Moving schools

[Fluffyflora]

Hi all,
Hoping for some advice - we will be moving house and my daughters (year 6 and year 3) will need to move schools - They have always attended a Catholic school and the nearest Catholic school to the new house (and the one that is a feeder for an excellent secondary school) said that they are full - what happens in this situation? Do my girls just get placed in any school that has a place regardless of their previous Catholic education? Hope this makes sense...
Thanks in advance

Hi. No personal experience yet but I have been looking into how this might work for us with a future house move. Our local area require us to put in an "in-year admission" form stating our preferred school choices. If there are no places we will be allocated the nearest school(s) which have places and we can opt to go on the waiting list for our preferred schools.

Based on a recent conversation with the school admissions dept at the local authority there are 70 children on the waiting list for Reception class starting in Sept 2013 and they are ordered on the basis of distance from the school, SEN and sibling rules in the usual order. So new entries to the list can come in at higher levels so there will be constant movement on the list even if no places actually come up!

I spoke to the school and they told me that there are no places in any of the year groups and they only very rarely get places coming up ie when families move out of the area - and its the sort of area families move into for the long haul and leave when their children leave home! :(

So basically we could easily be on the waiting list for years. My main hope is that somehow there might be the possibility of extra places in the classes from Y3, but I don't know how realistic this is.

We are not actually planning to move far from out current house so could potentially reverse commute the 20 minutes or so to the old school, but I can't face doing that for up to 6 years. Why, oh why did we not move before the kids started school?? Or have the foresight to buy a house in an area with good primary and secondary schools? Doh...

You could appeal to the catholic school. The rules on class sizes is less strict from year 3 onwards. My Dd's both have 32 in their classes.

If you live in England you will be expected to take places at the nearest school that has space. You can go on a waiting list I expect.
The fact that they have been at a catholic school is irrelevant. It's a bit like saying 'they've been at a school that teaches French so they MUST continue to go to a school that teaches French. The LA has a duty to provide you with a school place but not a place in any one particular(faith) school.

Not sure I agree with the French analogy - Having been baptised at 6 weeks old and always attended a faith school just wondered if you could request a Catholic place not that they MUST have one! Thanks for the advice anyway.