Please help with stressful primary application issues!

[EverydayAnya]

Sorry this is going to be so long and boring. Will try to bullet point.

1. We currently live somewhere out of catchment for any local schools

1. We are trying to sell our house and buy somewhere local but within catchment of schools. We couldn't do it earlier because DH was on a contract job (so technically self employed) and couldn't get a mortgage as he was doing this for less than 3 years (I didn't get all te specifics). His company have now offered him a permanent contract and so it's only now he has been able to get a mortgage for the new house.

1. The house isn't selling and so we can't buy anywhere else. Application deadline is January 15. I just don't see us selling and buying within th next 4 months.

1. I'm having DC2 in 6 weeks and am soooo stressed.

1. What do we do??!!

My main issues are as follows:

1. Can we rent near a school for January and then try to buy a house near it later on? That would be ok wouldn't it as we would still be in catchment?

1. What if we rent near the school for January but then find a house which isn't in the catchment for that school anymore but for a different school (still in same borough) Can we still keep the first place? Would we even get a place at second school as they are all massively oversubscribed? So if it's in June let's say and all the places have already been allocated what would happen to us?

Is it still fraudulent to stay at first school even though we have not tried to be deliberately fraudulent it's just that we didn't find a house we wanted there??

1. Is there a minimum amount of time you can be at an address before it's ok to move elsewhere but still remain at the school. For example if you are in one house from reception to year 1 and then move house surely it's then ok to still continue at same

School even if you're not in the catchment?

I am so confused and unsure about what to do. We are trying to do the right thing and nothing's going in our favour. I'm utterly stressed about where DS will go and where the heck we are going to be living over the next year

Any help and advice would be massively appreciated.

Thanks!

1. is fine as long as it is genuinely your home and you can prove this. Proving your existing home is on the market might be enough, but probably safer to get consent to let and let it out.

Don't even think about 2) !

3. If you don't want to provoke an investigation (or vigorous gossip!) I would plan to stay wherever you are in Jan 2016 until at least the end of reception.

The appearance of things is at least as important as the actuality - even skating too close to the line is risky.

(Some LAs publish the details of exactly what they consider suspicious or underhand - have a look)

I'm afraid Arsenic is wrong. See my post on your other thread. If you own a property and rent another most LAs in London and an increasing number elsewhere will ignore the rented address and use the property you own. I have posted a full answer on your other thread.

Thanks all. I have posted in two areas for lots of answers so will reply to both.
My concern is that we will definitely not get into any schools from our house. We are in redbridge if anyone knows the borough and it's very over subscribed in my particular bit.

We are definitely selling and even going to lower price this week.

My main issue is that we don't want to rush into buying any old house in next 6 weeks just to make the deadline. So I really need to know if we can rent for the application deadline (and we have sold our house) get offered a place and then have the breathing space to find a house we really want. Would the LA take away that place if the new house was no longer in catchment?

prh are you saying that would be ok?

I'm
So sorry. I seem to have posted twice in Primary Education. It was when mumsnet was really slow last night. Apologies.

y catchment I don't mean catchment! As PP said I mean cut off distance. So out of 5 nears schools we are atill
Out of their last cut off point. Think 1.1 miles away from one which has 0.9 as cut off for example. So where will we end up? In the admissions booklet which has all 45 odd schools in the borough the highest cut off point is a few miles but we still wouldn't qualify for that as we are miles away. I just don't know where they will put us.

I do know last year the LA ended up in the daily mail because it was offering non Sikh children places at he local Sikh school because that's all that was available! So the situation is pretty dire.

I have no intention to keep the house and rent. We are definitely selling and are planning to lower price this week for quick sell. I just need to make sure paperwork is down for January on that front. I'm stressed about that not happening and hoping I can use solicitor documents etc to prove we are in fact in process of selling. Would that work?

Councils are slightly different but in my area we applied under one LA by the Jan, sold our house and moved in with family in the feb/march told the new LA and were given a catchment place for that address in April notification. Bought a new house in the meantime but they couldn't assign based on the new house until completion, so completed in summer hols practically but have been given a place at new houses catchment school as an in year transfer. But it totally depends on your LA wording. Ours said that the child would be an "excepted pupil" but the rules change next school year for the school we wanted so if we'd done it in 6 months time we'd have had to keep our temporary address place.

tiggy

For number 2. I will be back to work next sept after maternity leave but only part time so wouldn't want to do the school run on days off esp with baby. DH travels by tube.

For 3. No we don't qualify for any of the other criteria.

I definitely want to sell. I can see what you're saying about them having to offer me a place somewhere but the not
Knowing and the lack of guarantee until April with a newborn I just can't contemplate. I need to have some kind of certainty.
I understand the people who refused the Sikh school were told
they wouldn't be offered anything else so just ended up on long waiting lists and no school place because they refused.

Thanks tiggy all these responses (on my several threads ) are helpful although doing nothing to alleviate my stress levels!

If it wasn't for new baby I mightn't be so panic stricken but the thought of moving from my lovely house to a poky (and expensive!) rental all for a school
place with 2 kids is making me feel
quite depressed.

To be fair we need to move anyway as we are only in a small two bedroom house but still!

I woud take whatever place they offered to start with.

That would give plenty of time to sell your house and find another that you like in an area more suitable for your needs.

Then put your child on the waiting list for the school that you like and move them when a place becomes available.

No stress, no panic, no lack of time to think or do anything, just settle down, enjoy your pregnancy and everything will turn out ok in the end

I am an educationalist, and for this I have my professional hat on (sort of).

Personally speaking I would think 'so what' and just leave it to fate with the school places. At KS1 level it doesn't matter a great deal where they go and people make far too much fuss about it. The advantage of just sitting back and leaving it to fate is that you can move at your own pace and then just leave it to the LA to do the worrying. You can always shift schools mid-term later on when a place comes up (and they frequently do, even in the most over-subscribed schools). Other parents do not like shifting places mid-term or mid-year and this gives you an edge in getting a place later on. Kids are very resilient, however, and after 1-2 weeks in a new school invariably it is as though they have always been there.

Now let's talk about the Sikh school. The Sikh philosophy as it stands is actually quite inclusive and pro-education, but I have two problems with that place as a school - firstly last time I checked it was basically being housed in an office block, secondly they impose things on the pupils that are not Sikh, e.g. vegetarianism. Frankly, I think if at home you eat meat/halal/kosher etc, then you should be able to bring ham/halal/kosher sandwiches into school if you want to. It is none of the school's business. So if this were my children we were talking about, I would be opting them out of all worship, making sure they got a good learning environment and plenty of time outdoors running around, and I would be writing to the head that they would be having a Christian packed lunch rather than a Sikh one and this should not be policed. I would also opt out of the school uniform as far as I reasonably could, on the grounds that this was probably going to be a temporary placement. Then I would drop them off there and let them get on with it.

I have a sense they might actually do rather well in terms of friendships and academic progress, as the school would bend over backwards to show it was doing a good job. In there long term, however, I would like to see all faith schools abolished as I think the whole notion of imposing religion on kids in school is divisive and old fashioned, and it skews admissions unhelpfully. (I speak as a communicant member of the C of E!)

(If this is the Sikh school I think it is, of course!)

tiggy I'm afraid I don't know the answers to your questions about class sizes and bulge. Where can I find out this info?

Nor do I know much about the Sikh school except as boffin says I don't think it's actually housed in a proper building.

The rental
Situation is not great. There's not that much on offer so we would have to be quick to snap something up I think.

Boffin I think we are talking about the same school. It's in Redbridge. As an aside we are Muslim

If we apply from
Our house we won't get in to any schools within 2 miles will we as they are over subscribed and cut off distance short (.4 .6 etc)

Even the schools over two miles away are oversubscribed. I know this because when you look at the admissions booklet you can see how many applied.

The only schools we will get into from our current location are the ones where it says 'all places offered' and you can see they haven't actually filled up all their places. All these schools are about a 20-30 min drive away depending on traffic

www2.redbridge.gov.uk/cms/children_and_schools/school_support_information/applications_and_admissions/idoc.ashx?docid=3ca64d32-9c16-4ff8-aaba-cd13dd766387&version=-1

I'm
Just posting the admissions guidance with the schools info

I'm afraid Arsenic is wrong. See my post on your other thread. If you own a property and rent another most LAs in London and an increasing number elsewhere will ignore the rented address and use the property you own.

tiggy really? When did that become common? (I assume you mean regardless of the owned house being let out? Also regardless of the length of time that has been the status quo?)

At least it is finally a crackdown, I suppose.

Yep Arsenic this is true of London. Not sure elsewhere. Hence my panic and stress about not being able to sell the house. We defo can't just rent it out.