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?

What Tingalingle has described is either not recent or a serious failure by the LA. You always apply to your home LA even if the school you want is in another LA's area. Your home LA must come up with a place for your child even if it isn't at one of your preferred schools.

If this was recent the home LA is at fault both for failing to pass on the application to the neighbouring county and for failing to offer a place.

Hope OP gets something sorted today. I really feel for her DS who is the most affected in all this

Once again I urge you to contact private schools as you will probably find them cheaper than private nursery fees. As well as the very sensible advice to reinstate your school even though you dont want it - its just a back up and you could also hire a childminder to do drop off and pick ups

Martha I agree....some preps have bursaries too.

I would expect that bursaries for the coming academic year will all have been offered by now.

Bursaries at reception age are very unusual anyway.

Are they Lizs? My DD got one...we weren't particularly early with our application but it is a bit late now I suppose.

It would probably be worth adding that you do need to make an application to your catchment school if you want a place there.

Many children don't have a catchment school.

Some posters are advising Make sure you have at least one school on the list you are fairly sure you can get into.

Not everyone has the luxury of a school 'you're fairly sure you can get into'.

WHY can't we give every child a guaranteed place in a catchment school? Scotland does it. So does Australia.

End this madness. Parents could still choose another school - if it had space.

Every child would have a guaranteed place in their local school. Why is this a pipe dream?

Because unpopular schools in heavily populated areas would have to, for example, plan for a three-class intake with associated staffing implications, and then discover that the parents chose not to take up their place at the local school and they only needed one class! It's unworkable

You could say "you will go to this local school and no other" maybe they should but if you don't do that, if you want to give people a semblance of a choice then you cannot have however many places at each school on the offchance they will be needed.

Schools across a city need roughly the correct number of places for 4yos in that city.

What used to happen? I remember as a child that suddenly being able to choose your school was a big thing. Before that were we just allocated our nearest school?

Presumably now that there is more population movement it's not so easy to predict.

The house price thing is significant but only because the catchment areas are fluid, so the closer to a good school the higher likelihood of getting in etc.

If catchment areas were fixed and every child had to be accommodated in that school, then it would be less of an issue.

In year transfers would be possible if there were genuine issues but I think all of this 'choosing the right school for my child' is bollocks. If all schools were good then there would be no issue.

The problems arise when individuals are given a choice based on self-interest which causes stampedes away from certain schools towards others, creating an ever decreasing circle.

The whole faith schools nonsense doesn't help either.

Newpencilcase - yes, you lived in X road, your DCs went to Y school. You could put their name down for another school if it had places, but it was very very odd to do that. However, there weren't the same limits on class sizes, my last year at primary was the last year before 'choice' came in, there were 38 in my class. they just had to take all the DCs that there the correct age in the correct area.

Choice was shortly followed by limits on class sizes, meaning limits on choice.

That's it, isn't it. In many areas there might only be a handful of children who miss out on a place, or at least who would have got their first or second choice but for a few places. If schools could go bigger at their discretion, the issue would abate a bit. But most people agree with the principle of limiting class sizes in infants. They just don't want it to result in their child not getting into the school they want.

I have to say that, much as I disagree with a lot of what the Tories have done in government, I do think allowing excepted pupils to stay excepted all through infants makes sense though. It totally screwed school budgets to have to have an extra teacher for 31 children - given that their funding is basically per pupil.

Prh47bridge: yes it was recent (this year), and our LA have now agreed that they were at fault for not passing the application on to the right county, so they have agreed to take the child.

But it wasn't something that was obvious on any of the information. The family got a pack through the school, saying, essentially, here are all the open days for your local secondaries; consider your preferences carefully and apply by date XX.

Amanda, effectively expanding at the school's discretion was what happened when I was at school and we all went to our local primary.

Result? There were 15 in my class and 45 in my younger brother's. That's in one classroom with one teacher. In Reception.

Yes Tingalingle, I totally agree, I wasn't saying it was a good thing. I was saying that the limits on class sizes (which most parents agree in the abstract are a good thing) are what really impact on choice. If people were for choice at all costs, they would accept stupid class sizes like your brother experienced. The fact that that would be unacceptable means we all have to live with the fact that choice is severely limited. You can't have both sides of the equation.

Fixed catchment areas would still affect the house prices. Removing choice doesn't meant that parents don't have preferences for which school their children go to. It just means that house prices in the whole catchment area go up as people move into it.

Where I grew up unless you go private you go to your catchment school. You can put in a request for your catchment school and will be given it if there are places. It isn't without problems. This year in particular has been a massive shambles with people who've applied for their catchment school being asked to reconsider and apply for another school instead because there are not enough children to warrant making an extra class.

It must be so difficult for people in the SE and London! My sister, who lives in rural Derbyshire, sent her DD2 into Reception at her 1st choice school. Before half term it was obviously a wrong choice - bullying which the staff seemed unable to prevent.
She took another look at 3 local schools (within 3miles - this is a rural area) all of which had places. She chose one and moved DD in the week before the Christmas hols. Since then all has been well, and her DD no longer cries on school mornings - in fact can't wait to get there.
I am saddened by all the MN threads about 'no YR places' or places at the 'wrong' school.

It was one of the main reasons we moved out of London. We moved to a house equidistant from 2 not great primary schools, although would unlikely to have been awarded a place at either.

We now live in the catchment area of a great school which also takes some children from out of catchment (although is oversubscribed in general)

Still genuinely don't understand why it is impossible in England to have fixed catchment areas for schools when so many other countries seem to manage it without major issues.
There must be solutions to the staffing problems and varying pupil numbers from year to year in those countries so why can't we do the same?

Clay, yes, fixed catchments would still affect house prices. But young families would get some security in their lives. They could invest and plan.

Now, a life of planning, choosing jobs, juggling childcare, can be destroyed at the drop of a demographic blip.

The current system is crazy. Siblings are assigned to different schools. Reception children are forced to travel over 2 hours a day (that's 4 hours for the parent). Families sacrifice to buy or stay - then, suddenly, the goalposts are moved.

On ICS - Scotland has catchment areas and better ICS than England, so there must be a way. They also have parental choice - you can go out of catchment if there's space.

Sounds so much more sensible than the madness here.

The big problem is population density. In London you can live less than a mile from 6 schools and still not get an offer at all. And there simply isn't land available for new schools. It works in areas with lower populations or where the densities are less (ie more land for new schools or expansion of existing schools on site nd still have a playground). So fine in Scotland and Australia, not fine in major UK cities.

I think Boris is looking at land availability in London. But with a 30 per class limit, it's going to be difficult to find space for more classrooms. Hence talk of allowing more classes to go to 32 in the hope of absorbing at least some of the current bulge in numbers.

I live within a mile of about 9 schools - I only had a realistic chance of getting a place at one of them (which I did by 30 metres).

However, they are building a new development of 120 flats bang next door to that school - many of them 2 or 3 bedroom flats.

If we were applying in 2 years time we would not even get a place there.

The UK isn't the only country in the world with cities with high population densities. Does this problem arise in other countries and how do they manage the situation? I think by operating shifts in some cases.

Just musing really, and not adding anything helpful to the debate.

Talking to friends in the USA, those in NY are as stressed about school places as people in London.