In Year Admissions Experts- please help!

[crazygracieuk]

We are moving to a new area over the summer holidays.

There are 2 local primary schools.

School A will take my Y6 and Y1 children. It is closer to our house and children from there will go to our catchment secondary which is fab. Ofsted ourstanding and seems great. Y4 child would be top of the waiting list.

School B will take my Y4 and Y1 children. It is slightly further but walkable. Children tend to go to a different secondary which we don't live close enough to. Ofsted rates it as good and it also seems to be fab.

Ideally I'd like all 3 to go school A but would be happy to settle for all 3 in school B. I am a SAHM so in theory could HE but my kids love school and socialising with other kids so I'd rather not.

Is there such a thing as an appeal for an in-year admission? Y4 in School A has 30 kids and Y6 in School B is a Y5/6 composite class if that makes a difference.

I'm watching this as I am in a similar situation. Is home ed'ing something that a lot of people do in these sort of situations? I have been toying with it as idea but I didn't realise it was a common thing to do.

I would grab the places at School A and hope for the best for the Yr4 child. You can appeal for the Yr4 child and the school can in theory go over 30 even without resorting to an appeal.

We are moving a Yr1 child and a Yr5 child and the Yr5 class was full but after we had looked around and made it very clear we were keen on the school, the headteacher contacted the LEA and said she'd take an extra one and he now has a place despite them officially being full. So it can be done.

If you get two children into the school, they are much more likely to accept a third. Being in catchment for an ofsted outstanding secondary that you love and that other children will go to is too big a deal to walk away from.

By the way - are you worried about how your kids will cope with the move?

I ask, because I think it's especially hard to move as kids get older. I'm not worried about my DS2 who is 6 and adaptable, but I'm worried about DS1 who is 10 and is leaving really close, fun friends to start in a new class without knowing anyone. I do feel for him.

How are your children adapting to the move?

The places at school A would on first glance seem to be preferable and appeal for a place for the year 4 sibling. However an alternative view would be that if the appeal failed then you would have a situation in 12 months time that you would have your year 1 and year4 siblings in different schools and the eldest disappearing off to secondary school. It might seem to be more sensible to grab the school B places. Which school the year 6 sibling goes to might depend on what the admission criteria for the secondary school is. If this gives priority to those attending a feeder school then it would be best to appeal for that school. If it is effectively on distance then you would be in a reasonable position to go to your preferred secondary school and appeal for School B to keep all three siblings together.

I'm sorry for returning so late to my thread.

The secondary school uses distance, not feeder primaries. I think that there will be a lot more children in school A who will go to our catchment secondary but I suspect that there will be children in school B who will go but they will be a minority.

I think that I will appeal and try home ed my Y4 child if that fails. I have seen posts on MN that there is a big home ed community where we are moving to so I hope that dd can make friends and do activities through that.

Home ed is not something that I ever thought about hopefully doable with other families as support.

Fingers crossed you get your child in by appeal