Moving house with two children in different school years

[Pinkjenny]

We are moving house in the Summer. Dc are currently in Years 2 and 5. I've just done a bit of nosing around the council website, and now I need a good lie down. So basically, I have to put their names on waiting lists, and then just hope a place comes up in two different school years in one school?

Have a look at this thread. It is a couple of years ago but might have some useful information.

Solihull/Birmingham secondary schools
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2169129-Solihull-Birmingham-secondary-schools

I used to travel from a lot further than Dickens Heath to Tudor Grange but that was a long time ago. The catchment for Tudor Grange was some very nice areas.

I did this. Moved just before the summer holidays - I started the lease then, children stayed with my H and relatives in the old city (to finish their school year). I Spoke to different schools in the summer term and they
could give me an idea of spaces (they would know by then generally if a family was leaving). I also spoke (alot) with the council's admission team.

In my case - I had 3 children in primary school - I got 2 in one school and 1 in another - but by the end of the Christmas term they were all in the same one.

I didn't know which area to move to really and I also spoke to schools in another LEA - I got (informally) offered a place for all 3 in the same school there.

It's stressful, but it can be done!

That's really helpful, thank you. I was worried I had impacted things by waiting this long but it doesn't appear so. It seems you can make an application to the admissions team at any time but they only start processing it 6 school weeks before your requested move date.

oh pinkjenny when I moved my dd was going into Y6 like yours. I rented my flat on the basis of secondary catchment rather than primary (thinking it to be much more important).

Educationally speaking, ds is a little more able than dd, but obviously I don't want either of them anywhere dodgy.

Eroica Tudor Grange has a remote catchment area which basically covers all of Dickens Heath. Otherwise it would be an admissions black hole.

It is very almost 14 years ago that we upped sticks and moved 250 miles away from Hertfordshire to East Yorkshire, just because of cheap house prices.
All I did was Email the nearest school for my eldest DS (year 6 at the time) and DD (Year 1 ) and got an offer for a place for both to start the day after we moved up there! The head gave me a form for me to send to the council as it was nearly time for secondary schools to send their offers out to Year 6s, and within the month I had an offer for the school a 5 minute walk from our new house!
Clearly things are very different now!
Or maybe I was extremely lucky??

I did this in November last year. Moved 2 kids in primary school. It was horrendous, more stressful than the buying a house! Especially is you are moving to a very oversubscribed area, which we did. I had 2 children, one in year 1 and one in year 3.

They will only start processing your application 6 weeks before the move. But at that point they will not take the address that you are moving to into consideration. So your children will be ranked on any waiting lists as per your current address. If all the schools that you apply to are full then you will get a decline letter.

Then what you have to do is actually move and tell the LA that you are now living at the new address. Then they will assign a mandatory school place for each DC. This can take up to 2 weeks.

What happened with us was luckily my younger one got a place in the school that we wanted and then we appealed for the older one.

We won the appeal and they both start their new schools after half term. But we could do this as we of moved 30 min away so continued to take the children to their old school until everything got sorted.

Definitely agree that Solihull is very oversubscribed. I'm in a different area of Solihull but places are hard to get in the borough as over the whole of primary there are more kids in the borough than places. Add in the amount of houses being built and it is getting worse by the month.