older sibling rule.

[mumsgreentrees]

Any advice from anyone would be much appreciated.
My youngest son was given his first choice school starting this september. My eldest son is currently at a different school and currently in year 1 but has remained on the waiting list for our preferred school. Hes been going up and down yo yoing from 1 to 5. Before we made the decision to put our child into our favoured school, we spoke to surrey east admissions and they told us that the sibling rule applies to older ones as well so decided to risk it and put it as first choice for our youngest son, they told us to ring as soon as wed heard that our youngest had a place. We duly did this and they told me to write an email to surrey east admissions which, again, I duly did and they replied saying that they have set the date of the 17th june (today) for the date when all older sibling changes comes into play. The admissions team didn't know about any of this today and when I rang the east surrey admission office it seems they have decided to go back on what they had originally said and that the sibling priority wouldn't come into play now until september for this year (when I'm convinced there will be less movement than the end of a school year). Can they really do this when I have it in writing? we may well have not put it as our first choice for our youngest had we have known this. Sorry for the long explanation.
thanks in advance for any replies.

Surrey's admission arrangements state that priority goes to children who will have a sibling at the school at the time they are admitted. So your oldest son is not entitled to sibling priority if he will be admitted before September. It is at this stage still possible for him to start in the summer term. However, if they have stated in writing that your youngest son will now get sibling priority they cannot go back on that. If they admit someone from the waiting list when your son should have been admitted through sibling priority you would have a very good chance of winning an appeal.

ahh thankyou I thought so. Apparantly the officer I spoke to said that they had the rule last year that the older sibling could go up the waiting list before september as well but they decided at the end of april this year not to do that from now on. They knew that they had sent some emails out saying something different to some people but didn't know to who (me being one of them), she was a bit cagey on the phone and said that she would ask her manager to be in touch. It all seems very unfair to change their minds, especially like you say, i have it in writing.