Is there a nervously awaiting primary admissions thread?

[drspouse]

Or have I just started the first one?

Appeals and waiting lists thread here.

Phew. Letter arrived and we have our first choice place.

I haven't found out yet. I was told I'd get an email on 16 April. I haven't. I've checked my spam & there's nothing there either :-(

Drspouse - I am interested by what you mean by inappropriate activities for adopted children? Genuine question; as I am a teacher and wondered what you mean?

Monday morning. Feeling very anxious about the whole thing. 1st choice has 170 applications for 68 places so very unlikely. Second is an improving school but staying positive. DS will be happy at both which is the important thing. Still hoping for the 1st choice though despite knowing it's unlikely!

How do you find out how many applications there have been?

cece for example:
Asking children who may not have them to bring in baby pictures (or who only have pictures of themselves in their chaotic birth home).
Asking children to do a family tree and not offering alternative formats for those who may not live in a nuclear family, or who have more than one family.
Asking children to do a time line when they may not want to share information or may not know about some periods of their lives.
Getting children to collect genetic information (eye colour, ear lobes) from their families and then (as I've heard happening) saying that they must "have it wrong" or even be lying or stupid.
"Othering" children by talking at length about their family situation as if it's weird.
Activities around neglected/abused children e.g. NSPCC fundraising that is sometimes v graphic (and for children adopted from overseas, dealing with difficult situations in their birth country in negative ways).
PSE activities that cover the evils of things that children may know their birth parents have done.
Biology/PSE around the facts of life especially for children with difficult origins, or who know about things that happened when they were in utero.
Mother's/Father's day activities that make a child with conflicted loyalties feel awful.

There are also problems where schools don't pick up on, or minimise, comment made by other children e.g. "your parents didn't want you", "they're not your real parents", "is he/she your real brother/sister?".

And then of course there are times when children may need extra support around new information they are given or that turns up from birth family/country, or a new memory that comes to light etc., that schools may deal with well or badly.

Cece I asked the same question on the other thread.
OP - most schools will have children with sensitive backgrounds. Ours certainly does. It has a good number of adopted children or fostered children.
A quick word with the school would sort it

I asked the deputy head how many applications there were last year so I'm thinking it'll probably be similar this year

A quick word with the school would sort it

A quick word when? Before they blindside us with an impossible assignment that our nervous 5 year old insists the teacher says he MUST do in a certain way or he will be in HUGE trouble, or after? Before someone in a PSE class rants about how horrendous our DCs' birth parents' lifestyles were, meaning that our 9 year old becomes depressed about turning into them, or after?

One school was able to assure us that they would have a word with us about all such curriculum before it happened. They were able to give specific examples about things they might need to tell us about. They also already have a suitable therapist on site part time and have in the past bought in more time with them when necessary (and children who have been through difficult life circumstances may not need such therapy when they start school but could have something come up that means they need it later).

The other schools were vague and couldn't actually come up with any examples when placed on the spot. They clearly didn't have the imagination to work out what kinds of things might be issues for children from difficult backgrounds, let alone that they might need to tell parents before they happened. And as I've said on the other thread (I think) they spend their Pupil Premium money on extra curriculars and trips, which is not what we need.

For those in London Admission, I'm
the furthest SE borough Bx

I got my DS details by logging on and that was available several hours before the email landed. (2 yrs ago now! Blimey it flies)

So do log on to check rather than waiting for the email.

I'm going to be refreshing from now until I get the outcome
I hate not knowing! What will be will be but it's an odd feeling knowing our daughters name is on a class list at a school already and we have no idea which school

Just woke up and I feel sick! I think we find out just after midnight if it's the same as last year.

Waiting for the letter to arrive tomorrow for dd. Feels so arcane - had to do it paper based!

We've done this before with ds but as we've moved - we had to put ds in the only school which had a place (which isn't our nearest). Dd is likely to get our nearest school so expect our DCs to be at different schools and have ds on the waiting list. Which might mean three schools in a year for him :(

I am seriously considering staying up and checking online at midnight...But I know that won't do anything except mean I get no sleep if we don't get our preferred schools and can't do anything about it till daytime tomorrow...

I'm not staying up gizlot as there's nothing I can do about it and things always seem worse in the night.

DH is abroad in a different time zone so I wouldn't even be able to call and update him.

See that's the sensible thing to do Spaghetti but I am not sure I will sleep anyway. Last time I checked dc1's allocation whilst up on an early morning feed with ds.

I'll be up feeding my little pickle so will be checking all night! Supposed to get them after 4pm via email and 5pm by logging on. Would there be any chance they would come out at midnight?!

Checked the website yesterday and it says available online from 7am.
Am trying to convince myself it's not worth checking any sooner

Online on Monday that should say!

Ours are from 00:00 i think ( now going to check)

No time given

My neighbour said her email came through @310pm when they said from 4pm so be interesting to see what happens tomorrow!!ive booked a busy day so won't be constantly refreshing