Council list my application and now my boys have lost there place at primary reception school! Please help!

[aprilgirl1]

Hi please I'm desperate please help, we applied to council to our local primary reception for our twin Boys the same school as our eldest boy, we sent the letters of application back within a week of receiving them, Wednesday comes and we receive s letter stating the boys have not a place at our requested school as we did not send a application in? We did send the form In so we have done everything correctly to get our boys into this school but due to them loosing ours and 6 others in the nursery class we now don't have a place I don't know how I'm expected to pick3 boys up and drop off for that matter at different times, I feel in an impossible situation my hubby works away so therefore I have no option of one going to one school and one the other, this has got me ill please help me xxxxx

Sorry about typos I'm just up a height looking at where to turn! Any help would be great xx

Thats terrible! But how do you have a letter saying you don't have a place if they say you haven't applied? How wold the council even know about you if you havent applied?!

Is the letter from the school and not the council?

Have you spoken to anyone at school or LEA? Presumably given there are 6 other families, then the council have messed up somewhere?

You talk about drop offs, have they allocated you any school?

Yes they've allocated me another school the letter said; as you have not requested a school for your children we have allocated them a place for reception school at........., the wrong school, so this would mean dropping my eldest off at one for 9 and the twins off at 9 at different schools and picking them all up at 3.15 at different schools, I've spoken to head who saud it's first year the council have allocated places rather then the school and the school can't really do anything ESP now there r 6 families in same situation!!!

I've wrote a letter of complaint to council but there reply is " we never received your application" it's like talking to a brick wall! I'm in a total pickle x

If there are other families at your nursery that have suffered the same thing, I think you should get together and immediately contact a Councillor for your ward and the Councillor with responsibility for Childrens And Young People's Services or Education.

In the meantime I assume you have put yourself on the waiting list for the school you would like?

What a horrible situation - I hope you get it sorted out very quickly.

Hopefully you will get some of the excellent specialist advisors on Mn along in a minute.

Do your local councillors hold a 'surgery'? I would be looking to go along and talk to them this weekend if they do.

you should def get on the waiting lkist asap in the meantime as you should surely be near the top with a sibling.

The council has obviously messed up somewhere to lose so many forms for the same school - maybe they're trying to work out what happened/or a solution before they admit to anything?

Someone more knowledgeable than me will no doubt be along later, but IIRC if you can use the admission criteria to demonstrate that your DTs should have been allocated a place then you should be able to successfully appeal.

Do you have any proof that you returned your application?

Yeah I've contacted my local mp just waiting to hear back x

No I have no proof hindsight I should have done recorded deliverybut you just expect things to go where they r supposed to! X

Contact the relevant Councillors as well as your MP - they should give you a quicker route into the council.

This is one of those cases where your MP and councillor are unlikely to be able to help as admissions have to follow the rules.

Is this the nursery run by the council? Did you get your application form from the nursery? Do you know when you sent it in? The deadline was mid-January so if it was after that you were a late applicant, in which case you may find it difficult to win an appeal.

Assuming you got your form in on time, if you appeal the central question will be whether the panel believe your case that the LA lost your form or accept the LA's case that you did not apply. If it was just you the panel would probably be inclined to believe the LA. However, with 6 others in the same position I would expect a panel to wonder what is going on. So in that sense the fact that others are in the same position is good. However, if they all applied for the same school and all appeal it becomes more of a problem. It is possible the panel might conclude that the school can't cope with all 7 children in which case they will have to choose which appeals succeed.

To lose one form looks like a misfortune, to lose 8 looks like carelessness. I agree that you should club together. I would submit a freedom of information request of how often forms claim to be lost in your LEA each year, averaged by how many primary schools there are. I'd like to bet that there aren't usually 8 lost per school per year. Also how many other parents across the LEA claim to have submitted a form but they have no record. If they are mainly in the same school is fairly good evidence that it is a problem with them. How many classes are there in the school? They may be able to put in an extra class and split children over more classes, and then amalgamate when people move/ reach KS2 and no class size limit.

Yes nursery is a council run school, forms were sent direct to our house and I replied within a couple of days so well within the timescale! It's funny but all firms lost are of equal criteria ie all with siblings in school which says ti me maybe the full lot have been picked out together and misplaced??! It's just so bloody annoying when I nknow I handed the fiorm in and it's coming diwn to whether ir not a panel is going to believe me! So annoying x

If it helps a similar thing happened in our area. I dont know if the parents were able to prove the form went in and the council messed up, or whether they were taken at their word

Anyway, council were obliged to offer them a place as within catchment etc and it was their mistake

Council then funded an extra teacher for the school for 3 years as they were over required ratios....

Hope it works out for you. dont give up. and I would def club together

I wouldn't worry too much if there are 8 families who all have siblings I would speak direct to the school who will, if they are like my school, bend over backwards to make the council sort the problem out. Schools know which parents will have filled in the forms and which wont, speak to the Nursery manager and the Head teacher and the Chair of governors. My friend was in this position last year and after 3 weeks of fighting everyone, it was sorted and her dd got a place, there is often some movement in places at this time as people get their second place and reject it. Keep nagging everyone you can think of, but do it as a group of 8 !

The question I have got is exactly what did you do with the form? You say you handed it in, so did you hand back to the nursery or what? More importantly what does the admission book say you should do with the forms.
If there are actually 7 families all who have siblings at the school, then there is obviously something very wrong if they have all not got places. You need as a matter of priority to alert the LA admission office but I would also talk to the school as they may know what has happened.
What can be done about it, is going to be a problem. If you are for instance a single form entry school there is no way that they are going to allow at appeal or even before appeal, 7 extra pupils in a class of 30. So how big is the intake?