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

OP: Oak hill is our catchment school, I thought that might be the one you were taking about...Our opinions appear to be in line with each other as my ds started reception last September - we elected to send him out of county to a Warwickshire primary rather than send him to oak hill!

I think you may have fallen into the trap of thinking you can choose which school you send your DC to. For many, many people this is not a reality.

The only way you can really 'choose' (in many areas) is to move very close to the school you want or pay for private education. There is increasing pressure on primary school places so this problem is only going to escalate.

Did you actually mean catchment school or just one in your LA? Would you have got in, in previous years etc?

Re the paying for school transport - our old LA would only pay for school transport if you had put your nearest school down and had failed to get into it. If your LA has a similar policy, then that may account for you not receiving free school transport - they may be offering you a paid seat on an existing transport.

Offering school places by workplace would be totally unworkable. You would end up with enormous secretarial pseudo-agencies being run from studio flats next to popular schools and children losing out on school places because of parents being made redundant between application and 15 January and people trying to prove that they work slightly more hours in a home office in leafy area than in an office in slumsville. LA don't have to offer you a school place which is convenient or which fits in with busy lives - they just have to allocate you one. Personally I think the illusion of school choice/preference causes more problems that it attempted to solve.

How do you know you can't afford wrap around care, have you checked what is available and the cost? Would surely be better than quitting your job?

Did you put down your closest school and/or one which in previous years you stood a very good chance of getting into? IMHO you are viewing this from the wrong angle . Your DC wasn't rejected as such , it was that the intake of each school you listed was filled by children who more closely met the priority entrance criteria, be it faith, sibling link, proximity to home etc. You may have chosen them on personal logistical grounds but that isn't taken into consideration in the process unless exceptional circumstances apply nor would it be in any appeal.