks whomoved.
I will stay on the waiting lists as long as I can.
The head of the nearest c of e school told me that they have accepted children for whom the school was 3rd preference because they fit the criteria (i.e church goers) which in her words was "barking".Its a total farce and no mistake

Our letters were sent today, have people been finding that they get sent second class?
crosses fingers LA use first

School newsletter on website says that out of all people who have put this school as first choice over 50 have not got in. On plus side I used the .gov website for their distance which is 0.24 miles, closer than the 0.4 miles stated on google maps!

Good luck to others still waiting..

northernrock I really do sympathise, and I didn't go down the church route because I thought it was hypocritical too (was brought up in the faith but lost faith a few years ago, and attending church purely for a school place seemed to me to be making a mockery of my upbringing and my parents' religion). I do see why people do it though. And it isn't just "pushy middle class parents" who do it ... but everyone is entitled to do it, annoying though it is. I could have done it, and knew I would have got my DD into the school of my choice if I had, but chose to take the gamble. Harumph.
It's the system that's wrong, not the parents who work that system.

(May I gently point out that middle class parents are entitled to a state funded school place for their children ... I assume you were referring to parents who attend the church but who live outside the school's catchment area? They really are annoying!!) My 3 preferred schools are all church schools, so even if we had gone to one of the churches, we still wouldn't have been able to go to the right church for the other 2! My DD has been allocated a school that is further away than my 2nd and 3rd preference, and also further away than 2 other state schools that I didn't apply to .... utter madness.
I hope you get to the top of the waiting list very quickly. Good luck.

I've just found out that someone I know has got a place at my No.1 school, even though it was her 2nd preference. We both live in catchment and neither of us qualified on church or sibling preference. She lives slightly nearer to the school, so they must have applied distance over preference ... which really pisses me off. Why do they make you list your choices in order of preference then?????

I need to go to bed. Good luck to those still waiting, and those considering appeals etc. I have never felt this stressed in my life. Thinking of all of you.

Can I just emphazie, re my last post, that we both live in the catchment area. I wouldn't be so pissed off otherwise! I am a resonable human being really.

Sorry if my earlier post was a bit flippant when so many are still waiting and others have not got the places they wanted.

Good luck everyone.

Of course everyone is entitled to state funded education Mrs.
Good for you for no going to church to get your child into a school .
I do think it is an insult to any church-especially if you are Jewish!
I dont know why they ask you to list a preference. Is total bollocks really isn't it?

I find out on thursday, im in hampshire waiting for Y3 and YR places in an out of catchment school. DS is currently in the infants. with just over 24hour to wait now it driving me mad, all i seem to think about.

When i applied for DS YR place 3 years ago we all knew by jan! so i dont like this much much longer wait!! verging on a hissy fit

I got my answer weeks ago, didn't get what we wanted though but the school she did get is OK, so I'm happy ish!

Can't sleep. I feel sick about how we're going to afford it.
Giddy - yes, will check with the school, might be worth getting on the waiting list.
Northern - yes. Total bollocks. Welcome to the bollocks club. Keep me posted re how you get on with waiting lists etc. Do you have any grounds for an appeal? And yes, that school does need you on its PTA!

Mrs Moppet - re your question about what's the point of putting your preferences in order.

All applications for all schools are considered against those schools' oversubscription criteria - the place at which the school has been ranked on the application form has nothing to do that. For every child there will then be a list of yes/no for each school. The offer that gets passed on is the yes for the highest-placed school, so if school 1 is a yes then any offers from schools 2 to 5 (or 6 or whatever) won't be passed on, and so on. This is why it's important to rank preferences carefully, as 'tactical' preferences can go badly wrong if an offer from a less-preferred school is passed on and an offer from the preferred school is not.

You won't have got any more priority for the school because you placed it first on your preference list, and your neighbour won't have got any less priority because she placed in second. I imagine that it was the distance that made the difference between your neighbour getting a place and you not.

There are a lot of appeal threads up and running now.

northernrock, you may or may not want to hear this, but actually our taxes pay for way more than 90% of the costs of faith schools. The church (and it is usually the church) pays 10% capital costs; the state pays 90% capital costs as well as ALL the staff's salaries, training, specialist support eg SEN, materials and resources. So, for example, the state pays 90% of capital costs for buildings belonging to the largest land owner in the Uk ie. CoE.

I agree it's wrong that so many people can't access a decent local school because the church or another religious group has ring fenced the community's resources for their own benefit.

Well, finally I've calmed down enough to type. We didn't get any of our preferences despite being within 0.65km of all three.... and yes, we're in North Bristol. So, we've been allocated a place in a school over 5km away. Absolute joke. I'm am so disappointed for my DD1 as she's been robbed of her chance to go to school with her friends locally. I'm not confident of getting a place from the waiting lists either as the intake for all the schools has shrunk to such a small area that we're not going to be top of the list. This whole system is rotten to the core.

njimum oh no, 5k that's ridiculous! One friend in particular is in a really bad way about the school she'e been given - this whole area is such a lottery when it comes to schools, you'll have one good school then a whole bunch of rotten ones. I feel very fortunate that we live where we do, probably one of the few places where any school is OK.

I would be happy to have given any of the five local schools 550m or less from our home! Instead we were given school a 4-mile round trip away in most deprived part of Bristol - school came 5th from bottom in 2009 league tables. He won't be going.