Have you been affected by the primary school place shortage?

[choicemyarse]

Have you applied for a primary school place recently and what was your experience?
Our 3 year old won't go to school until next year but in our area (in London) there seems to be a serious crisis in primary school places and I am concerned she won't get in anywhere. There were 274 families in our area that got NONE of their six choices and were asked to go to schools miles away from their homes (in rush hour traffic in London this is a very long commute).
The Local government authority recently posted a news release about this, which explains the school place crisis as a result of restrictions on local authorities to build their own schools (because they must prioritise free schools and academies).

www.local.gov.uk/web/guest/media-releases/-/journal_content/56/10180/7171350/NEWS
Personally, I am not interested in sending my child to a free school or an academy (for a variety of reasons) but more importantly, I just want a decent local school my child can walk to and this isn't being provided.

I'm involved in a local campaign around this issue (which is why I've namechanged) but I've been on mumsnet for years and had lots of good advice about schools, babies, etc.

Please post your experiences here and hopefully we can do something about this.

I do sympathise with anyone in an area where they feel others are playing the system .

But it's very hard to draw up rules that exclude those whilst allowing for people to move locally because their family got bigger etc. Especially when RM was talking about moves of less than two miles.

Fixed catchments and maximum class sizes cannot be combined.

2 miles in some places would probably be fair enough but certainly in London and out to the M25 where I lived 2 miles is just far to far. The roads are gridlocked as it is and there are very many schools in a 2 mile radius!!!!

SIL moans like hell about driving the school run - used to be about a mile and has now moved so it's 5, welling f*cking move schools then... You can't have it all ways.

Even with distance not being the criteria not catchment there are dc not getting school places let alone in their very very close nearest school that are none faith - mainly because 70% of spaces go to siblings who no longer live as locally as they once did.

I'd say it would be reasonable for LAs to set criteria that work in the local area.

What would be unreasonable in London (2 miles) might not be enough in a less populated but equally under-served area.

With your rules, RM, your SIL would still be doing that drive, she'd just have dropped her younger child off first. It wouldn't ease traffic at all unless her new LA could find a nearer place, which I doubt it would be obliged to if the old school is less than 45 min away. That was my point upthread.

What if you don't buy, but rent, and your landlord terminates your contract one autumn? You weren't playing the system, it wasn't even your choice, but now you've got two months to find a big enough place within 1 mile or whatever and move in?

They aren't at the same school! She moved away with one mid primary and one at secondary (who could get the public bus).

Def. more than 45 minutes away for drop off each and every day hence her complaining like hell. Still the same LA though.

That's not a suruatio or problem unique to younger siblings, Yonic - but instead of having two different schools, it can currently mean an eldest or only child misses out full stop, or gets chucked into a school miles away.

Situation! How did that typo happen?

A suratio sounds like a kind of ship from days of yore!

Pointless of her to whinge when it was her own choice!

But if an eldest child ends up further away, bêtter that school has sibling preference, surely?

I don't know the demographics, but isn't the major issue in London not enough places overall, which isn't solved by sibling preference changes?

It's not just in London anymore!!!

Partly it is a shortage of places but the bunfight that goes on for certain schools and the lengths people go to get in the "good" schools is something to behold...

I now live in a place where shock, horror the LA is expanding schools in advance of them being require you know like strategic planning.

Surrey's ethos was to ignore the situation and come out with gems such as "families don't live in flats" at public meetings...

Sibling places are a massive issue, particularly brcause of the catchment-distorting effect.

You can live within a hundred metres of a community school and not get in because people are driving in younger siblings from much further away. Here, a lot don't even live in the borough (or London!) any more. It's not great for our traffic problems, either.

I'd rather kids had a better chance of getting into local schools in the first place, to be frank, rather than consigning them and their siblings (if any) to being educated out of their community and the inevitable impact on friendships, extra-curricular activities and family time.

If my elder DS ends up in a school miles away thanks to the ridiculous effect of sibling places, faith places and combination of same, I'll bend every nerve to get his younger brother into a more local school while trying to get DS1 moved. It would be utterly unfair to the younger child to have the negative impacts as well, even if I couldn't avoid them for our my elder son.

And yes - not just London by a long shot. And getting worse.

I also think every school should have two minibuses running to collect as many kids as possible to stop the congestion and parking issues. If I have to drive half an hour to get dd to school and back again you'd think it would be a no brainer. well over half of the school's pupils live outside the village due to the fact there are no places left in my town.

That's a good idea lion.

JR, but if you'd set your life up to handle a school drop off 25 minutes away because you were forced to, it could be really bad to then have to go 10 minute the other way to
Your local school for your younger child as well. There aren't child care options in evey area.

"I now live in a place where shock, horror the LA is expanding schools in advance of them being require you know like strategic planning."

Wow, sounds good!!!

"Surrey's ethos was to ignore the situation and come out with gems such as "families don't live in flats""

I suspect in past economic times, they might have had a point. Unfortunately the prevalence of developers building flats not houses, rising house prices, ageing populations staying in their houses and flat salaries mean this issue is here to stay.

^JR, but if you'd set your life up to handle a school drop off 25 minutes away because you were forced to, it could be really bad to then have to go 10 minute the other way to
Your local school for your younger child as well. There aren't child care options in evey area.^

Yep. But just because his elder brother had been dealt a shitty hand doesn't mean I think he should have seven years of it as well, long after his brother was at secondary. I'm all for treating kids alike but I draw the line at 'this is a shitty situation, I could avoid it for you but don't think I will.' I feel very strongly about local education for primary - and I think the effects are heightened when both parents work as time pressures on the whole family are higher. It's a big deal for me, and the system as it currently stands encourages gaming, especially in areas where the problem is already most acute.

It'd be quite odd for there to be two schools half an hour's drive apart that had no wraparound care or childminders near either of them in areas of high pressure on school places.

Sorry, I phrased that badly - options with available space would've been better.

Well, there'd be lots of time to plan. . Pretty much from the moment DS1 hit reception.

Round my way, CMs won't take bookings until, say, May for the forthcoming September - most are full and can only give a space if another parent gives notice. Ditto school based care - it's full and you can't reserve a space till you have a school place.

Basically, there's no perfect solution, we're balancing two evils here and coming down on different sides, but I do see your concerns.

I agree there's no perfect solution - and I do see where you're coming from, too. But it's definitely a lesser evil from my perspective - but th n the situation around here is appalling.

We may just be saved if our nearest school (a faith school) is induced to carry a bulge class again thanks to the EFA fucking up the location of the new school that was meant to be opening. It'll take the council at least another 2 or 3 years to try to get something else in. Maybe after that they'll be allowed to open a community school.

Given that DS2 is currently in utero, that might just work for him....

Yonic I have to add this to quantify Surrey LEAs statement of families not living in flats... because will it was just jaw droppingly funny...

There was a public consultation about closing an infant school to sell off the land around 8 years ago. Shutting this school would mean no spare capacity at all in infants in the many surrounding schools based on the current birth rate of that year.

They were there in the said school the wanted to sell off - it served primarily the council estate. We lived on the edge in a terraced house - there are probably 16 terraced houses in total and around 64 maisonettes and a whopping tower block.

Local borough council stated about the rising birth rates about to hit the local schools and the number of 2 & 3 bed flats they were building within 0.1 miles of the school. Plus a massive housing and flat development 1.5 miles away that would put pressure on all the schools. That is when he came out with that corker...

The deathly silence hushed the room!!!!!

Anyway LEA cocked up and had to extend the consultation by a week and therefore came under the new rules of every school closure having to go to independent adjudicator - she threw it out on about 10 counts!

That one form entry infant school has just been extended and is now a primary school, nearby school is also being extended to be 2 form entry.

But erm yeah families don't live in flats in one of the poorest towns in Surrey...

I know many parts of London where there's no available wraparound care or childminders in areas of high pressure on school places.

A childminder can't offer wraparound care for multiple schools any more than a SAHP can.

If you miss out on your nearest school, you'll probably be assigned a school an hour away. Good luck finding wrap-around care for that.

Yep, it's going to be a bastard. Good thing I don't have a mortgage to pay or anything.

Obviously one would seek wraparound care near the school, not near home.

Fortunately wraparound care seems to be ok in these parts. But gosh, that's going to be a long and early (and late) commute for a five year old. Good thing they're looking out for the best interests of the kids, eh?