Help, school places for my sons...

[Liggy]

Hi all, I need some help and advice.....

I have 2 boys, one is about to start in year 2 in September and the other in Reception.

The elder is currently at a Prep school, but we can no longer afford the fees. We applied for a reception place for our younger at our preferred primary school and got a place Yay. Then filled in the forms for our elder to join him. No space, Boooo.

I really want to keep the boys together, mainly because I am currently pregnant due 14th September and don't want to make a new born travel for hours everyday dropping off and picking up from separate schools.

I contacted Essex Council, they asked me to list other schools I would be happy to look at. I gave them a list of 5 other schools and they have come back saying they are all full for reception and I will have to complete another form to find out about a place for year 2.

HELP!!! any ideas??

I'd ask Essex CC to provide you with a list of schools that have a reception place then I'd call them to see if any of those have a year 2 place too. It may be hard to get someone on the phone at the school so I'd probably try and email too.

Would it also be worth asking how long the waiting lists are at your preferred schools? I know you want to keep them together, but it might be that you have a good chance even of a year 2 place coming up at your first choice school quite fast? it might be worth the hassle of dealing with two schools for a short time rather than settling for any school that has places.

Essex are not being very helpful. What they need to do is tell you where there are places both in reception and year 2, so that both siblings can be together. I suspect the fact they have not done this suggests that there are no such places within easy commute distance.
I appreciate that in theory the year 2 place is an in-year application and therefore handled by schools but that would what a good customer service organisation would do!
What you need to check is the admission number for the school that you have a reception place at. That will tell you whether any appeal is going to be an infant class size appeal. If it is not then I would definitely appeal for a year 2 place, you have nothing to loose.
If it is an infant class size case then the likelihood of winning a place is very low. In that case you definitely need to know where the nearest school is with a place for both children. If it is more than say 3 miles away then I would ask the LA to admit to the preferred school using the Fair Access Protocol mechanism. In effect this is the LA over-riding the admission rules because there is no local place available, but they will only do this as an absolute last resort.
The other thing that you should do is that on the first day of term is go and see the head teacher at the preferred school, tell them you are desperate for a place as X has just started in reception. It will also not be a bad idea to be very obvious about the need for a third school place in 4 years time and that if you can't get place at preferred school, all three children may have to go to another school. The head teacher may just have a level of sympathy for you and admit. Make sure also you are on the waiting list at the school, as from 1st September the school is again responsible for in-year applications. And hope that somebody has left in the summer holidays and you are first in the queue, when the school realises that they are not up to capacity.

When I rang the school that younger has a place at they seemed to think that there would defo be space for next September (Year 3). Which wasn't VERY helpfull.

This just makes me want to curl up in a corner and cry!! You are right I would rather have them both a separate good schools than at the same poor one.

There are a lot of primary years ahead of you, and it might be more important in the long run to be in the primary you like, even at the "cost" of a complicated school run this autumn.

Have you formally applied for a year2 and been rejected by the school where you have the reception place? What are their waiting list arrangements, and where are you on that list?

Having made one reception offer, the LEA is under no obligation to find you another reception place; not are they obliged to find you places together. But they are obliged to find you a year2 place somewhere. Have they made any offer at all yet?

Do you know if the 3 miles would be as the crow flies, or how long it takes to drive?

It's a shame that you didn't start looking before school finished. A few phone calls to the schools themselves would have given you some quick answers.
Put yourself on waiting lists.
You may have to wait til September now to see if anyone leaves.
Email the schools. There will be no one in school answering phones but the head will probably be checking emails over the holidays.

No offers at all for a year 2 place yet. We applied formally for the preferred school and were refused due to the infant class size.

Very annoying as Year 1&2 share a classroom (Very Small School) this year they had 32 children in there and from September there will be only 31!!

I haven't asked about a waiting list, but will now you never know someone may leave!!

Actually it is useful knowing that you are likely to get a place in year 3, as it indicates that once the restrictions on infant class sizes are lifted then the school is willing to go above a class size of 30, some schools are happier/ more able to do that than others. It means that the problem will be limited to one year. Are there any neighbours/ after school clubs/ breakfast clubs to patch up the gaps in the day.

When is your reception child 5? Legally they don't need to start until term after they turn 5, so you could defer his place to later in the school year to reduce the school run nightmare - however until he is attending the school your older child will not be counted as a sibling - it depends how that affects his place on the waiting list. hope you get some answers soon.

Legally they can only take 30, the fact that there were 32 indicates that people must have won an appeal at some point. They cannot then just always take 32, but it might indicate that it is worth trying to appeal particularly if no other nearby schools have a place for him. Often distance is measured as the crow flies.

Liggy, there are other people here who know more than I do about admissions, but I just wanted to send you a big hug. You must have so much on your plate at the moment - it will work out.

Liggy,
if they have a joint year 1 / year 2 class then they presumably have an admission number of 15. To have gone above the 30 level must mean that two appeals were won or pupils with special needs statements were admitted. Whilst you might think that having gone from 32 to 31 means that there is a space it does not mean that. The class has to go down to 29 before they will admit and if they have 15 registered pupils for year 2 they still cannot admit as the vacancy is in year 1 and must be filled by a year 1 pupil.
Sorry to be negative but I think that you do need to be thinking in terms of places at other schools for at least your eldest child in September.