Unhappy with the primary school allocation. Help please!

[sumanatalk]

We have been offered the worst school which is about 2.3 miles away from our house. My daughter will be the youngest in her class. She will be 4 on the 21st of August 2012. It is ridiculous that she will have to travel 30 mins each way by bus to reach her school. What do I do? Does appealing actually help? What are my next options? Please help!

You can only appeal if the criteria for allocation has been used incorrectly.

Sorry though. Sounds annoying.

You don't have to put her into school full time until the term she turns 5 - so next summer.

In the meantime, you could put her on the waiting lists for all the other schools in the hope that someone moves.

I think 4years old is too young to be unaccompanied on a bus.

At that distance they will have to provide transport for her (not you) until age 8. You need to have grounds to appeal, but if you can find a good reason why your preferred school is the most appropriate for your daughter you can try. Alternatively you can accept the place, but defer until april, continuing with your usual childcare arrangements, and in the meantime get on as many waiting lists for schools which are acceptable to you.

3, in our LA transport is only provided if more than 3 miles.

StarshitTerrorise - Your LA is required by law to provide free school transport for children under 8 if the allocated school is more than 2 miles from home by the shortest safe walking route. If they are refusing to do so they are breaking the law.

sumanatalk - The big question is the size of classes in Reception, Y1 and Y2 in your preferred school. If any of the classes have 30 children when the school is full you can only win an appeal if a mistake has been made and you should have got a place. However, if the classes are smaller you have a better chance. You would need to show that your daughter would be disadvantaged by not attending your preferred school because, for example, it has a lot of musical activities and she is musically talented.

Oh well the law doesn't apply to my LA on pretty much all other educational provision, I doubt they'd care!

Oh God. Join the club. My twins are at a C of E nursery, and have been rejected for the main school with no explanation. Been offered my third choice. Offsted report is about the same as the other two schools so we'll have to see....

A place in a school nursery is no guarantee of a place in reception I am afraid. Reception places are allocated by the LA. There may be all sorts of reasons other families are allocated a place ahead of you - those who live nearby, but have needed to use full time daycare, for example.