Rejected my sons place offer for September, what happens now?

[PoppyPia]

We were allocated a terrible primary school miles away earlier this month for reception, I have thought about it and there's no way I can send my son there, so I have rejected the offer. What happens now?

I did, ginandlime- and was ignored.

Yes seeker I saw that .. Seems like we're in a minority today. Tis a sad day when the mumsnet masses just accept DM views

i picked up on it too, didnt comment but certainly picked up on it.

This is one of those threads where the mumsnet collective has bizarrely decided the the OP is a poor innocent victim of a confusing and arcane system. A system that the vast majority of people are able to navigate with little difficulty..........

I must say, I thought the comment was unecessary but gave the OP the benefit of the doubt as didn't want to start an unrelated debate on racism.

There has been another thread started recently about having a better system so people know how and when to apply for school places.

Surely you know when your child is due to start school and the forms are self explanatory IMO.

In general I thought people had told the OP she was in the wrong as she didn't actually apply for the local school at all?

Absolutely Tiggy, I was just commenting on my area mainly, sorry.

If catchment areas were decided based on number of places at the schools then this should help the issue but of course there has to be enough places in the local schools to fit the children in.

We live in a densely populated city and even with 4 private schools in the small area there are still not enough school places. All infant schools are completely full with waiting lists as are the private schools. It is insane!

PoppyPia - I can understand you rejecting the place if you won't be able to get your ds there as you don't drive but to give 'most of the children aren't British' as a reason is irrational and racist imo. I'm a bit shocked that that would factor in someone's reasoning for rejecting a school tbh.

In our LEA if a child is allocated a school that is further than statutory walking distance then you can usually get transport provided.

If he is on all the waiting lists for schools you would accept then perhaps a place will come up somewhere in the term before January. One other thing to bear in mind is that if you choose a private school instead then most of them take EYF so if you have any time left over that can go towards the fees.

BranchingOut , Yes there are definitely traffic issues associated with taking kids to school. But the schools are set up for parents arriving by car...just about every school public or private has a "kiss and drop" set up and manned by parent volunteers where the parents pull up and drop off their child. It allows parents to drop their children off safely, keeps traffic flowing and eliminates the need (bother to the neighbors) for parking. In addition, for the most part, people go to their local school, but if they don't want to, there are good choices even if you are not rich.

Seeker, ginandlime, I tried to ask for more details from OP about her concerns about the school and encouraged her to see if the offer could be reinstated..but she doesn't seem to be engaging in this thread anymore. I hadn't realised that questioning whether a post was for real or windup was against talk guidelines (hence my initial post being deleted) so I apologise for that and it would be good to hear from the OP again with an update

I thought it might have been the whiff of xenophobia that led some posters to be quite hard on OP and not to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Did everyone miss that the OP is not from this country. I gave her the benefit of the doubt due t this.

Surely that would mean you'd read the information about applying for primary school even more carefully?

jake All Op has said about where she is from is "where i come from...". I can't see anything specifically saying she is from another country (than UK) and thought she may simply be from Scotland or Northern Ireland. i confess i assumed she was British because she describes her DS as one of the "few British" children at the allocated school. Of course she may be from another country and describe her child as British but then i am surprised she would have such a negative reaction to non- British children if she herself is not from this country.

To be fair to the op I wouldn't want to send ds to a school where there were only one or two English speakers in his class if the rest of the class all spoke the same language. Having taught classes like this I think it can be an issue. Id be happy with a school with varied mixed ethnicity. I have a couple of Muslim friends who have applied to schools where there are high numbers of Muslim children (although they do speak English) because they felt happier with that for their children.

alienattack your last post summed up my thoughts exactly

And that's why it would be interesting to understand (and perhaps allay) OP's concerns about the non-British aspect of the allocated school. She hasn't mentioned non-English speakers or a dominant other language so we have no idea if this is her concern.

Sorry, that was to idbeloveandsweetness

PoppyPia Mon 06-May-13 19:33:10

"Thank you everyone for your responses, just reading through them now but a few things to add-

I naively assumed that when I wa told I had a choice it meant I had a choice. I was educated in a country where everyone automatically had a place at their local school, I assumed this would be the situation here. I now know I was wrong."

mrz, thanks for that, you're correct, I had missed that reference. I guess it could still refer to Scotland or Northern Ireland but there is little point in speculating. i would still like to understand more about OP's concerns about her DS being one of the few "British children" at the allocated school.

IMO the schools in the 'rough areas' (council estate intake??) are actually excellent because they are set up to work with challenging behaviour, additional needs and SEN very well. They also tend to be well resourced and attract excellent staff. I'm only basing that on a couple in the town I work in but it must be possible to extrapolate something from that. Plus, what is wrong with your child being in a class with a lot of non British children? 4/5 year olds will learn English extremely quickly if they don't speak it already (which most will) and that's about all I can conjecture that might affect your child's learning. I honestly, hand on heart would be happy for my DS to go to school alongside lots of non British kids. In fact I wish there were more in my area, DS is mixed background himself and I'd like him not to stand out too much!

Only because in my experience if the majority of the other children speak the same language they will use it amongst themselves even if they can speak English. So on the playground etc they will speak their home language. That's why I think it's better if there is a mix of languages spoken. No one gets left out!

My dd was in a very socio-economically mixed state school for the last 5 years. Although, my dd was the only white girl in her classroom in several years, it didn't matter because the rest of the kids weren't all from the same background. Socially it was fantastic. This year she is in an extremely wealthy private religious school where most of the children are from the same ethnic and cultural background (parents all from one particular country). I had not anticipated how socially difficult this would be for my dd. It is the first time she has ever had trouble making friends. The kids stick together and don't make friends outside their group, and although they all speak english with each other, their parents don't and don't mingle with outsiders, so I can't even help pierce the social circle for my dd. I can understand that the OP might be concerned if her dd was the only "british" child, if all the other kids were all from one particular background. (although she could have done a better job of explaining it...) That can be really isolating for a child and not all children are up to that character building challenge. I thought my dd would be, and it turned out she wasn't.

How did you get on talking to LEA OP? I hope you found a back up school place while you're on the waiting lists.