school place nightmare

[tasmaniandevilchaser]

We're moving into a new area next week and we've been offered a place at a school more than 2 miles away. There's a school literally on the doorstep of our new house but we're second on the waiting list.

We're so far away from the school they've offered us, apparently we get some kind of bus pass. I'm assuming it's just for my dd, not for my travel costs. DD is 5 yrs old so she will not be going there on her own.

I work part time and the journey is not a huge deal for me on the days I don't work, but my elderly Mum does most of the school runs and it's just too much to ask her to spend 3 hours a day on the school run (with a toddler in tow as well).

The school is so far away from the train station that I won't get there in time after work before the after school clubs close (if she gets a place).

It's just a logistical nightmare, whichever way you look at it.

What should I be doing / saying to the LEA? Please advise me!

Did you mean 2 miles? Cos that doesn't seem very far away at all. You could practically walk/scoot couldn't you? I've just spent 2 years driving to a school 3 miles away and that was fine. Do you not drive?

Maybe you are in London and it's too busy to drive? I think we need more info because where I an 2 miles wouldn't be considered far at all.

Also 2nd on the waiting list seems pretty good to me so hopefully it won't be long till she gets a place at your local school.

Sorry can't be more helpful about the local council stuff.

Good luck anyway!

Make sure she's on the waiting lists of all schools that would be preferable; not just the one on the doorstep.

How far exactly is the school they have given you? Your travel logistics aren't relevant to school allocation or appeal, but if it's very far away (hour or more, rule of thumb) you could possibly use that in an appeal as being an Unreasonable decision. Plenty of children have to do that sort of journey though so unless its ridiculously far that's unlikely to help.

You could appeal; however, an appeal for a 5 year old is likely to be ICS (infant class size) so very very hard to win. How many children are there in the reception /y1/y2 classes of the nearby school?

2 miles is very far where we are!! We are not rural, there are lots of schools closer, we are on the waiting lists for them. It will take about 45 minutes to walk/scoot and my Mum absolutely cannot do this. Driving will be a lot quicker obviously but again my Mum can't do this. Even on a bus, it will end up exhausting my Mum, but she would never admit this.

It is useful to know they won't consider travel logistics and ICS is very hard to win. I suspected this would be the case. PatriciaHolm, there are 60 children in Yr 1 of the local school, 2 form entry. So they are at their limit.

Hopefully a place will come up soon, when we applied there was a space and we were top of the waiting list (on distance I assume) and in the 2 weeks it took to process we got bumped down to no 2

"when we applied there was a space and we were top of the waiting list (on distance I assume) and in the 2 weeks it took to process we got bumped down to no 2"

I would be asking for a much more detailed timeline here. How did you get bumped if there was a place when you applied? You need to know exactly the timeline of when you applied and when the people who bumped you did. If they applied after you but somehow got priority because someone didn't realise your application was received first, then that is incorrect. Was this over Christmas?

Of course it could be that whoever told you there was a place wasn't fully up to speed with existing applications/waiting list, but I would be asking the LEA for a detailed explanation of how this could have happened.

Could your mum get a cab there and bus back maybe? It will be expensive but hopefully only short term?

And can you take some annual leave during term time and ask your mum cover school holidays while you work?

Last suggestion: near here is an after school club attached to a nursery that drops off at school in the mornings and picks up from school in the afternoon. It's a long shot but if you could find somewhere like that that was closer to the station it might make it more doable.

I live in a city too and 2 miles isn't far at all here. But it would be without a car. That definitely makes it tricky.

Could you find a childminder rather than relying on your mum?

BMO I am looking right now for a childminder!! But good ones have waiting lists and we will have to look for one near the school but far from home and our local school (where I hope dd will end up)

Polyesterbride, that's a good idea of taking a cab in the mornings and me to take holidays in term time, that would help. My mind is so frazzled with moving and illness that I need help with solutions.

PatriciaHolm, that's very interesting about the timeline, I was wondering that myself. It was over Christmas.

I know that when we visited in December there was definitely a space. There was a child coming but then they declined the place. I applied at this point (just before the end of term). When I asked the council to check if they'd received the application, they rang through to school admissions and although they didn't explicitly state we were top of the waiting list, they did say that it was true there was a space and we were likely to get it, though they couldn't confirm that. I assumed that we would be near/at the top of the waiting list on distance (we are literally on the doorstep).

Do I just send a letter/email to school admissions to ask about the timeline? Do things get confused over Christmas?

DH has just said he will change his hours to do the morning drop off, so my Mum will be left with the afternoon drop off (possibly in a cab). Hopefully this will work until dd gets a place.

I'll still contact the LEA to ask about the timeline

Thanks for your ideas!

From what you say in the post, there is a need for an explanation from both the school and LA. If I read your post right when the council spoke to the school they confirmed that there was a school place and that they had received your application. They did not say that there were others who had applied. As such you were presumably the only applicant and the place therefore should have been yours under the school admission code.
I am also intrigue if you live across the road from the school why you are now second the waiting list and therefore one pupil has got the spare place and another applicant has a higher admission criteria than you. If you live opposite the school it is unlikely to be on distance, so possibly a sibling, but where did they come from and more importantly when did they apply.
The problem is that whilst you can go to the LA in writing and ask whether a mistake has been made, the probability is that they will not give you details of other applications and just make a bland statement that there were no mistakes. The only way you will get all the answers is by going to appeal - though the answer may not be to your advantage.
You also need to understand that you are only allowed one admission appeal per year per school so wasting it on an appeal now may not be in your best interest if there is little chance of success

thanks admission, actually when I talk about 'school admissions', it's a dept of the council. So the school itself isn't involved in the application process.

I don't have the energy for an appeal at the moment, moving and feeling extremely unwell (and feeling very sorry for myself!!!). But I will write an email to the council to ask about the process. I am also intrigued to hear that 2 children suddenly appeared on the waiting list for this school between 22nd December and the beginning of January.

If anyone has any tips on how to word the email, I'd be very grateful for some help.

TIA

It doesn't sound like they told you that you would def get the place, more that the person you spoke said there was a space and obviously you are very close to the school so could be likely to get the place. But it could be that the other application was already going through without that person's knowledge.

That doesn't mean there actually was a space - my DS's school had 2 spaces in his Reception class before Christmas. They were both filled last week by 2 children who had been waiting since Sept and Oct for places even though the spaces were there from the start of the Autumn term. So if someone had looked round the school before Christmas and spoke to someone who wasn't sure of the facts, they may well have said that there were 2 spaces free in the class whereas there actually wasn't. Could something similar have happened in your case?

it's possible hiccupgirl, but the person who said it was likely was the council officer who was dealing with her school admission application, so I'd hope they were in possession of the facts! It seems like applications came in while my application was being processed. Just bad luck.

Just out of interest, do you know how comes there were spaces in your DS's class since September that were only just filled? Just being nosy, I just don't really get the timescales of it all!

In our massively oversubscribed school there was only 28in one class until Jan. People dropped out of school then the lea offer the place in writing to next person... They give them Tim we to decline before the next person is offeredetc

Every time a place was offered they give a couple of weeks for parents to decline. Then they write to the next person and so on. Some have settled at other schools. Then another child left etc Then the new parents decide when to start their child - which may not be immediate eg start at start of new term

If there was a space plus you were a the top of the list and you were being offered the place, I can't see how some one can beat you then. I suspect that offers had gone out already

Lots of kids around here walk 2 miles with their parents to school, or get the bus. In fact, plenty of 4 year olds get the school bus alone (as in put on by their parents, they don't wait at the bus stop alone), so I wouldn't discount that as an option. Often it's a taxi rather than a bus.

I know because only 28 out of the 30 children started and last week 2 new children started to fill the spaces. I don't know what happened to the 2 who decided not to start or why the spaces were empty for a term.

I've chatted with one of the mums and they moved into the area in Oct and had been waiting for a space since then. The other is from mum gossip that the other child had been waiting for a space from the first allocations so could be less reliable.

I wonder if the person you spoke to at the council was covering because it was so close to Christmas so maybe didn't have all the facts. Otherwise it is really odd that the spaces disappeared in such a short time and when you're really close to the school.

If the logistics of getting to the offered school are very difficult and you are optimistic about getting a place at your local school soon, perhaps one short-term solution could be home education while you stay on waiting lists for local schools. It's quite flexible and because of the one-to-one attention, it takes much less time than you might imagine.

If you try it and decide you don't like it, then at any later point you can still ask the council for a school place and they have to provide one, though it might be even further than the one you've already been offered.

Unfortunately part of what Saracen has said is not quite right. If the LA have offered you a place in a school then they have completed their legal duty. If you decide you do not like the offered school then the LA does not have to offer you anything else. They will of course try and help as much as possible but they do not have to and will simply indicate which schools do have places and that could be the other end of the Borough. If somebody moves into the Borough then the LA does have to provide a place but again it can be anywhere where there is a place and the LA deem suitable.

Sorry, I see I wasn't clear. I didn't mean that the LA has to offer a place in a different school if the OP doesn't like the offered place. I meant that there's no risk of the child ending up with no offer whatsoever as a result of trying home ed.

If the school you were originally offered becomes full while you are home educating, then when you ask for a school place, you'll be offered something somewhere. Of course, there's a risk that the new offer might be even more unacceptable to you than what you were originally offered.

...or have I just been even more confusing? LOL.

Its possible you were bumped down to 2nd place because a child moved into the area who lived closer to the school or satisfied the admission criteria more closely eg looked after children. September is a long way away and people move in and out of areas all the time so I wouldn't lose hope. My dd got a late place because another child relinquished his to go to private school at the last minute.