Help - Primary School Rejection

[Mummytodanny]

Hi everyone
Desperately seeking some help! Hubby currently works abroad 3 weeks out of every month, I work 45 miles from home & my parents live 15 miles away and care for my son whilst I work. My son is currently at preschool by my parents which allows them to take and fetch him. I work 9.30 to 4.30 which gives me a bit of flexibility to get my son to my parents each day and home at a reasonable hour each evening. After much deliberation we chose to put our son in school by home (Redditch, Worcestershire) so his social circle of friends would be close by. We chose 3 schools, one of which was outside our catchment area but close to the motorway junction where I would get on to go to work. The other 2 schools were in our catchment area and close to the motorway network which would enable me to take him to school and continue onto work for 9.30. This was also logistically possible for my parents to get to him in the event that he needed to be collected from school unexpectedly. All 3 of our choices have been rejected and the LA have placed him in a school 5 miles from home in completely the opposite direction to work in a school with over 500 children on the roll and in a not so great area. They then offer transport back and forward to school which I'm not legible for because we both work full time. Even if I was legible for it there is no way on this earth I would put my 4 year old son on a bus every morning and evening alone - crazy! I have now decided to try and place him in school near my parents so I can continue working, however, when I speak to Worcester LA they say I need to take this up with Dudley LA and vice versa! Nobody seems prepared to help me and I am at my wits end not knowing what to do or who to talk to. I've emailed both LA's and explained my situation and so far had no responses (appreciate it's the weekend now). Has anybody any experience of this messed up situation or can anyone offer me any guidance?. I want to continue working to ensure my Son has the best we can offer him but as it stands at the moment, I may have to make some radical changes which is going to have a financial impact on us and we can't really afford pre and after school care. Apologies for such a long thread but I really don't know which way to turn and right now I'm seriously contemplating deferring his start date at school this year until another time which is going to have an impact on his personal and social development which I really don't want to do. Thanks for reading x

Transport eligibility should not be related to you working,

Oh dear!

Ease (or otherwise) of journey to school is simply not a factor in school allocations. If is all down to how well you fit the published entrance critera for the school, and it sounds as if you were simply not close enough to your preferred schools.

You need to check the rejections carefully, to make sure there is no administrative mistake (putting your DC in the wrong category, or getting your address, and therefore distance to the school, wrong).

Assuming no error, you need to make sure your DC is on the waiting list for your preferred school and add him to the lists of any which would be easier than the currently allocated one.

You can apply for schools in other council areas, but the oversubscription criteria is likely to be distance from the school. So unless your parents live near an undersubscribed school, you need to be realistic about your chances of getting a place so far away from your home.

Deferring for a term in the hope something comes up via the waiting lists might be a sensible way ahead. Accept the offered place for now, think about deferring, find out where you are on waiting lists (remember you can go both up and down, as they are ranked by his well you fit the criteria, not time on list), and investigate childminders who do school drop offs and pick ups and whether there is before/after school care available. Also see if there can be any flexibility on your working hours. If you can shift them so you can always do either drop off of pick up, and therefore need to sort only one end of the day, can make your admin somewhat less onerous.

I'm in Redditch...interested to know what school you ended up with?

Hi louisejxxx
I ended up with Oak Hill First School. Now it may be great and I may be talking out of terms re the area - at the moment I'm only going on what friends have told me and the Offsted report which only this year changed to good from adequate. I know I need to go and visit the school to judge for myself but for me it's more about being so far away and completely the opposite direction to work and my parents! It's also very daunting thinking about putting my child into his first school with 500 plus other children!

What a stressful experience Please look at the allocated school asap, our catchment school was placed in the "over my dead body" category, the reality though is the school is fab and has a lot to offer.

My son attends a small village school - lovely except when the class has an issue, there is no room to mix classes up so troublemakers can't be separated !!!!

Good luck with whatever you decide

Definitely stay on the waiting lists of your preferred schools. In my experience there will be lots of movement between now and September and it may very well work out.

Please don't worry about the size of the school.
DS2 has just been allocated the same school as his older brother, who got out last choice. They are expanding at the moment, and are currently at about 600 kids, capacity when all years are full is 700 (they are they will get here in about 3 years). It is amazing. Much more caring and nurturing than the nursery attached to the small school DS1 attended.

And then just as meditrina mentioned: while it would cost, do any of the schools have breakfast and / or afterschool clubs? Or childminders

If you could shift you work hours slightly, could you get away with only after school care (ie would work let you start at 10am?)

Are there ANY other schools which you would be happy with? Get on a waiting list.

Good luck, but please don't stress about the size of a potential school.

If it's any comfort, wrap around care is a lot cheaper than private school or moving house, which are our options in a similar situation! It is annoying that most public services are provided relative to the home postcode, but that's the system. Find out where you are on the waiting lists and then you can make an informed decision.

Maybe you could start work a little later in you put in back flexible working request. I don't understand how you intended to do pick up though even if you had got one of your chosen schools if you finish at 4:30 and can't afford wrap around child care? Could you reduce hours or apply for some of your role to be home working?

Sorry to hear you are in a situation which is distressing to you. But I am genuinely baffled that anyone would choose a school based on their commute to work. Most primary schools these days offer good and affordable wraparound care - nearly all offer after school clubs (even our tiny village school, although it has to club together with 2 other local primaries to do this) and many larger schools offer breakfast club too.

As someone else has said, school allocation is driven mainly by the distance from the child's home to the school, not where you work. I think you will struggle to find many people sympathetic to your situation when there are so many people who's children didn't get into their catchment schools due to oversubscription. Many parents work a distance away from their homes, and lots even work away from home (as I do!) After school clubs and child minders are set up entirely to deal with exactly this situation.

It's too late for your initial application for you to have found this out now. But I would seriously consider your after school care options (that don't involve you picking him up on the way home from work) when you go after one of the remaining school places. And yes, transport to a school outside of your catchment area is not dependent on your income.

Youbethemummylion - i was slightly unclear in regards to wrap around care - I meant can't afford both mornings and afternoons - I will need to opt for one or the other! If I reduce my hours at work I theoretically reduce my salary but that's something we need to weigh up with the cost of child care.

Backinthebox - if you read my thread correctly you will see that two of the schools were in my catchment area and had the added bonus of being near to the motorway network for ease of access to work and for my parents who have cared for him since he was 12 months old. I accept rejection to the first school which was very slightly outside my catchment area but to get rejected from all three and be put 5 miles away is very frustrating. Sorry you feel you or many people can't be sympathetic to my situation.

Double check the LEAs transport policy. It shouldn't matter if you work full time your ds should be eligible due to how far away his school is.
Get his name on the waiting lists for preferred schools as a lot can change between now and September.

I am not sure what you mean about 2 catchment schools. Catchment school is the closest school to you.

I think you need to get your name on any waiting list you are happy with.. You might find school do breakfast and after school club. It will surely be cheaper than what childcare you are paying for now surely?

Are you not thinking about this the wrong way round. The school has an area from which it's pupils are normally drawn, aka catchment area, but this changes every year, depending on the no of children around. You , yourself do not have a catchment area. Did you apply to the schools closest to your house?

It's a tricky one. We faced this initially when applying for DS - without significantly reducing my working hours there was no way I could drop him at school, DD at nursery and get to work then do it all in reverse on the way home even with wraparound care - it simply didn't fit. We relocated in the end so the point was moot but my point is it was our problem, not the LA's. You should be entitled to transport (you may be able to claim mileage which could help with childcare costs) but the actual logistics are not the LA's concern unfortunately. I would put yourself on the waiting list of every workable school.

NB as I understand it you should do everything via your LA. My DS attends school in a neighbouring borough but our transport is arranged by our borough.

Can you not move closer to your work and put him in a school there?
The money you would save in commuting you could use for wraparound care

If you reduce your hours you would earn less. Would the extra cost of before and after school care be more or less than that. I agree about free transport being based on distance rather than earnings.

It is not that I am unsympathetic, just being pragmatic. throughout my children's primary years I chose a workplace convenient to the school, rather than the other way around.

Alternatives would be move home, or find a child minder to do the school runs?

I don't think you need worry about school transport, they will most likely have a regular driver and an escort, CRB checked, and experienced with little ones.

How far away were your catchment schools?

I think you need to look at absolute facts here - you won't get reconsideration on your personal circumstances but yiu can fight an administrative error.

So information needed:

Which school is your catchment. There will be 1 school. How far is that school and how far away did the last accepted child live?

How long are the waiting lists for your preferred schools? How far away did the last admitted person live?

On what grounds was the school you were allocated given? We're all the catchment schools over subscribed from within catchment and closer than the school catchment boundary?

I know it's hard work - and it's a nightmare all this changing when it's not within your control. But you really do need to take a step back, take a deep breath and focus on facts. First fact is transport is not affected by parents working. If they can't offer you a space within 2 miles of your address they have to provide transport.

Second fact is you will sort this. Can you look at childminders for after school care near the allocated school. Ring them and find out what they offer, spaces available etc.

Once you have all the information re all your options you can make an informed choice - you'll feel better once you feel back in control.

OP: can you clarify whether by 'catchment' you mean it's formal meaning of a defined priority admissions area?

Or if you simply mean the typical (and variable) footprint from which it has taken pupils if recent years?

This might be important for securing free school transport. If you have not put down the schools nearest to your home, then your DC may not qualify for free transport. But if you live in a defined catchment served by two schools, applied to both and could not get in to either, then yes there is no question that DC will qualify.

I assume that when OP says her son is ineligible for transport because she works, she means because of the timings. They won't provide transport earlier than they need so she can get to work or bring him home from after school club - it would be normal school hours.

Sorry i wasn't very clear above - you say the LA's keep referring you back to each other - what are you calling them to say/ask? If it's about going on waiting lists/transport you would normally do all that through your own LA regardless of where the schools are (that is my experience anyway) - if you're ringing to bend their ear about your personal circumstances there won't be anything they can do.