What to say so that your first-choice school will give its place to your child?

[Fiona2011231]

I put this question as a mother who still hopes my 4-year-old son can be accepted into our first-choice school. In Sept, we missed the place and the child is now number 7 in the waiting list.

I always thought simply that I should contact the council sometimes to ask about the waiting list.

However, now at least two of my friends claim that you have to contact the school itself to show how 'desperate' you are. The school will always say No to you first, that they do not have any power, and that you must contact the council. But apparently the reality is they will listen to your desperate voice and somehow you will get lucky.

Is it true? If it is true, then what exactly you should tell the school, knowing that the person on the phone will say No to you at first?

Thank you very much.

Your friends are wrong I'm afraid. It really is up to the council.

Your friends are wrong.

You are on the waiting list, places are allocated when a space appears. That's it.

You could appeal if you had grounds. But from your OP it sounds like you made a late application?

There is no benefit in mithering the school. Is he attending another school in the meantime?

If it is a state school then you can't just be let in, that wouldn't be fair on those above you in the waiting list, you need to formally appeal but the only way to win what is probably an infant class size appeal is to show that there was a mistake in the way the spaces were allocated.

That aside you just have to wait and hope you move up the list, get on with it at whichever school your child did get a place at, home educate or go private.

Places have to be allocated strictly according to the admissions criteria (which is how the waiting list is ordered). Neither the school nor the council can do anything about this. So whether your child gets into the school will depend solely on how many children leave it and how many children are above him on the list (that still want places there).

Of course, if you have grounds to do so, you can appeal. There is no other way to "jump the list".

As others have said, whoever is managing the waiting list must do so in line with the admissions criteria. They cannot under any circumstances move someone up the list on the basis of something they've said to the school. If the wrong person is admitted from the waiting list the parents of the child who should have been offered the place would almost certainly win an appeal.

The only ways to leapfrog the waiting list are to win an appeal or get a statement of SEN naming your preferred school.

A child might also "leap-frog" the waiting list if they get a sibling into the school but as others say just sweet talking the school won't do it.

Your friends are talking rubbish.

Sadly what happens with admission is people mistake coincidence for causation. Someone will have done this and got a place. They'd have got a place anyway. But now they think that the pleading got them the place and word has spread...

Good luck with the waiting list. Do just check how the list is administered after Christmas onwards. Although the same admission criteria are used, some seem to have different rules about opting in and remaining on the list after certain dates, etc.

You may have to contact the school and/or admissions dept to say that you want to remain on the waiting list for a particular school. I think after a certain time has passed, they assume people no longer want places and start the lists again.

I hear many anecdotes to suggest OP's friends are right.
Put another way, I don't see that contacting school can do any harm.

It can't do any harm but it won't do any good either. The school can't magic up a place if they haven't got one and when a place does become available it must go to whoever is at the head of the waiting list.

I could be wrong but I think in-year admissions are handled by the school rather than the council (at least they are in Kent). In the main rounds the council makes the allocation but after the first round of acceptances has taken place the waiting lists are passed onto the schools. They still have to abide by the oversubsciption criteria though.

It is a myth. Sometimes it appears that way as not everyone on the waiting list will actually want a place.

You are automatically on the list of every school higher than your allocated choice. So X school might have Child A first on the waiting list - but school X might actually have been Child A's fifth choice preference and so if a place came up the parents might well not take it.

A lot will depend on your area - how many schools are regarded as good, how high levels of mobility are, the number of siblings, bulge classes etc.

DD was fairly low down on the waiting-list for our first-choice, but we got a place 3 weeks into term - 2 children didn't turn up and had actually moved away, 3 children left in the first few weeks, the school was running a bulge class and all the schools in the area are extremely good and parents didn't want the hassle of moving them, buying new uniform, opting for higher but not first choice etc

So while it might appear to some that I must have jumped the queue to get a place given my position on the waiting list (and I had been ringing weekly), the truth was that I got very lucky. When I was there filling in the forms, the secretary was ringing round desperately trying to fill the last place as they risked losing funding and no-one was wanting to take it.

As of 31st August, in many LAs the lists pass to the schools to manage - it's worth ringing to make sure you are definitely on the list. Some will ring round to see who wants to stay on, but not all.

in our area the waiting lists are cleared at christmas and you have to re-apply again in the new year. it makes sure that those on the list really want to be there as once people get settled they often forget that they wanted to move. make sure you find out what your area does!

Tricot, that's what happens in our borough too. Oooh...it's a lottery. I already feel anxious and haven't submitted the form yet!! Eeeek.

My school asked the LA to continue to handle in-year admissions, but it was their choice so always worth checking. But they said that apart from the Reception intake waiting list until Christmas, they have no legal requirement to keep a list and so won't. So I'd be ringing the LA every week

I have heard this kind of rumour too, and it was in a very convincing way - no reason friend would be misinformed, other parents confirmed, etc etc. With schools managing their own waiting lists, and with councils not following up with schools or confirming who is on what list, and with councils also not particularly checking where people live (how hard is it, after all, to get a child benefit thingy sent to another address? now, the sainsbury deliveries, that's another matter!) ... I think that while what everyone above says about how it's supposed to work is true, without oversight and enforcement, it's not always how it actually works. Would love to be wrong on this though.

Parents who really want the school and are at or near the top of the list are often pretty active in checking for vacancies. If they thought someone had jumped the queue many of them will appeal and/or complain. That is usually (but not invariably) a pretty effective form of oversight and enforcement. The school will get its knuckles rapped if it is found to have administered the waiting list wrongly. Even LAs have been known to get it wrong (indeed, I can think of one that deliberately administers its waiting lists in a way that is contrary to the Admissions Code) so it is important to keep an eye on what is happening and kick up a fuss if you think they have admitted someone incorrectly.

'My child has a statement of special educational need and you are the named school on the statement'.

That's about it, really.

The replies are very helpful. Reading this, I'm not sure if I would dare to call the school, though. Thank you very much.

When my eldest were that age ( over 20 years ago) this was almost certainly true. Admissions have changed a lot since then though. Still, keeping in touch with the school, if the list has been passed on to them, cannot do any harm.

Slightly different, but youngest DD was first on waiting list for private prep. I was told a child was most likely leaving and if so, the place was ours ( no admission criteria other than first come first served) My friend rang me and was delighted at being offered a place and thought we must also have been offered as they were 2nd on the list. We hadn't though, so I rang the school, who confirmed it was a mistake and withdrew my friends offer and give the place to us. This all happened within a couple of hours but was still awful and our friendship never recovered.

I too know of 3 people who have got their children into their first choice state school and have bypassed the school's usual admissions process. And this is not anecdotal, these people are known to me. But I am talking about secondary rather than primary.

I know someone who wasn't in a catchment but got her child into the school nursery and herself onto the PTA. She literally campaigned for a year to get him in and she did. Getting placed out of catchment where we are is incredibly rare. In fact, when I called up about the same school (we live a few streets away) I was told there was no way we would get in as it was a small school and it was over subscribed in it's own catchment. The Head teacher basically told her that she would ensure her child would get a place.

The rules for school nurseries are somewhat different to those for schools.

The Head teacher basically told her that she would ensure her child would get a place

If it is a community school or VC school the head teacher should have no involvement in the process. It is all handled by the LA.

I too know of 3 people who have got their children into their first choice state school and have bypassed the school's usual admissions process

Statements of SEN bypass the normal admission process. So do children admitted via the LA's Fair Access Protocol. In other circumstances it shouldn't happen. If the school is a community school or VC school the only way it can happen is if the school offers places direct to the parents, in which case the head teacher will be in trouble with the LA. If it is another type of school it is possible for this kind of thing to happen but it would mean, if true, that 3 families have been deprived of places that are rightfully theirs and should win an appeal.

I know of people locally to me who believe they have bypassed the usual admission process to get into their first choice school. In every single case they are wrong. Their attempts to bypass the process failed but a place came up in the normal way and was offered to them.

I believe my son got his primary place from being plucked off the waiting list by the headteacher (not by being at the top of it necessarily) and the reason is that this is what the head teacher more or less told me. she's the type who likes a nod and a wink and having the inside info, pulling the strings etc. so it may be that she just wanted me to feel she'd done us a favour. however my understanding is that after all the places have been assigned, the waiting list is passed back to the school to administer (or was when my son started 5 years ago), so no-one is checking how the school apportion any places that come up. I took two tours of the school and chatted a lot with the head about how keen I was for him to go there, and called up/popped in a few times to ask the ladies in the office about the waiting list, whether places ever come up in-year etc so they definitely knew me and my son (disgusting pushy middle-class parenting behaviour basically). he had four days at another primary and then I got a call from the head personally to say that someone had not turned up and would we like the place?