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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Primary admission- help place withdrawn?please help

11 replies

Blondemummy1975 · 23/04/2016 17:03

Hi all, I hope someone can help me. We applied for an out of catchment not oversubscribed school as my boy is autistic and we believe this was the best mainstream place for him. We are waiting for the outcome of his EHCP application. We applied from our out of catchment address however a few weeks ago (middle of March) I phoned up and asked them to change our address on the system as we were due to exchange contracts on a new house on 27th March. The new address put us much much closer but not in catchment. However this exchange has been delayed and has still not happened. We got an email last fri offering 1st choice and on the online log in it says first choice. However the letter has gone to a none existent address as house not built yet so prob got returned to LEA. I phoned up to ask to send letter again yesterday to where we still are renting but it arrived today and has second choice school on!

What has happened? Did they award presuming I'm living at new address and changed it? All online stuff has original address on. School is not over scribed when I looked online. Did they withdraw when I foned up and said send to old address?

I don't know what to do... If they offer a place online and by email can they then just change their minds 7 days later?!

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Owllady · 23/04/2016 17:07

They can only allocate on the house you are living in, so they are obviously doing it on distance from school
If there is still space, you can still put him forward can't you? But as you've been given second school I think it must be full

You need advice on the autism front though. Are the LEA aware? There are different rules 're SEN or there used to be

Original poster

Blondemummy1975 · 23/04/2016 17:13

It says online that there are 4 places left.... My issue is on offer day which was last Friday we got an email offering 1st choice and we logged onto the system and it said the same. We are miles away but they offered it? they haven't notified is it's been withdrawn we just got this new letter

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titchy · 23/04/2016 17:15

Sounds like a simple mistake. If the school has vacancies still, then there is a place for your ds regardless of address. Phone Monday to check.

Original poster

Blondemummy1975 · 23/04/2016 17:28

Im worrying that those 4 places have been taken over this week. If they did withdraw the place they would have sent that letter to the wrong address too! Will they just say it's my fault I gave them the wrong address for correspondence?

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CrotchetQuaverMinim · 23/04/2016 18:10

Can't you accept the first choice place online? Is it still there?

Original poster

Blondemummy1975 · 23/04/2016 18:19

No you can't accept online, only by returning the reply slip. I can take it into the school on Monday to accept and I assume that it is done. I have been offered the place online and accepted. I can then phone and ask why I've had a different letter. Surely if they've offered it then that's it? We would have got in wherever we live as was undersubscribed

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prh47bridge · 23/04/2016 20:10

They can only allocate on the house you are living in, so they are obviously doing it on distance from school

That is not true. Given that the OP didn't tell the LA about the change of address until mid-March the allocation was almost certainly made using her original address. If they had switched to her new address at that stage she would have been treated as a late application.

It says online that there are 4 places left

If they still have a place left they must offer it to anyone who applies. There is no way they can take your offer away if it leaves an empty place.

Surely if they've offered it then that's it

There are only very limited grounds on which an offer can be withdrawn once it has been made. It can only be withdrawn if it was made in error or the LA discovers that your application was fraudulent or deliberately misleading. Neither of those appears to apply here. If there is reason to withdraw a place the LA must look at your application again and determine if you would have got a place if there had been no error or fraud. If the school does still have places available you clearly would have got a place so there are no grounds on which the offer can possibly be withdrawn.

Make sure you keep the email and take a screenshot of the online log. Also take a screenshot showing that the school still has places left. Ring the LA on Monday and say that there seems to have been a mistake as the school offered by post is different to the school offered by email. I expect they will look into it, apologise and send the correct letter. If they don't you should appeal on the basis that the offer has been withdrawn incorrectly.

Owllady · 23/04/2016 20:35

Fair enough pbridge, you are the expert :) I'm not lying on purpose, I'm glad you've turned up!

Original poster

Blondemummy1975 · 23/04/2016 20:37

Thankyou so much! I will call on Monday. If they decided to change my application to a late one when I phoned up in March they should have told me it would now be treated as a late application on the phone at the time shouldn't they? I had no intention of making a late application just updating correspondence details! What if this is what has happened; that they have treated my application this way, would I have received a letter at all or do late applicants get allocated at review stage?

Worried this is what has happened! Or Do you think they might have based the decision on new address accidentally and when I foned up to change letter to address we are still at (miles away) the school was now full and they just sent out second pref? Have I accidebtalky provided misleading info? I didn't tell them exchange on our house is delayed (and still is) we were due to exchange 27th match and I didn't tell them that that didn't happen (even though no bearing on admissions) Im so worried about this :(

OP posts:

admission · 23/04/2016 22:05

Its a bit confusing isn't it. Given when you requested the change of address, this would have been well after the last cut-off date for changes to be made. So what should have happened is that the LA changed your address for communication purposes but kept the original address, which you were at in the last day for on-time application on 16th Jan to all admission purposes.
To be honest based on what you have said, it is difficult to work out what in fact the LA have done based on the email and letter you have received.
I agree with PRH, phone them up on Monday and say there is confusion , you want this school, you were offered this school by email but then you got a different school by letter, please can they correct it. But make sure that you follow everything up in writing, so that you have a record trail just in case this ends up going to appeal.

Original poster

Blondemummy1975 · 25/04/2016 19:41

Just wanted to say thankyou to you all for helping me; I've been in a real state this seeking worrying about it.

Sent OH straight to the school this morning with the slip to accept the school we had been emailed (1st choice) they didn't tick anything off just took the form from him so we don't know if ds is in a list given to them. I then foned LA and said we received email etc offering first choice and have accepted first choice what is this letter about and they said you have been offered 1st choice on the system and they don't know what happened with the letter. Phew! I asked them to check our address and to notify the school of our correct address so any further correspondence from school comes to us before we move (looking like nov move now) hopefully it is all sorted out now

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