Did DS get place or not?

[makhmuza]

Hi everyone.

Today we got result about school place for Reception. First letter in the post was from local authority, saying that we offered a place in our first choice school, I was ecstatic! But also received letter from the school saying that we didn't get a place. I was very confused and upset. Immediately I called the council (didn't mention about the letter from the school) they confirmed that DS got his first choice place, I even got them to double check DS's date of birth, name and address to be sure.

What does it mean? I am completely confused. The letter from school says DS didn't get a place. Tomorrow I am going to post council's reply slip to accept. But what to do with the school? We are scared that they might say that was local authority's mistake and we don't have a place?

If you are in England the letter from the council is correct as they are responsible for co-ordinating admissions and making offers. There is a small chance they have made a mistake but now the place has been offered they have very limited time to withdraw the offer if that is the case. Accept the offer, wait a few days then tell the school they are mistaken. Feel free to tell them how upset you are. That might deter them from doing the same in future.

Is it a school hoping to become an academy? Our local school is aiming to do this and when it does it will have different admissions criteria from LA - but as it isn't technically signed off then parents are getting matched against both sets of criteria, so possible to get offer from one but but not the other. The relevant offer will stand depending on what happened with academy status.

Unless the letter from the school was sent by recorded delivery (unlikely) they have no evidence that it was recieved - post can take up to two weeks to arrive. Ignore the letter from the school, don't acknowledge that it even exists, accept the place via the council reply slip immediately. Wait 3 days - unless the council withdraw the offer within 3 days you are safe as previous case histories have established that places cannot be withdrawn if more than 3 days are elapsed.

It is 3 days from offer, not 3 days from acceptance.

The only situation in which the school should offer places is if it has just converted to academy status (or it is a free school which has just opened) and isn't taking part in the LA's co-ordinated admissions scheme for the first year. But in that case the LA would not offer any places at that school. There is absolutely no way the school should be sending letters to parents telling them they were unsuccessful when the LA is telling them they have a place.

I thought it was odd and potentially a bit of a legal minefield, but had a letter from the school last week which stated that in some circumstances a child could meet the oversubscription criteria from either local authority or school and not the other. If your local authority gave you a place but the school didn't - and academy status was granted - then you would loose your place and potentially have to reapply to local authority. We didn't meet either set of criteria so didn't get offered a place but imagine it could cause lots of problems. Sorry if this isn't actually relevant to you OP!

My guess (stress, guess) about what has happened is that school has ranked applicants and sent list back to LA for offers. It has assumed that it's first choice for all applicants, and has automatically sent out the 'no place' letter to all those not in the top (say) 30. But, LA has processed list against preferences; some have listed it as 2nd or subsequent choice and have been moved off this schools list as they also met criteria for 1st or higher choice school. Say 5 children. So LA offers go to the next children on the list (numbers 31-35) and those ones get both letters.

The school really shouldn't be sending out the 'no place' letters without checking the LA's final offers list.

SkipsTheImmortal - I can see this school heading for lots of problems. I would be interested to take a look at the situation if you don't mind giving me the name of the school and LA involved by PM.

The school isn't an academy, it's a CofE Primary. I went to the LA education office to hand in the reply slip. Will wait until Wednesday before mentioning the letter from the school to the LA.