Hideous Primary School Admissons Offer - Advice needed, please!

[Dworkin9to5]

Hello, I'll try to give all the details, but it will probably be long, so apologies in advance. I don't want to give my location, if that's okay, but we live in England.

My son will be 4 in May. We live in a smallish town, where there are 4 decent primaries. We live just round the corner from one, in fact, we can see it from one of our bedroom windows. We applied for all 4 schools in our area, although our no. 1 choice was the second nearest - still under 1mile away.

I didn't get a letter or email on Thurs. 16th, so I went and checked the offer online. We had been rejected for all 4 choices, and instead, given a place at a school we've never heard of, in another town nearby. When we checked on Google, we discovered that it is an hour's walk away, over 20 mins by car, and is not served by public transport. It is also a new school, in an old building, and the second Google hit for it is a local newspaper article condemning the use of the building because it is crumbling, with exposed asbestos, and so on. There is no OFSTED report yet because it is new. Looking on the map, there are SIX schools nearer to our home than this one. I know they legally have to provide transport, but I've checked, and it would mean my son travelling in a taxi without me, and I simply refuse to allow that.

More facts: I cannot drive, and I have mecfs. I sent a Dr's note in with the original application stating that I cannot walk far or drive, so need my son to go to a school within reasonable walking distance. My partner, his father, cannot do the school run due to work hours. I am a SAHM, and DS does 15 free nursery hours at a lovely local nursery that's not affiliated to a school. He is our only child.

My son is bright (has taught himself the alphabet, how to read and count to 100), but is Summer-born, emotionally immature, very shy, to the point of nursery worrying about elective mutism, very clingy to me, very nervous of other children, wears glasses and has a speech impediment. He is also not very gender-conforming, and likes pink, dolls, etc. (We don't believe in gender-stereotyping children). So we were already worried about him starting school before this development.

We are going to appeal, but what worries me is that we're only allowed on the form to say why we want him to go to his first choice. We're not allowed to give reasons why the admissions offer is unsuitable, or even say that we're happy for him to go to the other choices, so long as it's not the offer school! If they've already rejected us once, despite our existing suitability, what can we say to change their minds?!

Everyone else we know has got their 1st or 2nd choice, we don't know how come we've been so unlucky, especially living in such close proximity to two schools, and what with my mobility issues.

I really need some advice with the appeal, because there is no way we are going to send our son to the offered school. We will not send him to school this year if it's our only option. Please help?

Sorry, I meant it would involve 4 hrs walking for me, not both of us. I also think 2 hrs of walking on top of a full school day is too much to ask of a child just turned 4 anyway.

OK, I accept that we all walk at different speeds and some are faster than others. I apologise for making assumptions; I assumed that a 10 minute mile was average, it is around here (we walk with plenty of other parents).

But OP says that the preferred school is less than a mile from her home (as is mine) and that it is a comfortable distance for her. Walking for 60 minutes wouldn't be (and I'm sure it wouldn't be for a 4 year old knackered after a day at school).

Apologies to you also OP for hijacking your thread

"We have asked for the reason, but they won't give us one."

There is only one possible reason, and that is that the school places are all filled by children who qualify more highly in the schools published criteria than your DS.

The rejection paperwork should include which category your DS was in, whether any children were admitted in this category (or if it was full before reaching it) and if so how far from the school the last admitted child lives. Plus your distance from the school. If you haven't received that, ask for it.

OddBoots, we've been told that we're only allowed to appeal for AND go on the waiting list for our first choice only. The form only allows that possibility. This is why it's frustrating because we're not even asking for the 1st choice specifically, just any school that's actually in the same town and within a reasonable distance!

We already know he can continue with his 15 free hrs until he is 5, which is good, but it's not connected to a school, so won't offer any better chances for next year's offer, if it comes to that x

Meditrina, we've not received anything like that. In fact, when I rang up, they told me they couldn't give me that info! We just got a generic letter, which I has to ask them to send as it was (they'd forgotten). Will be on the phone at 9am tomorrow!

If a child has to go by taxi, what happens when they get to school? ie my YR DS has to wait in a queue until his teacher opens up the classroom, Y3 DS has to wait outside the gate until they open up the playground and this is a bit earlier than the YR are let in...

You can go on the waiting list for any school, though, not just your first choice. I would contact each school individually and make sure you are on their waiting list. Follow up any conversation with an email confirming your conversation, just in case.

If I were the OP I would not accept that appealing against the school you dont want isn't acceptable. The presence of Asbestos IS the main issue here.

HOW is the school allowed to operate like this? OP have you spoken to the local health and safety office about this?

Those of you claiming to walk a full mile in 10 minutes, esp with children: I don't believe you. Call me a cow, but I bet if you take a precision Garmin type device to measure the distance that it isn't as far as you thought. Might be a mile to drive, driving is often the long way round.

I walk very fast (everyone in town says so) and I know a 15 minute mile is ambitious for me as a regular thing.

I agree that if there is a H&S risk from asbestos, that needs to be dealt with.

But the school appeal mechanism isn't the way to do that. It will neither win the appeal from OP, nor deal with the risk. If the premises are unsafe, the school needs to move to ones that are. If the school cannot be moved, then the pupils will need to be redistributed somehow (for duration of works or permanently) but that won't be via appeals.

Lots of schools have asbestos - it will be made safe before opening as a school so that is unlikely to be an issue.

xpost... Namey: no one will be allocated the school if they haven't rendered the asbestos risk to something negligible. Just because there was a newspaper article about the possible risk doesn't mean it hasn't been dealt with already. OP is right to query on that point, if she changes her mind & wants to give the school a try.

"assumed that a 10 minute mile was average, it is around here (we walk with plenty of other parents)."

Sorry- it's not a mile. 6 mph is not average walking speed for an adult.

follow tiggytape's advice! it's solid advice (and stay non-emotional, and practical)

Thanks, TiggyTape, although your answers are depressing, albeit v helpful.

We haven't been told for certain that he'd be offered a taxi, just that it states in the cc website that this is the usual option. And I don't care if every other family sent their child to school alone in a taxi, my son will not be doing that, end of story.

We have all the distances right. There are only 10 or so houses between us and our 2nd choice, for example.

The only reasons we've been given is that they look at sibling placement first. But I have 7 friends who have got into either our (and their) 1st or 2nd choice school and none of them have other children at those schools, and all but one of them live a lot further away than we do, not only in walking terms, but in 'as the crow flies' terms too.

I can only presume that we've just been unlucky due to class size, and it sounds like that if that is the case, we're buggered.

It's not just getting my son to and from school, him being that far away will cause so many other difficulties, as another poster pointed out. If there was a problem or, god forbid, an accident, I couldn't get there quickly. Same goes for if he or I forget something he'll need. None of his classmates will live anywhere near him, they'll go to different clubs, parks and so on. Play dates and stuff will be difficult. As I say, I have ME & can't drive, and it limits all this stuff. We chose this area because the schools, shops, activities, etc., were all easy to get to. This offer renders all that pointless now, and it will mean he will miss out socially (already at a disadvantage as it is). He's not one of those resilient kids who will just adapt and it'll be all fine, and that's not a criticism of him.

I know they'll take none if that into account at appeal, but it's stuff that really matters :(

Well if you know families with children IN THE SAME CATEGORY as you who live further away but have got in whereas you haven't then there is a possibility of a mistake being made.

If there are other children who live further away than you but are in the same category (not in care/adopted, no siblings, no statement) and they got a place and you didn't, it sounds like there's a mistake.

Ragged. First of all before you call me a liar, get your facts straight. I said that the walk to my DDs school was just under a mile and took me 10 minutes. OP also said her preferred school was under a mile away. You've got the wrong end of the stick and need to back down.

For anyone else so bothered by this that they need to carry on posting how "they couldn't walk it so neither could anyone else, not ever, so there'" I've just checked and it is 0.872 miles, so under by 300m or so. It takes me 10 minutes. It takes the other 4 parents and children that we see every morning the same 10 minutes. We leave the house at 0835 hours and the school bell goes at 0850 hours. We've never been late and DD always has time to catch up with her friends before the bell goes to line up. We allow an extra 5 minutes just in case, but we've never needed it.

It is pretty unusual in most areas of the country not to get one of the four primaries in the town.

Before you start worrying about appeals, I think you need to get a lot more clarity on each of the four schools and why you missed out. So I would get a notepad and for each school:

1. Write down the oversubscription criteria (e.g. Looked after and SEN, then siblings, then distance).

1. Work out what admission category you think you fall into.

This is quite important because it may not be the same for all schools, particularly if you have any faith schools in there or tie breakers like preference for your closest school. I think it's good to get your own position clear in your mind.

Then, as TiggyTape has said, find out from the LA what happened. You could try calling again (you may have got unlucky on your first attempt) and email if not. As Tiggy said : ^"Ask the 4 questions for each school in the email you send:

1. "Which admissions category was my son placed in?"
2. "What was the last distance offered in that category?"
3. "What distance have you calculated for our house to each school?"

4 "How is distance measured. Is it walking route or straight line distance?"^

Though in London it can be common to lose out on all 4 closest schools, in most English towns it wouldn't be. You want to rule out errors before you start worrying about appeals. If they have totally fucked up - like saying you are 2.3 miles from school 2 and not 0.3, it may be sorted very fast.