Outside of any primary catchment areas

[Devro]

I know it's pretty early but I'm starting to majorly stress out over my child's primary admission in Sept '18.
We live in a catchment 'black hole', meaning we are surrounded by schools but are not in any of their catchment areas, with the exception of 2 Catholic primaries, which are not an option.
I have a preference but wouldn't mind getting into any of the non-faith schools, but I think it's not gonna happen unless we move into a catchment area.
I really do not want to move, and so at the moment the only thing I can think of is to move temporarily.
I know how people feel about that, but I don't think we'll have another choice, given the ridiculousness of our situation.
I suppose otherwise we'd risk being placed in an undersubscribed school miles away, and close distance is the most important thing for us as I'm a single parent, work full time and can't afford a childminder for drop-offs and pick-ups.
My question is now: What kind of repercussions do people face who move into catchment then move back to previous address?

@IrenetheQuaint I haven't disclosed my exact location on purpose, for privacy reasons.

And yes, by catchment I mean admission by distance - what else would catchment mean?

Some parts of the country have defined catchment areas OP, it's not the same thing.

I can understand the privacy point, of course, but this comment:

"I'm less than 10 minutes away from 5 public non-faith schools - all of which we can't get into most likely unless a miracle happens"

surprises me, in the light of the list I posted earlier. There are only 3 community schools in Lambeth with a 'last distance admitted' of under 500m - and that was as of Offer Day. As other posters have pointed out, given the mobility of the London population, places for children further away will often open up over the summer.

they all seem to rate well though, isn't the general consensus that there is very little difference between an ofsted outstanding and good?

Havng lived in or near Berlin for years, I confess I am rather enjoying the idea of you moving to Berlin and expecting to be able to rock up at the excellent state school of your choice.

Devro,

The difference between catchment and admission by distance:

A defined catchment is where a school states 'priority is given to children within the area shown on map A' - this can often be a VERY odd shape, with some boundaries much closer to the school than others. This will remain constant year on year, although if more children living in catchment apply than there is space for, distance from the school is the usual tiebreaker.

Admission by distance results in circular 'effective admissions areas', which may vary very dramatically from year to year.

A SEN statement isn't a magic ticket to waltz into any school you want, you have to have a reason why that particular school is the only one eg no stairs if monikiry problems, have a sensory room etc.

I'll try and get a SEN statement because actually, yes, my child probably should get preference for a multitude of reasons,

A SEN statement isn't a magic ticket to waltz into any school you want

Coing back to make exactly this point. In general, children who have Statements will go to the school that anyone else living at their address would be allocated, but the Statement [EHCP now] details their individual needs and how the school they attend needs to support them.

In a fewcases, the SEN statement names a particular school which is not a 'normal' school for someone from that address to attend. This is because it has facilities or arrangements that make it, over and above any alternatives, the most suitable school. An obvious one would be a child with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair, whose statement might name a school with all areas accessible rather than a 2 story Victorian school. Another might be a child with hearing impairment attending a school with a hearing impairment unit attached, or with specific sign language interpreters and trained staff. Or a child with ASD attending a school with an autism unit.

However, the majority of mobility impaired children will attend their local school, the majority of hearing impaired children who use sign language will be in their local school supported by the interpreter named in their statement, and the majority of children with ASD will be supported in a mainstream school with no unit.

All schools are expected to take SEN children, and provide for them. Only in a small minority of cases does SEN affect school admission.

I would also say that your description of her:

has certain health/social issues that could be exacerbated by a stressful start in school (eg starting at one school then switching to another for instance).

No child deals well with disruption but she's rather extreme in that regard. Another concern is class size due to the fact that she is over-sensitive in regard to noise, has nervous breakdowns over it and cannot cope

Does not sound like she would meet the threshold for s SEN Statement. She might make it onto the SEN list in some schools, but at a lower level - so she would have an individual plan with her own targets and how they are met, and might at some point have input from professionals outside the school to advise on how best to met her needs. However, a child who is cognitively at age expected levels and has the health / social needs that you describe sounds like a full EHCP, which is the only level at which a school can be named, is unlikely. As said earlier, as a rough rule of thumb, if she does not require full-time 1:1 (e.g. in whatever childcare or pre-school education setting that she currently attends) to meet her specific needs, it is unlikely that she would meet the [high] threshold.

(I would also say that, if you had a child who needed an EHCP for applying to school for September 2018, you would already be well into the process, and your OP would have been all about how a school could meet your child's needs, given that they already have extra help at nursery and x,y,z professionals are already involved and have recommended... etc etc.

Your main concerns originally were about quality of school, rental costs and childcare logistics (and about playing the system), and you make mention of some needs are after a few pages. I would therefore suspect that, if your DD is in need of being on the SEN list when she arrives at school at all, it will be at a lower level than an EHCP / Statement.)

I think you just need to move.

As pp have said, your plan to sublet your existing rental and rent something closer to a desire school will be treated as fraudulent.

Genuinely secular schools are rare. Even if they are not a church school they can be quite religious - there is a spectrum of how enthusiastically a school will embrace it's legal requirement to have a daily act of Christian worship. If you withdraw your child from that they are likely to also be excluded from being in the nativity play. You will need to do careful research to find a school that suits your requirements then pay whatever it takes to rent a home near to it.

If you stay where you are currently renting you will either have to accept a school you find unsatisfactory or you will have to home school until you qualify for a place at a school you find acceptable.

If the LA offers you a place and you turn it down, they have no further obligation to you.

In London the requirement to provide free transport to school is considered fulfilled as children travel free on public transport. There will be no taxis paid for by the LA.

This is one of the reasons why most people with young children move out of the capital to the suburbs. You do also have time to do that. Research towns along the train line towards the mainline station nearest your work one of them will have a good school, a train station and an area you can afford to live in all within a reasonable area.

I think you are probably panicking unnecessarily. Lambeth has lots of good schools, if you put down the closest 6 good ones you will get one of them. I remember the angst around this, but it will be fine. The sort of choices available in central London is what many people dream off. It is extremely unusual to be assigned a school 3 miles away. Lambeth borders two boroughs (depending where you live meters not miles away) with good and outstanding schools.

A SEN statement isn't a magic ticket to waltz into any school you want, you have to have a reason why that particular school is the only one

In general, children who have Statements will go to the school that anyone else living at their address would be allocated

Both these statements are completely wrong.

Statements of SEN have been replaced by EHCPs but the principle is the same. During the process of drawing up an EHCP the parents will be asked which school they want their child to attend. There are only very limited grounds under which the LA can refuse to name the school selected by the parents. The parents do not have to show that the school they want is the only one that can cater for their child. The boot is very much on the other foot. If the LA does not want to name the school selected by the parents they have to show that it is unsuitable. Once the school is named in an EHCP it must admit the child even if it is already full. That is the law - to be precise, the Children and Families Act 2014.

However, the OP cannot get an EHCP just because she wants her child to go to a particular school. Unless her child has SEN this route will not be available to her.

What prh said, precisely.

Answer, she knows her stuff on this subject. That IS the law.

prh47bridge just for clarification:

Do all children with SEN have an EHCP?

Can all parents with children who have SEN name which school they want their children to go to and does that school then have to allocate a place unless they can give good reason why it is not suitable?

Do all children with SEN have an EHCP

No. Most don't. An EHCP is only used for the more severe cases that require support going beyond that generally available for SEN.

Can all parents with children who have SEN name which school they want their children to go to and does that school then have to allocate a place unless they can give good reason why it is not suitable

No. Only parents of children with an EHCP or a Statement of SEN. If a child has SEN but does not have an EHCP or Statement they go through the normal admissions process.

Thanks prh47bridge. I think your claification outlines what others were trying to say when they highlighted that SEN would not necessarily enalble OPs DC to just walk into a school place.

I think that if OPs DC is currently accessing the NC without much support at the moment, it is not going to be easy for them to obtain and named school EHCP.

I don't know much about SEN, only what I see from friends' kids, but getting an EHCP seems really hard even for kids with a lot more problems than some social issues and noise sensitivity. Especially aged 3 or 4.

I apologies, I was basing my statement on mine and friends experiences of school application which were 2011/12/13 which predate the 2014 act that has been mentioned.
We could only name a specific school if it had something the others didn't eg a local school has a special department/class for SEN, specifically for those who wouldn't cope in mainstream
And a friends son has cerebral palsy, and even though they gave reason why they didn't want thier catchment school (too many steps and steep slopes) they still got allocated it and had to appeal to get into their first choice school (which they won)

Apologies for misinformation! Thinking carefully about this, most children i have taught with EHCPs have not had them from before school, but have acquired them during their movement through school (and with the school supporting the application) and have therefore tended to name the school they already attend.

Listen to prh!

If you are less than 10 minutes away from 5 non-faith schools, I would bet that you will get into at least one of them. Do any of your neighbours have school age children? Where do they go?
Some schools do have very small catchments, but others have much larger ones - my kids school in south Lambeth used to have a figure-of-8 shaped admissions area, because of two very popular small schools near it and not many people living on the other two sides of it.

In the last three years the only people I've known in Lambeth who didn't get one of their six choices were people who ignored distance and put down schools near the grandparents/childminder or all ones they wouldn't qualify for on religious grounds, or six Outstanding ones they weren't near. Even in the couple years before that, any child without a place got one within walking distance by September.

Put your six nearest schools that are non-denominational or CofE, in whatever order you like them, and it'll be fine. Bear in mind half or more of the kids won't be from even nominally-Christian families, and the schools bear that in mind - even the Nativity plays I've sat through have ignored any religious aspects and merely referred to Jesus as "a very important baby"!

If you withdraw your child from that they are likely to also be excluded from being in the nativity play.
I think this is a bit of a MN myth. Actually it's an almighty nuisance for a school to exclude from the nativity play, and while they will if you want, they'd be more than happy to let them take part and just pop out for any prayers at the beginning or end. The play itself can just as well be framed as RS as long as they skip the "and this is a true story amen" bit. My withdrawn from religious observance kids have always taken part in nativities, DD was even Mary one year. They don't think it's a true story any more than the talking snowmen in the next year's play. DS's teacher checked with us about the nativity specifically in reception, since then they haven't even asked.