what happens about waiting lists after December?

[queenfromars]

Ours are maintained until December 31st, what happens after then if we decide we still want to try and get ds into our preffered school? What if a place becomes available between then and the next admissions round?

Hi queenfromars:

My understanding is that government changes (i.e. break up of LEA control - in advance of privatised & profit making schools - sorry my red creds are showing I believe) means that in year transfers will be handled directly by schools.

In this LEA this is being handed over notionally from September.

My advice would be to directly contact the school - say you've seen that individual schools will now be responsible for admission in the news and that you wanted to know what they would like you to do - as you would like to remain on their waiting list.

PS be incredibly nice to staff on phone - staff tend to help people they feel are reasonable.

HTH

Thank you for this post as I was wondering the same thing myself.

Does this mean it could be done on a first come first served basis?
I will email the school and ask them what happens here, thanks.

queenfromars

It should still be by admissions criteria & distance.

Having said that I know we were waitlisted for our school under old system and we were accepted before another family living closer.

We were home owners and they were renting - not sure if that was the issue.

In year applications will be handled by schools from September. If they don't hold a waiting list that means you need to apply when a place becomes available. The admission criteria (which may or may not include distance) only come into play if several people apply and there aren't enough places for all of them. If you are the only person applying for the place it will be yours.

Is that all schools? How would we know when a place becomes available? Does this mean we deal directly with the school from September?

It is all schools in England.

Although the LA is not required to co-ordinate in-year admissions they are required to tell you which schools in their area have places and provide a suitable form for you to apply. Whether or not you deal directly with the school depends on the type of school. If it is a community or VC school the LA is still the admission authority so I would expect that you still apply to them. Where the school is its own admission authority you will probably deal with the school unless they have agreed otherwise with the LA. The LA's admissions booklet must tell you how you go about making an in-year application.

Just for clarity, admission authorities have only ever been required to keep a waiting list until the end of the autumn term. Most choose to keep them for longer but they don't have to do so.

My local LA told me to call the school at the beginning of September and make sure they have DD's name on their waiting list. Then ask the school if you need to ring at regular intervals to check that they are still on it and find out whether there is any movement.

Thanks for the replies, I am still confused!

I emailed the LEA, and he said "The County Council continues to manage the waiting
lists until 31 December 2013. No waiting lists are maintained from
January 2014 either by schools or the County Council."

So if a place became available between Jan-April, how do they know who to allocate it to, or do they leave it vacant?

My local authority does maintain waiting lists after 31stDec, but doesn't actually call them that. They are also going to handle the In-year applications. I think that's a good thing because it means schools won't be able to choose or reject pupils.

If they don't maintain waiting lists after December any place that becomes available will remain vacant until someone applies. So if you want a place you will have to keep ringing them up to find out if a vacancy has come up and get your application in as quickly as possible. If enough people do that they will become fed up with all the phone calls. Hopefully that will persuade them to reinstate the waiting list.

The rules change from 1st September such that after the mandatory period of holding a waiting list, which is through to the end of the Autumn term that in-year admissions are then the school's responsibility. Most LAs have interpreted the admission code, which says waiting lists must be held for at least the first term as meaning no waiting list after the first term. All community schools will have to follow this lead. If the school is their own admission authority then they can determine their own way of doing things as long as they publish that.
If a school is usually full and has people wanting a place at the school and there is a reasonable amount of mobility of pupils leaving then they are going to find it very difficult to decide who gets places if there is no waiting list, held in admission criteria order. As PRH says most schools are not going to appreciate a weekly telephone call from every parent wanting a place just checking whether any have become available. I can't see how any such school is not going to have to hold a waiting list for each year group.

Thank you, so basically what he has said is the waiting list will continue as it is until the end of December? And then it will be up to me to make regular contact?
I have spoke to the school already, and they have said they will keep me on their records - I am assuming if others do the same they will inadvertantley create their own waiting list?

To my way of thinking and possibly the schools it is not a waiting list, it is a simply a record of parents who have expressed an interest in the school. Who they can contact if a suitable vacancy becomes available to see if they would like to apply for the place or other such bilge to get round calling it a waiting list

Would they still be required to use the same criteria, or would it be at their discretion?

If they have more than one parent who wants the place they would have to use the admission criteria to decide who got it.