oh help, school place acceptance nightmare

[sleepingbunny]

Can someone who knows about this stuff help me please. We were allocated our first-choice school in South London (dd already in preschool there) in April. Sent the forms back, together with letters needed, straight away, plus accepted online. This morning, preschool tells us dd is on list of children who have not accepted places, and sure enough, when I ring our LEA, turns out they have no record of my acceptance. Trouble is, that is the only child benefit entitlement letter I have, and now it is 10 days before I can get another one. Have written LEA a letter, which they say should be alright until I can get the docs, but I'm now paranoid. They can't take my dds place away, can they?

You should be fine; there are a very limited range of reasons they can take the place away from you, and now you have rung them and verbally accepted, you should be fine.

I had a similar experience with DS last year; I only realised my online acceptance hadn't worked when DD's teacher came to ask me if everything was alright as I hadn't accepted the place for her younger brother I ran to the school office but it was all OK - if they don't hear from you they will chase, not just assume no response = you don't want the place.

Thanks. Will try to calm down. Such a panic!

Before they take your place away they have to write to you again giving you at least another week to accept the place. So you are safe.

if you need a child benefit details you can get them online so could print out if needed urgently?

prh47bridge quick question re: child benefit forms? My DS intended school for next year was heavily oversubscribed this year and as such several siblings were split. There have been some rumors going around the playground that some parents have used false addresses and got in and this has got me worried that this could happen next year.

To combat this the school has asked parents to bring in their child benefit forms as proof of address. However this form is so easy to change in terms of address (done in mins online) and then a new one could be sent out to the new address (often a relative) and so looks legit - what forms do most schools ask for? I am asking so next year when my daughter applies i can suggest a better form of proof. My DS is 50/50 currently as to whether he will get in next year and if he doesn't i dont mind if its all done fairly but the way they are establishing addresses this year still looks open to fraud!

Thanks!

Sorry for hijacking thread sleepingbunny!

It varies so much that I don't think I can give a direct answer to the question. My local council says that verifying addresses can involve:

• parents being contacted directly both verbally and in writing;
• cross checks with the child's previous nursery provider about changes in address;
• the provision of written evidence confirming the sale of a former property;
• the provision of written evidence of property purchase;
• a requirement to provide current utility bills;
• a requirement to provide current benefits or bank/building society information;
• contact with borough and district councils regarding council tax payment and electoral roll information;
• home visit(s) by Local Authority staff;
• a requirement that parents sign a disclaimer.

Certainly provision of utility bills seems to be a fairly common requirement and checking against council tax payments and the electoral roll seems an obvious precaution to take.

thanks! all the above seem so much better than the child benefit form - the bills at least show the parents living at the address and then combined with the child benefit would be okay but on its own, the child benefit form seems risky.

For our local school they automatically send school admission packs to the parents of all children of the relevant age registered at the local doctors surgery. Seemed quite a good idea to me as I would have thought that if parents were trying to manipulate the system by using a false address then they might not have thought of actually taking the step of changing doctors.

Would not work here! This is a small town with 20+ infant and primary schools, the doctors surgeries don't cover anything like the school catchment areas. Also what about children who want one of the Catholic schools? A C of E school? or not a Faith school?

My kids go to the C of E school, but it has a wider catchment than the local community school. (Just to add confusion the infants for the C of E is closest to my house, but the local all-through community primary is closer than the C of E junior, so how would the doctors know where I want to go.)
BTW around here the council tax bill or number is needed as proof of address.

We are asked to supply a council tax bill number on application.

Thanks for your help everyone. All sorted, thankfully. What a stress, though!