Help! Suddenly no school place in September. What do we do?

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Hello everyone,

I?m hoping you can give me some advice. We?ve suddenly found ourselves without a primary school place for our son, who?s due to go into year one. We?d really appreciate some advice on what our options are, whether to appeal, etc. We?re frantically trying to gather info, but as this has all happened last minute, we?re feeling a bit overwhelmed!

The situation: Our son is a late August birthday. So last year, when he was due to go into reception, he?d only just turned four. So instead of taking up his offered place last year, we kept him at pre-school for another year. We were told we just needed to re-apply this year for a place in year one. (As his offered place was at the school that was bottom of our list, this wasn?t a hard decision.)

This year, we put in our application in as instructed (West Berks start considering applications on 11 June.) All seemed to be chugging along nicely. Then we heard he hadn?t got a place at any of the three schools on our application. Then we heard it was OK ? a fourth school (not on our list) had a place. Then we heard no, actually they haven?t ? that school had got funding for a special needs place, which trumped our place.

As all the schools are full, the LA are telling us they will start a procedure to force one of the schools to take him. (Ironically, they say this needs to be the school which is again bottom of our list!)

We suddenly feel very naive that we?ve trusted that the system works: despite everyone knowing for a whole year that our son will need a place this year, he?s the one without a place.

I?d be SO grateful if anyone can offer any advice on the following:

1. Is there anything we can do to influence which school the LA try to ?force? to take our son?

1. Would going through the appeals process with the individual schools help? (And if so, where can we get advice on what to put in a good appeal? ? our current position seems to be ?we know you?ve all followed the letter of the law, but dammit our son needs to go somewhere and he?s nice? doesn?t feel like a particularly strong argument!

1. Anything else that we could/should be doing?

Many, many thanks.

PS: We've just heard about www.schoolselect.com and www.schoolappeals.co.uk.
Does anyone have any experience of these services? Are they worth looking into?

The experts you need will be along presently I am sure, and they will have all the advice you need. But

1. I don't think you can influence the LA to choose a school.

1. YOu can certainly try appealing - there are pleny of experts on Mumsnet who can help you.

1. YOur son should be on the waiting list of all the school's you would possibly consider him going too.

It does seem as if you were very naive - surely you knew that when you applied for a place in Year 1, having turned down a place in Reception, you would be up against the issues of class size regulations and of classes of 30 full with children who arrived in Reception?

Did you not do your homework before turning the offered place down as to what was likely to be the situation at the beginning of Year 1?

The LEA has done everything they should - planned for and given your son a place in Reception. By turning that down, you become solely responsible for finding him a place at this point. If all the schools are full, then you have to rely on the Fair Access Protocol to give you a place in a school - and that may very well be a school you would not normally consider. The FAP exists to find a child a place somewhere when no school has any vacancies - it does not exist to give you a place in a school that you would like.

You are right that you seem to have no strong basis for appeal UNLESS you have, for example, an e-mail that states 'your son will be given a place in Year 1 at X school, no problem at all, we can guarantee it' from the date at which you turned down your initial school allocation.

Otherwise it's pot luck and waiting lists. Do the schools in question have waiting lists for in-year admissions, and if so, where are you on them and how much movement is there typically in Year 1? You may be lucky - some schools have lots of turnover. You may be unlucky - DD's year group of 60 admitted its first person off the waiting list in Year 3.

It is a horrible situation - and you may well have been very badly advised - but it is a situation of your own making unfortunately.

Is the school that is bottom of your list your nearest school, or your nearest community school? Maybe that is why it has to be that school, or maybe that school has more capacity to take an extra pupil. It is worth asking for their reasoning. Were you on waiting lists for the year? If a place came up during the year they can't keep it, they have to offer it to the person on the top of the list

The LA may well have known that your son needed a place last year but in the meantime other families will have moved into the area or you might have moved out of the area - so no, they couldn't have known that he needed a place this summer. They can only estimate how many places will be needed in any school year and this isn't an exact science.

Are there really absolutely no schools with Y1 spaces within 5 or so miles? I know it happens, but it's not terribly common.

Sorry, that wasn't terribly helpful of me.

Is it true that the LA only consider applications from a certain date? What about in-year applications? If you were advised that you had to wait until June to apply, they might possibly be in the wrong.

We need the experts though (of which there are several - and I'm not one!).

Right - just had a quick look on their www.westberks.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=23469 where it says "Applications can only be processed up to 6 weeks or half a term in advance of your requested start date." Is that maybe what they mean with the June date?

Well I don't think you should feel bad about your previous decision, as all you did is turn down a place for your (not ready for school yet) son for a school you didn't want to send him to anyway.

The Local Authority will have to find him a place but this may take time and won't necessarily be for the school you want - any more than than it was for Reception entry.

What you can do is research all your local schools (including those in other LA areas) and put your son's name down on the waiting lists of any you fancy (can be more than 1). This won't give you a quick fix but may open up the possibility of moving him at a later date if you don't like the school he is allocated.

It is unfortunate that you deferred entry for a full year. If you had deferred to, say, summer half term you would have been able to keep the place you were offered last year. However, that isn't very helpful right now.

The LA may have known that you would want a place in Y1 this year but they could not reserve a place for your son. That is against the rules. They had to wait until you applied for a place in Y1 and then process your application. Unfortunately, as you have found, most schools are full. That means the LA's Fair Access Protocol kicks in to make sure you have a place somewhere. The LA will work out which school is best able to cope with an additional pupil and offer you a place there.

To answer your questions:

1. No, there is nothing you can do to persuade the LA to choose a different school for your son.

1. You can appeal for your preferred schools. However, as your son is going to Y1 it is likely that any appeal will be an infant class size case. You can only win an ICS case if you can show that a mistake has been made, which is very unlikely in the situation you describe. If any of the appeals is not infant class size you will have a better chance but you will need to show why your son needs to go to the appeal school.

1. Make sure you are on the waiting list for all your preferred schools (assuming they are still operating waiting lists). And make sure you accept the place the LA offer, however little you like the school. If you reject it they don't have to come up with another offer.

Firstly, don't panic!

What's done is done and if you felt that your ds was too young for school last year that's perfectly reasonable.

I don't know too much about appeals but I would echo what others have said about making sure you are on the waiting lists of your preferred schools and find out what number you are. Generally there is often a lot of movement, sometimes people move away, decide to change school etc, sometimes at the last minute. It is only the start of July now, a lot can happen before September.

If it gets close to term starting and you still don't have a school place, speak to the LEA about your options. If they have a place at a further away school you could take that whilst staying on waiting lists if it was logistically possible for you. Or you could home ed while waiting for a place to come up. And speak to your preferred schools about your chances of getting a place. I know our school is very supportive to people on the waiting list so do speak to the Head(s).

Good luck, your ds is still very young, you will get a place eventually and it won't have any long-term impact on his education.

Thanks very much everyone for the advice and support.

We knew it was a calculated risk last year -- but as his place was at a school we didn't particularly want and others had done the same with success, it seemed like one worth taking. (And he's had a brilliant year at pre-school this year, so no regrets really.)

We're down on two waiting lists (found out today that we're 2nd and 3rd, which seems pretty good.)

Although obviously it's a shame there's nothing we can do, it's reassuring to know we've not missed anything obvious. Trying to get our heads round appeals/class size info just has just been a bit overwhelming!