Primary admissions help please

[MrsGannicus]

Would like some advice from admissions experts please.

We live in Surrey and didn't get any of our 4 choices. I put all of our nearest schools (except for our 3rd closest which is in special measures).

We have been allocated a school 4 miles away. It is really weird as last year that school's distance for 90 places was 0.853km and it seems like a good school. Someone online told me last year they didn't get in there as their first choice and they only live 10 mins away.

I also know a friend who put our 2nd choice school 1st and got in. The school is our 2nd closest and what I thought was a done deal as it has intake of 120. We are 0.66km away and she is 0.736km away.

I will accept the place I have been offered but do I have grounds to appeal based on this? Would appreciate advice.

DS is a June baby so what are my options for keeping him at his private nursery?

Thanks!

I'd get lots of facts together about this years data and then query it. Accept it also in the meantime anyway. Ignore info from last year as maybe it has had an extra class of something?

How well do you know your friend? Are you sure that your DC and hers are in the same admissions category? And how are you measuring the distances? Is it the same way as for admissions (crow flies / walking route)?

It sounds like a mistake might have been made. Contact the council and see what they say - they may have your address wrong or something. If there's been a mistake, they might (should?) give you a place without an appeal, but if you do need to take it to appeal, a mistake by the council is one of the few reasons for a successful appeal.

Oh, and he's not compulsory school age until September 2016.

You could defer his start at whatever school you are allocated until Easter 2016 to see if anything better turns up before then. If he doesn't start at Easter, he'll lose his place and you'll need to reapply for a year 1 place (an in year application). Whether his nursery will keep him is up to them, but you can still get the "3yo" funding I think.

Have you looked at the other allocations story thread? Someone on there has posted that they are in Surrey and got first choice school but their friend who lives closer didn't ... Is it to do with 'nearest school' criteria?

The first thing to do is accept the offered place and tuck it away in your back pocket. It sounds like you probably need to try and arrange a visit to the school and see what your gut feelings are about the school.
In the mean time you need to contact the LA admission office and ask them to confirm in writing under what admission category you were considered for each of your preferred schools. That at least will confirm that nothing silly has happened.
Given that on the Surrey website it will let you check what the straight line distance to schools are you should be able to check which school is nearest to you and you should have been in the admission criteria for nearest school for that school and then distance for each of the other schools. That might explain why your friend got a place at 2nd preference school even though you are nearer as it could be the nearest school to the address or there could be a sibling in the school.
What you then need to do is confirm that you wish to appeal for all four schools and also ensure that you are on the waiting list for all four schools when it is uplifted. Do not rely on the LA doing it, formally ask in writing to be on the waiting lists and get a reply confirming you are.
The only way you probably have a good chance at appeal is if a mistake has been made and the % is not in your favour on that. You are much more likely to get the offer of a place in one of your four preferences from the waiting lists if the schools involved are subject to the infant class size regs.
You are able to defer your child starting at school. With a June birth you could arrange not to start till after Easter 2016 but my own view is that if you have not got a place offer by December you are probably not likely to. What you need to do is contact the school where you have been offered a place and say you want to defer entry as X is not in your opinion ready to start school all day. You will need to say when you will start - 1st Jan is good. There are pros and cons of defering entry but that is a decision that you can make anytime between now and July.

What info have you been given? In our LEA you get a basic explanation for each school on your list for why you didn't get the place. E.g. You are in category 3, The school admitted X from category 1, Y from category 2 and Z from category 3. The furthest distance from home address to school admitted in category 3 was A metres, the distance from your home to the school was B metres. If you didn't get this info you need to demand it asap. If you did, scrutinise it carefully - mistakes do happen. If there's an incorrect measurement of distance or an incorrect categorisation, you have a good chance of getting a place on appeal. If all their calculations are correct then the chances are much lower but there will be plenty of movement on waiting lists so don't give up hope.

Thanks for your messages. I'm still getting my head round so sorry if I've missed anything off.

We will definitely be accepting the place we have been offered as a last resort.

I know the friend who got in to our 2nd choice but is further away very well. Her DS has no SEN issues and they have no siblings. I've checked distances on the school admissions distance calculator which shows street maps of houses.

I can't see the 2015 allocation distances on the website yet, but will ask for that when I speak to the admissions team tomorrow as well as what category we were placed in.

Thanks. I really didn't think I'd find myself in this situation being 0.66km from our 2nd choice school which takes 120 kids per year.

have you checked whether the schools are measuring as the crow flies or by nearest walking route? Also they could be measuring from a particular point in the school grounds, which can skew things.

But as everyone else has said, accept the offer at the school you don't want, get yourself on all the waiting lists and appeal, query, and generally throw energy into sorting this out.

As you've been offered a distant, usually desirable school and not your 2nd choice should be a banker school, I agree this sounds anomalous to the point of getting me wondering if there is a identical (or very similarly) named child near your offered school, equally baffled at their allocation.

So start by checking everything about application and result for straight clerical error of that sort.

I agree with others. This sounds odd but it may be correct. However, if it turns out that a mistake has been made that would be a very strong appeal case. You need to find out exactly why you didn't get into your preferred schools to see if that shows any obvious mistakes.

If the school was your friend's first choice but your second choice it could be that they only offered places to people who had it as their first choice.

They arent allowed to do that squiff

That's how the system was explained to me in my area. Several of my local schools only offer to first choicers or first and second choicers with those who have picked a school as a lower choice missing out as it is already full with those who put it as a top choice. So if they have 30 places and 30 people pick it as number one they all get s place, if 50 pick it as number one the admission criteria are used to find the 30 who will be offered a place and if there are 20 first choicers they will all get a place and 10 places are made available to any second choicers who did not get there first choice if there are say 8 of these there are then 2 places left to go to any third choicers who didn't get either their first or second choice.

No that's categorically wrong. It used to be that many years ago and some people, including those working in schools, rather worryingly, still think that's how it works. It doesn't.

Thinking the choices like this - they only really come into play if you end up eligible for more than one school. At that point parental preference applies.

That's not right Squiff. The children are ranked in admissions criteria order regardless of if they put the school as 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc preference. They are then offered the school that they ranked highest that they qualified for. The school never know what order the parents preferences were.

Squiff, either it hasn't been explained to you properly or your local school are acting illegally- they can't allocate places based on whether it was first choice, 2nd choice etc.

The preference only comes into play for people who qualify for more than one school- then they are given the highest preference that they qualify for.

In that case my local authority and and least three schools don't know how the system is supposed to work. I didn't affect me but I know parents who didn't opt for the local over subscribed school as they were told it if they didn't get itthey would be in a second group to be considered for their second choice.

Thanks. Just checked and yes, my 2nd choice banker school is my friend's nearest school despite her being further away so that at least makes sense.

Everyone in my road is facing the same situation with 2 people being offered a closer school but that's in special measures, so I am at least glad that the school we have been offered is good. Their latest Ofsted report was in Jan 2015 was was good with outstanding elements then and good before that.

Trying to get through to the council but no luck yet.

It's very likely the LEA may have made a mistake - I would appeal.

Ironically it thus looks like you lost out on the SM school as you were too far away!