Surrey Admissions, no local school for my 5 Year Old!

[Zellie1]

I need some advise please?! We recently moved to Weybridge, Surrey and have applied to get into any of the local government schools. Surrey Admissions got back to me saying they had no space in any of the local schools and the only place they could offer me was in Cobham.
I never in a million years thought that this would be something I would have to stress about. Having to cope with a house move, finding a nursery place for my 3 year old and having to juggle school holidays and my job was enough on my plate to start with!
I have decided to turn down the school in Cobham as timings won't work out due to traffic in the morning and me having to drop off my younger son in Weybridge for nursery.
My issue is that I feel totally out of the loop with regards to what the admission office is doing to help find a local school for my son. I have been told that I have been put on waiting lists but does anyone know weather they actually chase up on people on the waiting list. I guess there many people on the waiting list which have now found alternative arrangements but don't let the council know.
I've been forced into keeping my son at home and to home school him until a local school space becomes available. This is not what I want to do but I also don't want my son to be moving from one school to the next within a few months. He wont be able to cope with that much change. He struggles socially and finds it hard to make friends as is.
Why is nothing ever straight forward :-(

Any advise from someone that has gone through this same process would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Once a place becomes free they will offer to the first on the waiting list, who may of course turn it down, so they will then offer that place to the second on the list etc. There is no point in really chasing up people on the waiting list until a place becoems free.

What year group are you looking for? If reception, year 1 or 2 then class sizes cannot go over 30 so you may be waiting for a while. If year 3 or above there is a little more flexibility and it may be worth appealing for a place at your nearest schools.

However in offering you a place in Cobham (St A?) they have actually done all they legally do, and you may want to rethink that place, although I understand about the traffic issue (There is a breakfast club though if St A is what you have been offered.)

Although it may be difficult for you to get to Cobham, the LA have fulfilled their obligation to you to find you a school place and have presumably given you a space in the closest school with vacancies. There is a severe shortage of school places in that area and a number of schools closer to Woking are taking bulge classes or increasing their PAN. If you turn down the place, the LA won't necessarily "do" very much at all to actively find you another place. However, you can, of course, remain on waiting lists for closer schools. Which lists are you on? Have you spoken to the schools directly who may be able to give you some indication of what the likely movement on their lists is? Do you have any idea of your position on the different lists?

If you cannot get your son to school because of work, how are you going to HE him? Surely you will be at work during the day? Who is going to look after him during that time?

Can you not transfer your youngest to a nusery in Cobham? Then you wont have the traffic issues

Children are more resilient to change than we think. My dd went to 3 different preschools and 2 different primaries. She coped fine, despite her shyness.

The trick is, is to be as excired and positive about the situation as possible so it rubs off on them too.

Just to add that, as Titchy says, the LA has fulfilled its responsibilities by offering you a place. They do not have to come up with another. If they do it is likely to be even further away than the one already offered. So right now you are relying on the waiting list to come up with a place and home educating him in the meantime. Remember that new arrivals in the area may go ahead of you on the waiting list so you may be in for a long wait unless you live very close to one of your preferred schools.

It's as Tiggytape says.

A quick Google suggests that the distance from Weybridge to Cobham is about 4 miles (although obviously a lot depends on the exact address of your home and the school).

The LEA aren't obliged to offer you a place in a nearby school if there isn't a place inside the class size limit of 30 and they're not obliged to keep offering places until you accept one. You need to speak to them urgently, to ask to be put on waiting lists for all the schools that you would be willing to accept and to confirm (if this is the case) that you do still want a place in school. You should also ask about Surrey's rules on free transport to school.

The LEA will offer places from waiting lists as and when they know that people have turned down their place (or, once term starts, have simply not shown up) so obviously you need to be on the list ASAP. The waiting list is held in the same order as the admission priorities, where most places are awarded on the basis of distance to school, so (broadly speaking) the closer you are to any school, the higher on the waiting list you are likely to be.

Sorry, could have been more helpful in my last post. Depending on how far it is to the school offered, will your child qualify for free school transport? Otherwise, is there a before/after school club at the school? Or could you change your childcare arrangments? Instead of using nursery for your second child and presumably some kind of wrap-around care for the older, could you use a nanny/aupair instead who could do the drop-offs?

And the FAP only kicks in if no local school has a place. You would find it hard, I think, to convince the LEA that the FAP should apply in your case, especially if they are offering free transport.

Info on free school transport

That's a point - I can't see any viable bus route between Weybridge and Cobham (despite both being fair sized towns in the commuter belt, 15 miles or so from central London - grrrrrrr) and back again so the free transport shoudl be a taxi (with crb checked driver) which would mean no traffic issues for you at all!

I have a child in school in Weybridge, and as I recall there is a bit of movement around the first couple of weeks of a new school year. A couple of children left reception last year for other options/private schools. In particular Manby Lodge seems to have a fairly transient pool of children so something might come up there. Lots of children at my daughters school got in through the waiting list.

I would ring all the nearby schools to confirm that you are on the waiting list and seek information on the chances of a place coming up.

If it looks v difficult and that you may be homeschooling beyond the length of time you want, you might want to reconsider Cobham (if that place is still free), maybe DC2's nursery would be flexible about drop-off time given the circumstances.

Another option would be private school (cost probably less than you taking time away from work to homeschool), some people do this while waiting for their preferred state place.

Find out from the LEA where exactly you are on the waiting lists of the schools you're interested in.

Ring each of those schools, introduce yourself, ask to confirm that your child is on 'their radar', build up a relationship with them

If your child is high up on the waiting list, it really is worth waiting for the first two or three weeks after school starts to see if any families don't come back. This happens a lot.

I don't know what to suggest in the meantime when you need to go to work and your child doesn't have a school place, sorry.

Good luck!!

My daughter goes to St Andrew's and her first year was outstanding. We couldn't have wished for a better start. There is a nursery school on the site, Little Acorns (it isn't affiliated with the school but just happens to be on the large site - 10acres) and a few of my friends children attended the nursery and were pleased.

There is a breakfast club that starts at 8am however they are looking at opening full wrap around care with a successful local company and care can be provided from 7.15am until 6pm.

St Andrew's gets a bad wrap due to an outdated view from locals who favour St Matthew's or now the free school. This view is unfair as the school (in particular the early years) scored 'outstanding' in it's Ofsted and as a parent I couldn't agree more with their rating. We have had lots of children join from Esher and Weybridge due to the space shortages. Our class size last year was 21 and believe this year it is at around 19 or 20 per class....you wouldn't even get that in the private sector.