Waiting Lists - Is this allowed?

[GhoulWithADragonTattoo]

Kent CC says that you can only go on waiting lists for the 3 schools that you applied for. Is that even legal? What if you belatedly realise that you should have applied for your closest school where you'd be high on waiting list (instead of the 3 outstanding school 5 miles away you foolishly chose)? This doesn't affect me as my DD is moving up to juniors from a linked infants but I was wondering about this as it seems massively unfair on parents who've chosen bad schools and MN always says get on as many lists as you can.

Our LA only allows you to be on waiting lists for schools you applied for, which is up to 6. In our allocation letter, it linked to their website where you could fill in a form for the schools you wanted to stay on the waiting list for, and it said these must be schools you had put in your school application.

As Tiggytape says, this has been to the Adjudicator who ruled that the LA can restrict the number of waiting lists you are on. So if you hadn't listed a school but wanted to be on their list it seems the LA is entitled to insist you come off another waiting list before being added to this one. Personally I think the Adjudicator got this one wrong but unless someone is willing to take it to court that ruling will stand.

It does sound like an odd decision from the Adjudicator. The Kent rule seems to go further in that it says you can only apply for waiting lists for the 3 schools you applied for initially. This is more restrictive than any 3 schools. You could literally be no 88 on all 3 lists if you'd chosen badly. Whereas you might be number 2 on list for local school. f this applied to me I'd probably try and challenge it...

And what if you had moved house ?!?

The Kent rule seems to go further

They relax that restriction on 16th June. After that you can ask to go on the waiting list of any school. Having said that I am dubious about the validity of the restriction. It would be interesting to see what the Schools Adjudicator makes of it.

In effect Kent are saying that until the 16th June they are only processing requests for on-time applications and seeing if they can fit those to the schools they preferred on the application form. After the 16th June all late applications join in the "fun" and then you can apply to go on the waiting list of any school.
Is that legal? Only a referral to the schools adjudicator will resolve that and even then a council like Kent may well take it to the high court.

I wonder what their reasoning is for operating such a restrictive rule. As Tiggytape says it's no skin off the LA's nose to have long waiting lists.

I think the way admission summed it up makes it seem fairer - parents who already wanted one of those schools get first chance after the closing date for acceptances?

I think its fair to be honest. I am currently on the waiting list for 2 schools, having got our third choice and i'd be a bit pissed off if I lost out on a place to someone who belatedly decided that they had made the wrong decision - you get plenty of time to make that decision after all.
Deciding to put the outstanding, oversubscribed school 6 miles away rather than your local is always going to be a gamble - but you have to weigh up the risks when you make the decision, not when you fail to get the place you wanted.
And as admission says, the restriction is only until June, after that its a free for all so you will get a chance.

That is pretty much what's happened here tiggy

We live rurally between 3 village schools and aren't close enough to any of them to be 'guaranteed' a place. But in the previous 3 years we would have comfortably got into 2 of the 3.
This means the only sensible thing to do is put all 3 on your application - even though 1 of the 3 is pretty dire.

This year, for reasons as yet unclear, people living 2 roads back from one of the schools haven't got in - for the first time ever. The 'catchment' had changed from an average of 2 miles to a little over 0.5 miles.
That's obviously put a squeeze on the other 2 schools and lots of people have offers they aren't thrilled about.

So when I said about being pissed of if someone got a place in the 2 good schools when they hadn't applied for them in the first place - that's what I meant. I know of someone in my road who applied for the fab school 5 miles away as one of their choices - I'd be mighty annoyed if she took a place in the village school over me when she didn't put it in the first place.

But if she wants to go on the waiting and she lives closer she should be able to do that. Any parent should be able to apply to a school at any time.

I know I'm being unreasonable by the way - I just think if you really wanted your local school then you should have put it on your application. It's annoying to think that I could miss out to someone who didnt want the school enough to put it down in the first place.

On that subject - a friend has just been offered a place at her first choice after originally being offered her second. She accepted the first offer and didn't add her name to the waiting list of the first choice. So are the council just working their way down the original list? Is that how it works?
It's all very confusing!