Moving house to new area - how do I secure a school place.

[plum100]

If anyone could help I would be really grateful as I CANNOT get through to our local adnissions team.

I have 2 children , one in yr 2 at the local primary and the 2nd has just been allocated a place there for Sept. Now, we have just sold our house so they will need to go to a new school. If there are 2 places for them at the new school - fab, but if there isn't I dont think we will move. THe reasons being they are at a good school which we can walk to , I am not giving that up to not get into the local school at our new house and have to drive to school every day.

What happens if we get allocated two places at the new school before we've actually moved house - does our old school give away our places then? Because what happens if then the move falls through and we cannot find another buyer and we end up staying where we are - do we lose our places at the original school? My main concern is we end up not moving and lose our places at the school where they are now - it is massively over subscribed this year and we wont get back in. Is it meant to be this hard and stressful?

THAnks to anyone who can understand my ramnling and help me xx

Don't give notice that they are leaving the existing school until your house sale goes through
Until you are at your new address you can't apply for the new school places anyway

Do you know if the new school is full?

It's a horrible chicken and egg situation. Until you have a new address you cannot be considered for places for the new school. Call your desired school and find out if it is full or heavily over-subscribed. That may give you an idea of your chances of securing places, but will be no guarantee of success until you have an actual address in the new area.

The LA will almost certainly not consider an application based on your new address until you have exchanged contracts. They should not take away your places at the current school until your children have actually left the school or, at the very least, you have given notice you no longer need them. If it is the same council for both schools they may take acceptance of the places at the new school as notice that you are going to leave the old school.

there should be some infomation on the LA's website so look there -and it will give you an idea of whether the new school is likely to be full as well - but having just applied for a move of school - its likely you would need some proof of address - eg evidence of exchange of contracts before you can apply - as prhbridge says.

I am going through this at the moment. In my new LEA they won't allocate schools until you have an address and a utility bill. They are being quite helpful though and have told me what schools have spaces and what the waiting list situation is like.

I wouldn't tell your old school until the last minute. (which doesn't help other people waiting to move into your area but hey-ho). I've also spoken to the schools in my new area as often they have more up to date information about places or families that are leaving. One school told me that often they aren't told who's leaving - they just don't come back after the holidays!

I did this a few years ago, at pretty much exactly the same time of year. i won't pretend it wasn't stressful...

Here's what we did:

DS was in Year 1. This meant that he was an application for a place outside the normal admissions round, and at least for us that meant the school controlled admission (in our area at that point, the Reception, Junior (if relevant) and Senior school admissions rounds were centrally managed but 'in year' admissions were managed by the school - in other words the head knew that he had a place in year 1, he knew DS1 wanted it, and he could allocate it to us and inform the LEA, regardless of where we lived).

DS joined Year 1 3 weeks before the end of Year 1.

DD was due to join Reception in the September. We applied when we knew we were going to move, but from our old address (40 miles away). We were a late application, so we were placed in the school nearest to the one we wanted with spaces as we were at the lowest of the low point in the admissions criteria (late, a long way away, no sibling). We requested a place on the waiting list. At this point we were something like 42nd.

We then moved to our new town. As soon as we had that new address, DD moved up the waiting list to 24th as we were no longer a long way away.

Then DS started at the school. At this point, DD became a sibling as well as living close, so she was 2nd on the waiting list (first was a girl whose brother started the same day as DS but who lived literally opposite the school).

A couple of people dropped out from those initially offered places...and DD was offered a place for the September 3 days before the end of the Summer term in July.

From my experience, I would say try to get your older child into the new school before the end of this school year, and place your younger child on the waiting list for reception. Once your older child starts, your rounger child should hop right up the waiting list due to sibling priority (in many schools, siblings get a place however far away they live so this may work even if you haven't moved yet!). If you can move as well, the closer distance shiould again move you up the list - and there you go.

However, if the school does not have a place for your older child in this current year, then i agree you have a dilemma as without that sibling priority it may be very hard to get a place for both.

This is a useful thread, we are in the process of moving and I've just learned the school we were hoping to use at the new house is oversubscribed for the first time ever (grrr).

We only have our eldest who is starting reception in September. We're holding onto the place we've been offered (in case house move falls through). Will just have to hope things move quickly with the house so we can apply and get on waiting list for the other school but might have to accept we won't get in, which is such a disappointment.

we recently moved to a new area and despite being opp a school they wont give my d a place as they say they are full in yr 9 so she has to travel by bus and train to a school over 3 miles away, i am appealing but as we all know thats very doubtful to suceed. the only hope is to go on a waiting list.

Hi, I am new here.We are facing the same problem of applying a place for my child for next year reception. We sold house and plan to buy the house. Can we apply two council's state school in the same time as not sure whether they put my child in the waiting list, we will not accept the offer until our new address settled, please advise.

hi user, you might be better off starting your own thread about this.

When you say applying for a reception place for next year's reception do you mean next academic year ( place to start September 2017) or next year (place to start 2018) as this will make a difference. I would make this clear in your new thread.

Hi Viques,
We are applying for the receiption place for Sep2018. We have two different state primary schools are interested in(As they are both over subscribed, it's very hot to apply for, so I am not sure whether we can get a place.) , can I apply for both as two different council , then wait for their reply? We are consider to move the one offer our place in the primary school. We have both catchment area post code available to apply.

You apply through your local council regardless of where the school is situated. You can apply for schools that are in other areas if you wish so yes, you can apply for both schools. You will only get an offer from one school.

We have both catchment area post code available to apply. not sure what you mean here. You can only apply from one address - the place your child lives in on the deadline day.

Hi user, as others have said you can only apply from one address but you can apply to schools in more than one authority. The offer you get will depend on the school's admission policies, if you live far from both popular schools, and in some places far is not far at all, then a lot of other people will live nearer and you would miss a place because of distance, so it is always a good idea to include a school that may not be your first choice, but is close to your address and which you will get a place at.

you have plenty of time left to check up on schools and ask around. The important thing is making sure you are living in your new house when you make your application.

Keep an eye on the primary education threads, in September and October a lot of people will be in your position of making their applications for September 2018 and you will see a lot of useful advice.

Hii, wondered if anyone could help. I have 2 children..one going into year 1 and one going into year 4..I'm thinking of moving back to my home town to be with my family which is 200 miles away!
I've spoke to the school ID like them to go to and they won't say what the waiting lists are..so spoke to the LA down there and they've sent me an in school transfer form to complete to go on the waiting list. Because we currently live 200 miles away, we on the 'outer' list instead of 'inner list' so a longer waiting time.... they said if we move to the area and prove it then we'll move up the list but still might not ever get a place! So what would happen then please? Would the children be forced to go to any schools there that had places for them? Really stressful. Just means it's such a risk moving and don't know if I could go that to my children not know which schools they'd be put in and even if they'd be in the same school!
thanks so much for your help xx

Hi Amy, I would post this again, but start your own thread, you will get a better response.if you can give a very rough idea of where you are going to move to local information might appear.