in year admissions

[user1492287253]

we are relocating over the summer to a very small town with 1 2 form entry primary. i was told by the education authority that they would ask school to admit my year 4 daughter under the fair access protocol unless they were really over full. i found out on a visit that they already have 32 in each class. i guess its fairly possible that they are therefore over full.
we exchange contracts next week. i cant apply for a school place until this happens. in the circs would you also list the 2 village schools on the application? both are also full and are around 2.5 miles away? would the authority have to arrange transport, unless there are rural footpaths that i dont know about (possible) there is not a safe way to walk to these schools.

Apply for as many as you can as otherwise you might be allocated a school further away which is less desirable, although it sounds possibly as if that might happen anyway if they are all full. You would need to talk to the LEA about travel as their concept of free travel varies from giving the child (not you) a bus pass to door to door taxi service.

right, so strategy (having spent all night mithering)
put in application with 3 nearest schools in order of preference
if offered any accept.
if not offered any apply for next nearest ones whilst appealing the first 3
be prepared to home school from September.
it all sounds a ridiculous move to make but kids change at the end of year 4 anyway here and the house we are moving to is firmly in a brilliant senior school catchment that has fantastic SEN provision so it will be worth it ( wibble)

if not offered any apply for next nearest ones whilst appealing the first 3

If you aren't offered any chase the LA rather than applying for more. They must come up with an offer for you somewhere. You shouldn't need to keep applying for schools. Applying for more might result in you being removed from the waiting list for the local schools.

The LA should be able to tell you which schools have places available before you apply. If there is one reasonably local which you find acceptable that would make the process a little easier.

I note that you mention SEN provision. If your daughter needs an EHCP the LA will ask you which school you want named on the EHCP. They have very limited grounds for refusing to name the school you want. Once the school is named your daughter must be admitted even if it is already full.

I feel your pain.

Have you visited the schools and talked to the HTs?

If you think that it might go to appeal, it is worth visiting the schools so that you can argue more convincingly why the prejudice to your DD of not attending any particular school is greater than the prejudice to the school of going over PAN. This is especially relevant if consideration should be given to SEN.

Is the PAN of the town school 30 or is it 32? If it's 32, it is indeed full but not over PAN, so if FAP was applied/if you were to appeal you'd be the first 'extra' rather than third 'extra', if that makes sense. There are several primary schools in my LA that have PAN 30 in infant classes and PAN 32 from Y3.

Just noticed that you said it was 2 form entry - PAN would therefore be likely to be either 60 or 64, rather than 30/32.

We are dealing with a primary school here. Unless they take in additional pupils for Y3, PAN will be set for Reception. If there are two forms PAN will definitely not be higher than 60 as that would put the school in breach of infant class size legislation.

If they have 32 per class in Y4 this could be due to successful appeals or it could be that the school is happy to go over PAN in Y3 and above.

There are a few primary schools in my LA and adjoining ones which do take extra pupils in Y3 and have separate PANs - e.g. Castle Hill Primary in Basingstoke has a PAN of 60 for YR and 64 for Y3 entry.

I know it's statistically unlikely that the OP's desired primary school has a separate PAN for Y3, but always worth checking especially as the OP didn't mention PAN at all in the post.

Stating the obvious, though, even if the PAN is increased for Y3, the school is still full!

prh47bridge's post does raise another issue - if the school is happy to go above PAN in Y3 and above, what are the numbers in other classes? It's not relevant to a FAP request, but could be if it came to appealing. Also, what is the PAN/what are the current numbers for the village schools?

thank you for all your comments.
the pan is 30 for the town school and has 32 in each class which is why i think the FAP might not work.
The village schools have all said that they are full but i will look at the class numbers
They seem to have combined year 5 and 6 classes. i am visiting more schools next week.

sorry pan is 60 for the town school
village schools are
15
15
30
20
They are within 4 miles or so but no public transport.