I wonder if anyone can advise?
We?re in the process of selling up with a view to moving to Surrey (Staines/Egham area). It?s taken months but things are finally moving. As it currently stands we have a preference form completed with our current LA for 4yo DS and we get the allocations on Friday. IF all goes to plan and we move, it should hopefully happen around end of May/beginning of June.
I?ve been in contact with Surrey County Council and they say I can do one of two things:
a) go through our current LA and change our preferences to Surrey schools ? I?m reluctant to do this as obviously nothing is certain until we?ve completed our sale and I?m loathe to do anything that could potentially take him off the system here. If our sale falls through which has happened to us before we?re probably staying here for the foreseeable and he?ll need a school!
b) Wait until we?ve moved and then apply to the schools in our new area. This seems the sensible option, but I?m very aware that the later we leave it, the further down the waiting lists he?ll be (if he isn?t allocated a place immediately that is).
Has anyone any experience of moving at this time of year? What will happen if there aren?t any places? I know he can go on the writing lists but say no place ever comes up ? how far away can he realistically end up? If, say, there was no available place within 5 miles what would the LA do? I don?t drive and anything over a couple of miles is going to start incurring significant public transport costs. Is there a cut off point at which it becomes an unreasonable distance for them to expect a child to travel to school?
Sigh. It would have been so nice to have had this sorted months ago, but such is life!!
Any advice or knowledge on this would be most welcome!
TIA