Getting into state schools after reception

[SevenTimesEight]

Does anyone know how, if you move house when the children are say, 5 and 7, into a catchment area of a good local school, you proceed to get a place at the school? Presumably you are not guaranteed a place at the best school as it will be oversubscribed but can you find out before you move if you will get a place there?

Ditto with private schools - does it just depend if the school you like has places?

Thanks for any advice

Private schools will offer you a plale wherever you live if you meet their criteria, state schools you'd submit an In Year Application once you have signed documentation of the move. A place available this week may not be there next if some actually moves before you. If you have to go on the waiting list your dc may move up and down depending who else applies and whether they take priority according to the applications criteria ie. siblings , live nearer , are of a specified faith etc. You may not even be guaranteed a place at any local school if your dc are below year3 and the classes are already at 30, so might have to appeal.

You can ask the (state) school before you move if they have any places. If they do then they have to admit your child if you ask for a place. If they don't have places you can assume that at that point in time they have no spaces available and you will only get your DC in via appeal. Of course children leave all the time, so your information is potentially out of date as soon as you have it!

"You can ask the (state) school before you move if they have any places. If they do then they have to admit your child if you ask for a place."

True , but be aware they don't have to keep the place for you if you can't take it up pretty quickly - normally within a week or so. So this only works if you can get them to the new school asap!

Otherwise, it's a case of getting onto the LEA as soon as you have proof of your new address and they will find places, though they won't necessarily be in schools of your choice or even together.

Oh God - thanks so much for the great advice, it sounds v tricky!! DS due to start primary next year and we always thought we'd move out of London when he was around 7/8 or so but it sounds like it might be more difficult than I thought to sort out schools at that stage, especially as my youngest will also be school age by then.

We could potentially go private but of course they may be competitive entry or full I guess.

Loads of people must move though - I suppose they just hope for the best?

Thanks again for the great advice.

My understanding is that once you have got one DC in, it gets slightly easier to get the other in as that child ticks the "in catchment" and "sibling" criteria which, unless it is a religious school, is usually the highest category other than children who are adopted, in care or similar.

It may be easier to get them in when they are yr 3 or above (junior) so not subject to infant class size rules.

We have recently moved to a new estate and 3 of dd's friends yrs 3 and 5 have got places at the local oversubscribed ofsted outstanding school. Not sure how many are in each class. (DD has stayed at her old school)

It depends which area of the UK and how oversubscribed the schools are. We are moving to a rural area and had no problem getting 2 school places in our school of choice. However, when we moved here, it was more of an issue (South East)

We rang the LEA and asked for a list of schools with spaces in the relevant years.