In-year school admission

[HannaB0673]

Hello all!
My family recently moved to Barnet from overseas.
I filed in-year admission on March 25 for my 6 year old son (year 2). They asked for additional documents which we sent in early April.

The admission team told me that my son has been on their system since April 8th but since the 3 schools that we listed as our preferred school don't have any places, therefore they cannot offer him a spot at the moment and we have to wait another 4 weeks until they make us an offer!!!!!

That's 2 months without school! I totally understand that many schools are oversubscribed and the max. class room size is 30 children by law. But does it really take 2 months to place a child in a school? So far all communication has been on the phone or over the mail. Should I go talk to them directly? Can they give me a list of schools that have places? How can I get my son into a school?

Any advice would be appreciated!!!
Thank you!

They should be able to give you a list of schools that have places. The fact they are taking so long suggests that there aren't any in your area. They therefore either need to persuade a school to open a bulge class (if there are a lot of children without places) or persuade a school to take your son under the Fair Access Protocol (which is how they deal with situations like this). To make matters worse this is the busiest time of year for admissions teams so I'm not overly surprised it is taking this long. But I hope they are being cautious and you will actually get an offer earlier than they are suggesting.

No advice - but just shuddering imagining the wringer you'd have been put through if you wanted to take your ds out of school for a couple of days yet they're quite happy for him not to be in school for 2 months when it suits them! [resigned to double standards emoticon]

Hi Hanna - how did you get on? I hope you've got a place by now and are happily settled We are in a very similar situation - moved to East Barnet at end of March and still waiting for a school reception place for DS1! We are due an outcome next week ( 21st May) thank goodness . If you are still waiting too and fancy getting our boys together for a play date during these long days with no school please PM me. All the best!

Call all the nearby schools asap!! Cant rely on council to sort. Check what schs say snd thrn corrolste to what council
Say. Twopronged attack. Did same recently. Good luck

This happened to me when I first moved to London. My children were out of school for 6 weeks. I called all the local schools and discovered that they had places, however the council were taking ages to allocate them to me, said I had to wait on the list with everyone else. So I reported my children to the council attendance/truancy officer, I just called up and the conversation went something like this;

Me: 'Hello, I would like to report 2 children absent from school for the past 6 weeks.

The attendance officer: 'Is this a confidential report?'
Me: 'No it is my own children, I have tried everything to get them places, I have completed all necessary forms etc. I know that school x has places, however the council will not allocate them to me'
Attendance officer; Let me see what I can do.

Later that afternoon I got an email from the attendance officer confirming that they had been allocated places in a local schools as a matter of priority as under the Fair Access Protocol - as children out of school they get preference over all waiting lists etc.

They started the very next day.

Good luck.

Hi all.
I just got a letter from the council today. My son has been given a place in a nearby school. I called the school immediately and they told me that they have not received any information from the council regarding my son, and since my son is the 31st child, they needed to talk to the council. They called me back 4 hours later saying that the head master will see my son tomorrow.

I really really hope that this means he is in and he will be able to start ASAP.