What to do if you didn't get a school you want

[NynaevesSister]

1. Read this forum, and pay attention to anything that PRh47Bridge, Admissions, and TiggyTape say. They are the experts. If they say something you can rely 100% on its accuracy.

1. Accept the offer you were given even if it will be a cold day in hell etc. The council only has to offer you one place, if you turn it down they have no legal obligation to find you another.

1. There will be an Appeals/Waiting lists thread in here very soon, and there are threads from previous years. Read all of them for some cracking advice. Post your own story in the Appeals thread for advice.

1. You can go on waiting lists for schools and you can appeal even if you have accepted a place.

1. You can defer entry to the term your child turns 5. So a summer born child could start at Easter, giving you more time to hope a place comes up on waiting lists.

1. Listen carefully to anything anyone in point number 1 tells you.

1. Accepting the place does not disadvantage you in any way on the appeals/waiting list process. Turning it down will do (see above). Do not listen to well meaning but ill informed friends or relatives who tell you you need to 'show you mean business'

1. Don't be negative about allocated school in front of your child. Only talk it up, they may end up going there.

1. Don't mention or discuss any appeal with your 3/4 year old.

1. You can only appeal to a school you originally applied for.

1. But you can go on to the waiting list for a school that you didn't apply for originally (I think)

Many thanks for the positive comments. Please do not do anything in haste. You have lots of time to think through what you are going to do and then act on it. The worst thing you can do is just reject out of hand the offered school.
It does seem as though there are different opinions about which schools you can appeal for within different LAs and you need to establish what they are saying. As far as I am concerned the admission rules are clear. Paragraph 2.22 says "Any parent can apply for a place for their child at any time to any school outside the normal admissions round." It therefore follows that you can apply for any school at the normal point of admission. So you can ask for a place at any school and when rejected have the opportunity to appeal if you so wish and go on the waiting list

Go and look at the schools available when the children are in. Dont just look at reception- look at the whole school. Dont listen to what the perceived view of the school is. Think about your child and how they would fit into the offered school. Don't pay too much attention to Ofsted reports- they are historic- look at the school as it is now. Dont rule out schools in Ofsted categories- there is a view that it is the best time to chose a school when it is on the way up- lots go from inadequate to good in 2 years. I would never judge a school by an Ofsted report alone. Lots of outstanding schools haven't been inspected for 7 years- when they are re-inspected (and they will be shortly) the outcome is not always as rosy.

I support the advice, and would underline that today, offer day, is only the start of a process that continues until the first week of the Autumn term.

What happens is that:

1. Because the closing date for applications in January is so far in advance of the school start, peoples circumstances change during that period, so choices made in January may need to change - people move jobs and so forth.

1. Because of infant class size rules, reception not to exceed 30 almost all admissions offices are cautious and only offer, on offer day the exact number of places, even though the past shows that some of the places will be turned down due to changing circumstances. These places then have to be reoffered and so forth.

1. So for the rest of the summer we have "churn"...

So dont panic, but make sure, if you have not been offered a place today that you are on the waiting list for as many schools as you would be prepared to accept a place at.. Also, sometimes when they see where the demand is an LEA will open a "bulge class" but only after offer day, and that will create additional places.

nlondondad is so right. One of the best schools that I work with is single form entry and always oversubscribed. This year they were allocated a number of siblings from another local school (it had more than 60 siblings- 2 form entry), the LA then opened a bulge at the other school and the siblings moved- all happened in August and early September. The amazing school wasn't full by the 2nd week in September for the 1st time ever. They then filled up but 3 left during the course of the year. So of their 30 places- 10 have become available since the offer date.

Some great tips thanks!

My thanks also for the positive comments.

I would add that you should take a look at the offered school. You may find it is better than you think. If you were offered a faith school you may find it is less religious than you think.

And if you do decide to appeal post the details on here and you will get plenty of help.

Thank you for the tips. My DD missed out by one place because of 0.01 of a mile. She is currently number one on the waiting list. Do you know if someone declines tomorrow will they offer her the place or do they take late applicants into consideration first? Or leave the list open for a while? I'm so nervous.

As feedback:
In a previous year on an in year appeal I read the advice that the experts here had produced over a range of threads in conjunction with my local authority's advice. We were appealing at Y3 level but the quality of advice is the issue.
Reader, we won :) And today our youngest has got into the school on the catchment sibling category.
Thanks again to the experts and good luck to everyone who needs and listens to their advice.

How do the waiting lists work? Is the same criteria as the original admissions? Do they generally tell you what position you are?

Thanks

Firstly, thank you for all of the wonderful advice guys. Dd has not got any of her choices and this has been such an emotional time. Your help and support us much appreciated.

tiggy who would give me the information? Is it the schools themselves or the LEA?

I am new to all of this and my head is spinning

It's a really good point about LAs only offering PAN even if they know some people decline places every year. At our 90 intake school at least 10 declined. Some then moved or switched schools. New DC were still starting in Jan off wait list. It's the same pattern every year

I like the pro-active nature of this thread to give positive good advice rather than everyone writing the same thing on a million threads. I would add that if you're in a situation where all the local schools are full, and you're not happy with the school you've been given, and there are just social reasons such as friends and grandparents and childcare, think carefully about what you could achieve by appealing. Generally for Infant Class Size appeals they are only able to let you in if the school or the admissions body (i.e. Local Authority) have made a mistake. Therefore double-check how far the last person who got in was, and e.g. ordering of siblings out of catchment etc to make sure there is a justifiable reason for letting your child tip the class size above the legal guideline. The appeal panel have the other children in the class to protect, to enlargen their class beyond the guideline may be detrimental and they are not just out to make you unhappy. ICS appeals are won - my eldest got in on one, but only when we could prove that the admissions code hadn't been adhered to (admissions policy changed with no community consultation less than a year before the admissions change). It may be worth checking this code if you think this code has not been adhered to.

Wait lists work by same criteria. Different LAs seem to give out updates in different ways. A friend of mine was no1 at 0.1 mile and got a call as soon as someone formally declined.

Nothing to add, but just wanted to say thanks for all the great advice. I really didn't expect to find myself here, but the admissions experts are so helpful.

Hi folks. We're caught up in this process right now and a little unsure of what to do, I wondered if I could get some quick answers from anyone.

We put our local VA CofE school first. applied on criteria as church attenders, but with a cover letter of social reasons - long story I won't go into right now. got our last choice, a school which is certainly not dire, but not first choice. DD has been referred by GP and is in waiting list for diagnosis for SPD but we're a year off seeing the team for that. Nursery are suggesting a good prep for his school is key, so I'm unsure about whether it is worth waiting/appealing as it could make starting much more difficult and outweigh the benefits of a 'better' suited school. I am told I'm on the waiting list for school 1 (as are many people I imagine), but;

A) how do I find out where on that list I am? (Called school and they couldn't tell me?)

B) How do I find out why exactly choices 2 & 3 rejected our social grounds? Do they have to justify it at all? Do we get any specific feedback? (We have had friends accepted on exactly the same social grounds with similar wording and letters so I wondered if it was worth appealing these. It all seems very vague in the criteria).

Thanks all.

I agree with everything said here. I know how emotional you'll be feeling right now and you may not always want to hear the advice given but take a step back and take everything on board.
I was in this position 2 years ago and found this site whilst desperately looking for help, I'm so glad I did!
I read lots and lots of different threads on here and gathered as much information as I could. Also make sure you keep evidence of everything, send emails rather than phone calls (or emails after a phone all to conform what has been said).
We won ours but couldn't have done it without the experts on here.
Good luck.

Can I add, if you are reading this thread because you've recently relocated and are a late applicant, please remember to take your child off the list in the school they were allocated in your old area - you may free up a space someone is desperate for.

Thanks tiggytape and jellyandjam. To be honest I thought it was a bit of a long shot anyway. Schools are dire here, and I had very low expectations so I'm not completely panicking, but would love to be able to set my DDs expectations with all the hype around, as he knows he 'should' be finding out soon.

With the first school, we fell into the category they used, but it looks like the tie breaker applies and we were too far away. So we must be on the waiting list there as we didn't have siblings in the school. The chair of governors has offered to chat to me on thursday and tell me where on the list we are - hooray! I know we met the criteria because we chatted to them at length about it, but I guess there were just lots of people and not enough places.

With the others (choices 2 & 3) it looks as though the local authority haven't accepted our social grounds because they have accepted children in rule 5 who were nearer than us on distance alone. I'll contact the schools directly by email (thanks for advice) to find out if they can give us any information on why they haven't accepted our social grounds.

The social grounds application process seems to be so subjective, it's hard to know why they would have made their decision and if so, whether or not it would be worth appealing. I'm surprised all you get is a yes or no. There seems very little guidance on the specific criteria around it so it's hard to know what they're looking for.

Do you know if all LA have to consider social grounds or not? The information seems sketchy at best.