Mums adress on primary school admission

[masa1977]

I need help. My almost 4 year old goes to nursery close where my mum lives as she looks after him while i work.I work full time.
When we initially submitted the aplication for place at the primary school,firstly i put my mums adress and selected the three schools of preference. All of those schools were refused and they offered him a place in the catchment area of my mums adress. The thing is i dont want him going to that school.If i knew this would happen I wouldnt put my mums adress on this forms. I was not fully familiar with all this rules. I am also not English(Croatia). I now want reverse everything and put things right. What are my chances? Plese help me!!!!

It was a mistake to put your mums address as its against the law to not use your own address, where the child lives, to get a school place.

I know what it's like to live in a foreign country as I am in the same situation. What seems straightforward to people, can seem like wading through treacle when you don't understand.

Why did you put your mum's address on the form?

Where your preference schools closest to your address or your mum's address?

If the schools were near your mum's address rather than yours then people will think you were trying to play the system.

Can you put his name down on the waiting list for schools near where you live?

The schools of preference was put in my mums area. If i knew this would cause chaos i would have put my own. I did was best for my son and my mum who looks after him almost every day.

So you tried to fiddle the system to your advantage and it didn't work.

Unfortunately you broke the rules by using your mum's address, even though you didn't mean to do anything wrong. If you had got a place at one of your preferred schools they could have taken it away again, even after your son had started at school.

The first thing you should do is give the council your correct address. You can then apply to other schools. If they don't have places you can go on the waiting list. You could also appeal for any school which hasn't given you a place but, depending on the details, your chances of success may be very low.

You could ring your LA admissions office for the area where you live ( not your mother's area) - explain that English is not your first language and you've been very confused by the entire system.

You've now been told that you should have used your home addresses which you didn't understand at the time. Hope they believe you and find a place at a school near your addresses which you do like?

You need to sort this out.

Even if you had been offered the schools you wanted close to your Mum's you would probably have been turned away because when you accept a place, and then start school, you have to give PROOF that the child lives at the adderess. So they will ask for a Council Tax bill in your name, or maybe the Child Benefit letter paid to you at that address. And they may do a home visit, too, to check.

Go back to your local authority admissions team, update you details to your own address and then ask to be put on waiting lists for the schools closest to your own home that you would like your child to go to. Or you can put your name on the waiting list for any school you would like your child to attend, including the ones near your Mum's.

However, waiting list places are given out accoding to the same admissions criteria, so you will have a better chance the closer a school is to your hosue, or one for which you are in catchment.

Unfortunately councils do not take the address of childcare arrangements into account.

just 'update' your addess details and apply (by going on the waiting lists) for schools close to you home.

If its the same local authority for both your mums area and yours then - yes updating to a new address and going on waiting lists for schools you want would be all you need to do.

Places do often come up as people move round but find out how far down the waiting list you would be to gauge likely success of getting a place.

For some reason I assumed it was different areas so different authorities .