Katerina's school nightmare: advice needed, I'm desperate! :(

[Katerina384]

A few days ago I posted about having no school places for my DDs in September. We moved to the area a few months ago ( an oversubscribed area) and originally were offered no school places at all. I also can't find a nursery place for DS, but as I work from home and will soon be on maternity leave I'm not so worried about that for now.

I finally had an email from the LEA today. DD1 has been offered a place in year 3 at a school approx. 4 miles away, and DD2 a place in year 2 at a school 7 miles away in a different direction :( I will be given free transport to school on public buses for both DDs.

The issue here is how I'm going to be able to get both of them to school. I don't drive, so we will have to use public transport. I was speaking to a neighbour of mine whose DC was also offered a place at the school 7 miles away, she and her DC tried the route on public transport and it took them almost 2 hours I can't afford to put one DD into before and after school care to pick up the other as it is, but if it's a 4 hour round trip just to get DD2 to school then it's going to be impossible to get DD1 to school too. I would have to take one DD with me to drop the first one off too IYSWIM, as well as a 4 year old if no nursery place comes up soon and will be heavily pregnant/with a newborn. Surely this is never going to work?

The schools the DDs have been offered places at are both in speical measures and have horrible reputations, but at this moment in time I just want to get them in somewhere, I'll worry about trying to come up with something better later!

I know if I turn down one or more of the places then the LEA have no obligation to find me another one, but I just don't see how we could possibly make this work.

Advice greatly needed!
Katerina

That's fantastic NarkedRaspberry thank you, I'll get on to our previous church.

Joan I could, the trouble is that her DC would be going into reception in September, whereas my two are going into years 2 and 3, seems like too much of an age gap to ask her :( The other issue is that my two don't speak much English, it seems like an awful lot to ask :(

You could do with five households doing a day each... can you offer another language?

joanofarchitrave I could, not with DS and a newborn though :(

It would be worth appealing to the local RC school for your yr3 dd if the other school isn't RC. If they have their own appeals panel then they might be sympathetic to you wanting to have an RC education. You could try for dd2 but less likely, although it will put her to the top of the waiting list probably.

Do you have any contact with health visitor or sure start centre?

I know they can't wave a magic wand but they may be able to offer support and maybe point you in the direction of someone who could assist you in sorting the mess out or maybe help you access a homestart volunteer to give you chance to make calls etc whilst someone is with the children.

Good luck.

Go to the papers. Bloody AWFUL situation to be in. I would be on the phone to ALL the papers tomorrow if I were you. Local councilors...everyone you possibly can....

There's no way anyone could think it reasonable for a young child to travel two hours each way to school, regardless of the other practical challenges. The LA really needs to come up with an acceptable transport arrangement for that child at least.

You shouldn't be forced to home educate if you don't want to. But if it comes to it and all the school options are totally unworkable, do look into the idea. There's a good chance you'll find that it's easier than you think.

Good luck!

I should clarify that for appeals in yr3 or above then there is less of an emphasis on class size, indeed a friend's dd is going into a planned yr3 class of 35!!! If you know other parents at the school enquire if they have ever heard of the school admitting over 30 per class. You should be able to request this info directly too. If they ever have gone over 30; and the classrooms aren't tiny, plus you can argue that the RC education as well as being with friends from church will help her to settle. If they have any other clubs / specialisms in the school which would benefit your dd you can use these to support your appeal. I would use the same with dd2 and argue that 7 miles and 2hrs each way is unrealistic so the fair access protocol should have been used, thus the LEA has made a mistake or should have offered a taxi. As it is the holidays it may take a while for the appeals to be heard but put the pressure on as you have already been waiting since June.

Oh also worth posting on the home ed pages, but I don't think that there is any requirement to educate in English. Would your neighbours consider teaching some English in return for your teaching their children. If the access to schools is that bad there may be quite a few families who between them could teach an hour each. The rest of the curriculum you can teach in native tongue. In fact you don't need to follow the national curriculum, just demonstrate with evidence that you are covering all subject areas.

I must admit I would be weary with a newborn, but dd1 is 7.5 and this holiday has happily sat at computer and played maths games for an hour every other day (she is not home educated). You also do not need to follow a traditional school day curriculum, so you could do an hour of English - which could be anything from reading, to watching cbeebies and discussing it afterwards, to going to the shop and asking for a loaf of bread. Followed by some numeracy and then some fun science, history, re etc in the afternoon.

Your written English is fine, certainly good enough to teach at that level, for spoken you may well need some outside assistance if you do not feel confident, but helping them to make friends with native speakers at church, in the neighbourhood would help.

Having looked into it before briefly, I don't think there is any set definition for the word "reasonable", but it is generally perceived as under 2niles (or 45mins travelling time each way) for under 8's, and 3miles (or 1 hr 15mins travelling time) for over 8's.

I would definitely start by questionning with LEA (and write to councillors) about why Fair Access wasn't used.

I would also write to other local LEAs to ask when they would use their fair access policy, because if you can prove they would have used it in your situation (e.g a mover in with no school place, children being sent to schools 7 miles away etc), then you have a good case for showing your LEA was being unreasonable at appeal, as the definition of unreasonable is "one no other authority would have reached" or something, so you need to show other local authorities would have acted differently.

Well to be fair you knew it was an oersubscribed school area. You can't expect schools to just find places for everyone that turns up. That. Would not be fair on thechildren already atthe school.
But you have my sympathy as I have children at different schools. I have to pay for before and after school sessions foronechild while we wait for a place at school with rest of his siblings.
I know the LEA here provide a taxi service for those who have to go to a school a longway off.

RC =roman catholic
I am the Head of an rc primary.
OP you need to get hold of the admissions policy for the lovely
RC school you mentioned.
Practising RC may not be on the criteria- it may be just baptised RC in which case you would probably be successful at appeal for your y3 child. Then you could go on waiting list for your y2 child. If no places become available you could then appeal for them when they reach y3.
Hope this makes sense. I would not accept LA offers. Appeal and go on waiting lists.

I apologise if this is no use as I haven't read all of the thread, but have you considered just waiting - I had some problems with the first school ds went to, and ended up taking him out temporarily but they then withdrew his place.

There were no schools locally that I considered acceptable so I had him at home with me for a couple of terms. He was only 4/5.

I got a letter one day saying that a place had come up at the nicest school because a child had left - and would we like it, so we accepted it and he started there in yr1, half way through the autumn term.

I accept that this was very fortunate but it is something that might just work out for you - to stay on the waiting lists everywhere you quite like, with both girls, and see what comes up because children DO move schools and places do arise and even if just one becomes available, for one child, you could then wait and see if your second child gets in later - I believe their place on the waiting list would be higher if they had a sibling already there.

Wishing you lots of luck with this. I know the idea of hE is startling to some people but for us, as a short term measure, it was really not a problem. Ds spent most of his time dissecting slugs in the bathroom sink. Science, see...

Thank you so much everyone for your advice.

My plan at the moment is to appeal to the RC school a 5 minute walk from us now both DDs have places at other schools. Not entirely sure what I will say in my appeal yet, we'll get to that! Their admission criteria states that priority is given first to children in care, then to children in the catchment area who are baptised and attend the attached church regularly, then band C is children in the catchment area baptised who attend a different church regularly. So DDs will fall somewhere between bands B and C, but when I apply for DS for recpetion next year he should be band B.

I know I don't have much chance of getting DD2 into year 2 but I feel I might as well try. I'm hoping if I can get DD1 into year 3 and DS into reception next year then I will be in a stronger position to appeal for a place in year 3 for DD2 in 2013.

Does anyone know anything about appeals? pleads In the meantime I'm still considering home schooling, though I really don't see how I could make it work with a newborn :(

tiggytape I'm going to get onto our previous church today about providing proof of curch attendance.

From what I can gather, I think the local children were the victims of their parents taking risks filling out the application form. Most of the local schools are RC or COE and give priority to practicing children who are baptised, we are right in the catchment area for all these schools and all the parents I have spoken to whose children are practising have gotten into one of these, most of them my first choice RC. The non religious schools, however, all have awful reputations and are in special measures but still fill up because there don't seem to be enough places around here. All the parents whose children got places at schools miles away whom I have spoken to so far far are not religious but still only put down the oversubscribed religious schools on their application form, so they got themselves into a mess IFYSIM. So I think DS should get a place OK when I apply for him next year.

So glad that you have a positive plan of action! I don't know anything about appeals, but many on Mumsnet do and I'm sure they will be willing to help. In the meantime, is there any way you could speak to someone in the church about your situation? Perhaps the Priest would be willing to write a letter explaining your situation and offering his support?

Also, many areas have volunteers (advocates) who are trained to support people in your type of situation (i.e. new to the country, grappling with a difficult legal situation, not confident with English). For example www.parentpartnership.org.uk/find_your_local_pps/yorkshire_and_humberside/leeds.aspx I know that this is (presumably!) not in your area but if you google 'advocacy in ' something useful might pop up. I know about this because I considered volunteering as an advocate (although I didn't go ahead because we moved and DS2 was born)

kilmir I know, I do accept that. The issue for us was that we had been planning this move for a while and now was the best time to do it, that was a decision I had to make.

I know it wouldn't be fair on the children already in the schools but at the same time you could argue it isn't fair on a 6 year old to make two 2 hour journeys to school everyday. A 6 year old is meant to have around 11 hours sleep, and we would have to leave the house at 6.45 to get to school on time, so up at 5.45. So to get 11 hours sleep I'd have to put DD2 to bed at 6.45, and she wouldn't be arriving home until 5.30 That sounds completely undoable to me, she's going to be shattered!

I sort of agree with kilmer, how on earth can an LEA be expected to accomodate every child who moves into an area?

I feel for you but it's not disgusting and certainly not news worthy. You moved to an area that you knew was oversubscribed..were you expecting them to magic up a place?

I would never move my children without school places, i appreciate your family issues but why should the council be responsible?

The LEA has done what is required of it in terms of offers.

What I would question now is whether their offer of transport is adequate. That's why I suggested you ask for their risk assessment of the transport they are currently offering, which puts a child alone on public transport (remember, the offer of transport for a child should mean exactly that - not defraying part of the expense for a parent to do it). How will they ensure your DC is safe door to door on the transport arrangements they propose to provide?

If they cannot come up with something better (chaperone, or CRB-checked taxi), then it might be worth putting a shout out to one or more of the admissions experts about what can be done next in terms of an LA's decision being so unreasonable that it should not stand.

"but why should the council be responsible"

Because there is a legal duty which makes them so.

I know i can't move and we bought a house near to the school we wanted.

I know that its chicken and Egg and i understand its just rubbish for everyone. I don't understand people being outraged by it that's all.

The OP has a house near oversubscribed schools and needs/ wants two school places in full classrooms. The council just can't magic them up...they can only offer her what they have. If you put your foot in the other shoe, how would you find the OP places?

I don't live in London but i believe that even reception aged children struggle to find a place.