Advice please...............Accept /reject nursery place in primary school of second choice?

[chickenrice]

Just been asked the above question by a friend who's child has been offered a nursery place part-time at 3 years in a primary school which will be her second choice for primary admissions. Her top choice primary school does not offer nursery places until children are 4 or 3 and a half years and she will not know whether her DD1 gets a place possibly for another year. Her dilemma is whether she should accept the offer of the nursery place this Sept or reject it on the basis that she will eventually get a nursery place at her school of choice. Would it be wrong to accept the place and then move schools if offered the nursery place in the school of choice? Has anyone done this? BTW in relation to admissions criteria for the primary school itself, she has a better chance of getting in to her top choice ahead of her second choice based on the 'distance from school' criteria. Thought I'd put the question to you all out there as I haven't a clue what she should do. Thanks for any advice.

[USAUKMum]

At our primary a nursery place doesn't guarentee a place in reception. So it wouldn't really matter. If she'd like her DD to start now, accept the place and move her when the preferred place comes up. Here people often change nursery places around as people find out the primaries they have got in etc. Alternatively, she could find out if there are any pre-schools loosely linked to the preferred primary where her DD could go.

My DS now attends a local pre-school where many of the children attend our local primary. He now attends 1 morning (as he started a bit early), 2 sessions after Easter rising to 3 sessions in Sept. He'll start nursery at the primary where DD goes in Jan 2008.

[LizP]

Is this a private school or an LEA school ? I thought all nursery places for state schools were done at the same time ? Anyway one of ds2 friends didn't get into his nursery class, so started at another school, went on the waiting list and swapped to his school when a place came up. If it is a private school the only thing I can think of is there are probably notice periods and they need to make sure they give the correct notice.

[sinclair]

Advise her to check the admissions criteria for the first choice school - in all probability it will be some variation of special needs, siblings and distance from the school, regardless of which pre-school the child is at. The exceptions are religious schools which can apply additional filters and of course private schools.

I wouldn't swap a child mid-pre-sch place - they are there for such a short time anyway but I wouldn't be above holding a place and hoping the preferred alternative came up before she started.

[chickenrice]

Thanks for your advice. It's an LEA school LizP. Any more opinions?