LEA cock-up. What happens now, can anyone advise?

[BellaOfTheBalls]

This may be long, I apologise.

DS1 starts reception in September. Applied for his place in October through our LEA. During the first week of January we discovered we would be moving 250 miles down south. This was the week prior to applications closing so I called both old & new LEA's & despite not having a forwarding address followed their advice emailed our old LEA with the changes I wished to make. I received an acknowledgement of my email which I now think was probably an automated response.

Despite having emailed my new LEA twice about my new address, it has come to light today that nothing has been done, DS is still down for 3 schools 250 miles away & I have his preschool breathing down my neck needing to know which Primary he is going to so they can start visits etc.

I am assuming that there are some allowances for children moving into the area? Will I have to go through the appeals process?

TIA.

Start by telling his preschool to back off there's nothing you can do until the LEA's get back to you.

Start by talking to the new LEA, the old one can do nothing for you now. Keep going until you speak to someone and if not try phoning up the school you want him to go to, if they are acadamy they may have a different outlook to LEA schools.

we moved house prior to dd starting school, so i can tell you the process we went through if it helps...

dd was starting in the following september, sold house in the feb, moved in the july. prior to selling, we'd applied for a school place in the current lea, got the place, so until we knew everything was definitely going ahead, we far as that was concerned, we just carried on as normal, did the visits etc. for the new area, i filled in the application forms, albeit after the closing date, so we were late applying. we knew dd wouldn't get a school place at that stage, but she did get put on the waiting list (was number 9!).

the new lea, couldn't move dd up the list until we had exchanged contacts, as once we'd done that, dd was the only one on the list actually within catchment. finally, in the july we moved, and after exchanging and moving within a few days, i went to the new lea offices to give them evidence of the new address. only at this point, did i ring the old lea and decline dd's place at our old address (the education officer there had told me to do this in case everything had fallen through and dd ended up with no school place at all). within a week of moving, dd was now top of the waiting list, and a place came up at our preferred school.

we found the waiting list moved a lot, more that you'd think, and we never needed to go to appeal etc. there were no allowances as such for dd moving into the new area, but prior to us moving, every time a place came up, the education officer rang to see how close we were to exchanging. it was hard watching all these school places come and go at the time, as the moving chain had become a nightmare at that point with so many delays, none of which were caused by us.

hope it goes well for you and your ds.

If they had processed your changes correctly you would have been treated as applying on time to the schools near your new home but using your old address. It is therefore unlikely you would have got into any of the schools that are oversubscribed. They would not have used your new address until you had at least exchanged contracts, at which point you could have applied direct to your new LA and you would have been treated as a late applicant.

I presume you have now moved. You therefore need to get an application in to your new LA. They have to come up with a place somewhere but it may not be at one of your preferred schools. It could be some way from where you live. You can appeal if you don't get in to your preferred schools.

Just to add to what PRH said

I would get an application into your new LA with your new address sharpish, so that you can at least be in the "clearing" round for late applicants following the initial allocation of places (which is around now, dates vary from LA to LA). If any of your preferred schools are undersubscribed then you will get a place at one of them, or if not at least you will be on the waiting lists if any places become free.

As PRH says, if they had processed your changes correctly you would have been treated as applying on time to the schools near your new home but using your old address. It is therefore unlikely (but not impossible, depending on admissions criteria) you would have got into any of the schools that are oversubscribed, based on distance from school to you old home (which is usually the tie breaker)

You have probably seen threads about how hard it is to win an infant class size appeal (YR Y1 Y2 classes can only have 30 pupils by law) but this may be one of the circumstances where you could win an appeal if you don't get a place at your preferred school (and ICS applies) and you can show that your DS would have got a place if your preferences had been changed and you had been processed as an "on time" applicant. (It will all hinge on what admissions category you fall into, if you wouldn't have got a place anyway, you won't win despite the LA not changing your preferences)

Just an update. I emailed the LEA again this morning & copied in the emails I had sent & received from old LEA. They have agreed as it was not my mistake & that I had done everything I thought I needed to do and within the time stated. So they have taken over my application, amended my choices to the ones I had changed them to & will find out next week with everyone else.

The schools here are not oversubscribed AFAIK; I suspect this is why there is a little more room for manouevre.