Please help!!!!.....

[Chelsea2016]

Hello fellow mums!
I have started a petition for my son, Benjamin. He is three years old and is due to start reception in September. However, Benjamin has been rejected due to an excessive amount of applicants. There are 68 places yet 85 applied for first preference.
If u could kindly take the time to read my petition and to help out by signing it I would be very grateful! I feel like the worst mother in the world and feel that I have let me son down! If I can get 1000 people to sign my petition then I may have a good chance of something being actioned!
Thank you, Chelsea 😊

www.change.org/p/flintshire-county-council-please-extend-and-improve-our-school-to-accommodate-for-all-of-our-children?recruiter=75126755&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_for_starters_page&utm_term=mob-xs-google-no_msg&recuruit_context=fb_share_mention_control

My first thought was that it's not at all uncommon to have many more applicants apply to a school as their first preference than the number of places. It happens with hundreds of schools, every year!

Based on the information you've provided in your post, the only appropriate response is an appeal if you think there has been a mistake in the application process or you can prove that the decisions is unreasonable (very unlikely to succeed).

A petition to ask for a school place based purely on the reason you've given above ("an excessive amount of applicants") is a bizarre waste of time.

However, for some reason I bothered to copy and paste the link and take a look, and I can see that you're actually petitioning for extra places to be created at your local school using the money provided two years ago by the developers of a nearby housing estate. That puts a different complexion on things, but I'd recommend that you describe this situation in full as a response to this post, because your original post doesn't mention any of this relevant stuff and just reads as though you think your son is somehow 'special'. (of course he is to you, but you know what I mean - many thousands of other children are in the same position)

Did he get a place at another school?

I wish you well in your endeavours.

But, realistically, there is no way that additional space/staffing can be organised in time for this next academic year. So you're going to have to look at alternatives for your son for Reception.

Thank you for your replies and I totally understand I should have made it clearer. The thing is, I have spoken to the headteacher and she has even said that she has moved classes around to make space for the children that need a place. She is mortified that at the appeals yesterday, only 4 out of 9 had a successful appeal!
Going to the next local school that has awful reviews and awful results is just not an option! The money is there and the head said she is waiting for a new build onto the school but we just don't know when that will happen x

Only 4 appeals were successful presumably because the other 5 still did not meet the criteria to be successful!

Is there a third option if you didn't get a choice in your first choice and you don't want your second choice? Unless there was a mistake by the authority in the process I don't think they'll do anything. It'll be too late to raise the funds for the building and additional staff for this September.

Oh and also there are 4 TA positions that have been advertised for September 2016, so they do have the staff. The reason the build is taking so long is because they are waiting for the numbers in the school to increase but obviously with only sticking to the allocated spaces and not entering these children so the school becomes overcrowded, there is nothing to act upon. Hope that makes sense ☺️

Oh you say the funds are there. I missed that, sorry.

We live 0.4 miles from the school, we are well within catchment area and meet the criteria x

Yes, they have £500k sitting there from the housing development, they also have an extra £33k from another development which is due to be built over the next coming year! They are building more and more houses but not doing anything about our school or our doctors for that matter which is another problem the community has! X

I fully understand your concerns about wanting a school that is a local school for your child. I also accept that the level of building work in Broughton is clearly going to increase the number of children in the area.

However you need to consider the bigger picture from Flintshire LA perspective. Some areas do have real problems with numbers (Hawarden, Sandycroft etc) but you have other schools such as Penyffordd and Higher Kinnerton, not that far away. So my first question would be, have you been offered a place at a nearby school?

If not then that does increase the pressure on places and on Flintshire to do something about it. There is no doubt that they could do something about it because they could put a mobile on site without any major problems to take a bulge class of 30 reception pupils, but that is not a permanent solution. £500K is only going to get you 3 more classrooms in all probability, which is unlikely to be sufficient over the next few years as the population continues to rise.

I would also ask the question whether the builders have actually handed over the funding yet, as quite often unless the LA are on the ball in terms of agreeing something before the builder starts digging, the funding is only paid when the development has finished.

I think I would concentrate on trying to push Flintshire Council to get a mobile on site as an interim measure, as that is the best you can hope for in the short term. I don't think that a petition will have any effect, what you need is to get to the right people in the Council with an appropriate amount of local publicity.