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?

Not all offers early. We only received ours 2nd May!

OP disappeared from this thread some time ago.......

If you're still reading OP, try to focus on the good advice that you've been given rather than the 'oh how could you be so dim?' responses. I know rather more than several people who didn't understand the admissions system until after places were allocated and would, in hindsight, have done things differently if they had had a better understanding beforehand.

Things do generally get sorted out, but now the onus is on you to make this happen viz an viz the advice above.

Best of luck.

PoppyPia - To clear one thing up, the Catholic schools cannot refuse admission simply because you are not Catholic. However, like the CofE schools they can prioritise children of the faith. That means you are likely to be some way down the waiting list.

You seem to have stopped responding to this thread but, just in case you are reading, let me try to make your position clear. Your child must start full time education at the start of term in January. You cannot HE and you cannot afford to go private. You are not CofE or Catholic so you are likely to be some way down the waiting lists for those schools. You are some way down the waiting list for your preferred schools. Hoping that enough people choose to go private to get you a place is not a plan and, bluntly, it is unlikely to happen. Any alternative offer from the LA is likely to be even worse in your view than the offer you have already rejected. What are you going to do when mid-December comes and you still haven't got a place?

Don't just brush that question off. That is the most likely outcome from your actions. You need to have an answer.

It's possible OP has nothing to add, but might do once LA offices reopen on Tuesday.

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.

The local school is c of e and a very small intake and has a centre for children with sen attached, so they are part of the class but have some time in the centre. Therefore out of this small intake priority is given to children with sen who would be helped by the centre. My son is 6th on the waiting list but that's quite a long way down relative to the intake.

I have also found out some children in our area are offered no place at all, which is worrying.

Good luck Poppy with your phone calls tomorrow.
Hope you do get a school not too far from you eventually.
Nice to be able to walk to school!

If other people have no places at all, this suggests even more reason to see if the LEA will reinstate the place you refused. Perhaps if you give more information about your reasons for refusing it - You mentioned "a rough area, poor SATS results" and your DS being one of a " few British children". -then others might be able to Give you some comfort that this school place is still a better option than nothing.

Good luck op

We didn't get a place I was happy with for DD.

Get on waiting lists for all schools in the area.

Your options are

1. Keep in nursery until end of the year if the nursery has a place - the govt funding continues until the end of the term they turn 5. Speak to nursery asap - they may assume all are leaving for reception in September.

1. Check with the private schools, don't assume you have to be a millionaire. That was what we ended up doing for DD. I had no intention of sending her private but the fees are less than a full time nursery place (they even knock off the govt nursery funding in reception) and it is filled with lots of 'normal' parents in the same boat as us. Also if you will be using aftercare/holiday this may work out cheaper at private or enable you to work longer hours.

1. Move asap

1. Home educate

1. Ask re free transport to out of area school - this may be by taxi. The LA has to provide over a certain distance. He wouldn't be expected to get on a public bus on his own.

1. Just because he does year R somewhere doesn't mean you are stuck there forever- you can stay on waiting lists.

Hope things work out for you Poppy. This school business is difficult, especially if you are not originally from the UK and don't know the system that well.

I haven't checked with the nursery no, will do that tomorrow. Private could be an option temporarily if the fees work out less than nursery but I will have to investigate. My son is on waiting lists for all the local Catholic schools as well as the ones I applied for him to go to.

Just to check, you're still ignoring all the advice to try to reinstate the offer of a school place which was made to your DS?

Are you on the waiting list for local schools that are not Catholic schools? If you're not a practicing Catholic you might be waiting a very very long time on the waiting lists.

Do you mind if I ask where in the country you are OP? Is moving an option? Some areas don't have the same level of oversubscribed schools as London.

I do feel sorry for the OP: the system is, at best, somewhat opaque.

You receive or download a brochure which has every school in the local authority listed, rather like a catalogue. You are told the characteristics of each school and encouraged to visit and to appraise which school would suit your child. It appears to be a system of choice, but is in fact, for most children, a highly restricted allocation based upon location, family sibling position and faith. Add in other cultural understandings of what a school application process might be and it is no wonder that so many parents end up in this kind of situation.

Fingers crossed for you, poppypia.

You can express a preference but you don't get to choose. If popular schools could expand to accept everyone who applies it would be different but that is not practical.

The good news is that the LA will find places for any child that doesn't currently have a place. That may include creating bulge classes at some schools. If one of your preferred schools gets a bulge class you may strike it lucky but don't bank on it.

I agree branching. I usually find the posters of these types of threads really irritating, but I OP doesn't come over that way at all and I hope that this works out for her.

It took me ages to understand how admissions work here, despite living in the UK all of my life, and every year I meet people who don't realise that they haven't understood the system properly until allocations are made.

Mrz , it has been my own experience that teaching methods of phonics, or anything else at the elementary school level are depressingly similar in the USA and UK. Perhaps you have had a different experience. I don't think that the OP has "rejected sensible expert advice" in the least. She is searching for options that will work for her and her family and they may not be the options that have worked for you, that doesn't mean that her choices are incorrect. Regarding HE, I was simply pointing out that HE can be an option, even for working parents. Doesn't mean she has to pick it. In fact, it was not an option that I was comfortable with for my dc's, but that was my issue, not an issue with the concept. I've been very impressed with the HE children that I've met over the years.

Then I would be very very worried about the school in the UK

My own two-penneth is that I think that (if you chose to receive it by filling in an online form) is that councils should send out a prediction of your most-likely school place in the autumn term before admissions.

If they can generate individual council tax bills then this should surely be possible.

This would hopefully minimise this kind of issue and might give councils a heads up on where bulge classes etc might be needed.

"a prediction of your most-likely school place in the autumn term before admissions"

On what would they base that? It's nothing like as simple as council tax!

It might work in small town/rural areas with a fairly static population and well-spaced schools, always assuming thy have good data on number of children resident on their patch (and those under other councils who might make cross-border applications).

But in areas with a denser population, and distances to school of under 0.5km, I don't see how it can be done.

And what on earth would they say to parents who arn't likely to receive any initial offer at ll?

I think that LAs should run plenty of school application workshops, including evenings and weekends, so that working parents can access.

After years of allocations being a nightmare, our children's centre trialed this (including helping people fill their forms in online) and every single person who attended got a place at a school they had named, even though some catchments went down dramatically.

Branching, that would result in people appealing based inthe council prediction, I'm sure.

We get a form and an informatoon pack that lists our catchment schools and then lists other local school.

Plus when we visited schools ht were quite honest re intake and distance etc. Yhere was certainly no false information re chance to get in. I knew we were borderline depending on distance for the school we chose. Thankfully i had the sibling rule for younger ones but even that difnt guarantee a place. i gambled and had home ed as a back.up until a place bevame available but our school has a high numbrr of transient pupild due to catchmemt covering an area wherr lots of people work for a local uni or are students and then move after a year or so.