Home visit or school place removed???

[newschoolmum]

Namechanging as some other local parents know my usual name.

I really don't want to become a complaining parent before dc1 even starts school, but have just received my first letter from them.

There will be a home visit in less than 2 weeks time. I think home visits are a great idea where feasible, but the letter then says the time (lunchtime) and day are not negotiable, and if we do not have the visit that day, the school place will be removed (not may, or possibly if evidence suggests the child doesn't live at your address - will!)

I'm sure there are people locally who fake addresses to get kids into certain schools, but this isn't one of those schools!

Is requiring a visit even legal? They don't actually mention anything about the purpose of the visit - I was idly wondering about taking dc1 to nursery anyway and letting them loose on DH who will have just woken up and be grumpy. :) For extra annoyance, the letter was addressed only to me despite DH being on all the LEA paperwork, but that's really probably not worth raising at this point. [sigh]

I wonder how all those many schools that don't do home visits manage to cope without this "essential" visit?!

Our school has recently been taking places away after home visits where it was clear they didn't live there. The LEA doesn't have enough spaces for primary at all and have got hard line on any fraud. So maybe there is a wider local problem you are unaware of?
But agree the letter is unreasonable!

DSs school didn't do home visits so this is a load of rubbish, I can't believe it is enforceable although I'm not sure I understand why you don't want to have one?

Prettybird - of course they 'cope'. But that doesn't mean that it can't be an added extra benefit for the parents and children of schools that do do it, if they choose to accept. A home visit as part of the child's induction is an offer, not compulsory, where's the harm in that?

But in the OP's case, it doesn't seem to be an "offer" but is instead in some way "compulsory" even if that it is illegal although it may just be trying it on a badly worded letter.

Have politely emailed asking for clarification.

It's from a KS1 manager, not the head, and meeting the teacher is a separate day - if it was a home visit so dc could meet new teacher in a stress-free environment, I'd be all for it, but given it's some manager, I'm not rearranging being 100 miles away on business - DH can deal, with or without dc as appropriate.

Hopefully they'll be able to tell us when term will start for us, as my boss is struggling with staff not knowing when they need leave in Sept...

Home visits aren't compulsory or to check you live at the address

There was a thread which indicated that your DC must be allowed to start FT from the beginning of term, so this may help with understanding when term starts for you as you could avoid a staggered start.

The letter may be from the KS1 manager but the home visit ll almost certainly be done by the Reception teacher and/or teaching assistant. I've never heard of it happening any other way.

littlefish So I'd have thought, but the second half of the letter talks about dc's chance to visit the school to meet their teacher, which implies the first visit they don't. I'd heard the teachers mostly visited local nurseries to save time, but no mention of that.

Though it could be anything - the most likely scenario is the letter has been drafted by someone totally different who knows nothing about the procedures and was going off notes scrawled by KS1 person or someone else. But I'd hope a well run school could just use the welcome letter from last year...

FOAF at the LEA is now 'shocked' by said letter so suspect words may be had.