Admissions advice please - Returning from overseas - applying for twins to start reception 2013

[Mrsfudgecake]

Hi. Can anyone shed light on the following for me please:

We are returning to the UK from Australia around Easter 2013 - after the closure of applications for primary places. We have twins due to start in September plus a son to go into YR2.

We do not own a property in the UK so will need to rent in the catchment area of our chosen school until we find somewhere to buy

I understand there is an extra month (Till mid Feb) allowed for overseas applications which will then not be treated as late.

To have the best chance of getting our twins into school - should we rent a property (unseen) before the deadline whilst still overseas?

No, I can't see any rules being broken in roadkillbunny's post. It is fine for the school to accept applications from an address based on confirmed exchange of contracts or a signed rental agreement. Many LAs do this.

I was referring to the school in steppemum's post which apparently had a PAN of 8 but the head "had discretion to waive the limit". If you have a PAN of 8 you must admit 8 children. A school can only go over that number due to successful appeals or by varying the PAN. Under the old admissions code (which presumably applied at the time), it was up to the LA to decide whether or not a school could admit beyond PAN and, if the school is a VC or community school, it is still up to the LA as the admissions authority. Depending on the numbers involved a school regularly admitting beyond PAN was required to increase PAN by the old admissions code, although the new code does not include this requirement. Increases in PAN should not be down to the whim of the head teacher acting unilaterally.

prh - I have no doubt that it was done in conjuction with the LA and not unilaterally. The reason it is (and this is current) allowed is because the number varies enormously year on year (last year 1 reception, this year 10) and because those numbers rarely follow up the school, as there are always children who come and go. (dd1s reception started with 9, now it has 5 as families moved, and that is typical) So the LA allows some flexibility.

This is pretty common round us in village schools. I assume there are a set of regulations governing it, the key number seems to be the 24 in the infant class.

Are you in England? If so they should be varying the PAN at the start of the process so that parents know how many places are available, not changing it after applications are in. If you are in England and they are regularly changing PAN after applications are in they are playing somewhat fast and loose with the regulations.

yes england

I know this year they accepted the 8 children and child 9 was allocated elsewhere. Child 9's parents talked to head, and were I presume going to appeal. Never went to appeal as it was sorted amicably between all parties and child 9 offered place. Don't know the details apart from that, I am sure the correct procedures were followed.

They are not actually changing the PAN though. They are just allowing some flexibility according to common sense. Pretty glad they do, as it seems like common sense is prevailing.

This is a small school and they are usually under numbers, so typically take between 5 and 8 into reception. This year in our area lots of schools have had to put on extra reception classes as there is a birth bulge. Seems sensible to me, if 9 children applied and they can take 9, then why not?

The appeals thing is a bit of a red herring, as most years there aren't any.

The year they took my dd, we arrived back in uk in august unplanned and she was due to start in sept. We phoned school and asked. They phoned us back and said yes, we filled in application at the school (was 2006). I assume she had cleared it officially before she said yes to us. Was only later as we got involved in the school that we realised dd was no.9 in class. She was in effect an in-year application as all places allocated and appeals settled before we appeared on the scene. School is in a village and we were living in the village, walking distance away. If they had refused her, LA would have had to bus her to somewhere else. We are no longer at the school but still know people who are.