Primary admissions, moving house etc - help!

[GemstoneDaddy]

Hi, am new here, so forgive my lack of knowledge about the MumsNet vernacular or 'protocol' but I could really use some help! I've seen other threads from people that raise similar topics....

Really need some help getting my head round the whole school admissions thing.

We live in Highbury, London - 2 kids one who will be starting school just before his 5th birthday i.e. Sept 2018, the other starting nursery in Feb 2018. The application window opens soon for our borough (Islington) and there are two outstanding schools and the rest good that we would be happy with.

We are space restricted - squashed into a 2bed flat, so will need to move (Most likely to north London - Palmers Green, Winchmore Hill, High Barnet - all some way away) to an area strategically with good schools including grammars. There's no 'gaming' about this proposed move - the local schools are better around where we are, but we want to grow up and move into a real home. The question is, WHEN?!

We apply now in our borough hopefully bag a school place by Feburary 2018. If we put the house on the market around the closure of the window and move between Feb and September 2018 what are our options regarding securing a space in the new borough in September 2018 given they will likely all be allocated and oversubscribed?

What research I have done suggests:

a) the new borough's window will also be closed by Feb2018, so by then we'd need to start contacting the new LA and new schools to enquire about spaces even though we hadn't moved yet, and even though they will just have allocated them all. Would need to contact them before schools close for the summer
b) move to new borough, then inform our existing school that we have done so (or do we not tell them we have moved, so that at least we have a fall back even if it means commuting with him each day??)
c) once moved, inform the new LA and schools we have moved and need a space for September 2018 - most likely to be told we are on the wait list
d) assuming there are no spaces, what do we do? continue to send our kid to the place in Highbury - see point b)? Get on a wait-list in new borough and hope something comes up by September 2018 or shortly thereafter?

I'm totally confused about what the process is. We'd rather not move after he has started Primary in our current location, for obvious reasons but I am starting to think that may be the only option.

Thanks so much in advance for any light you can shed!

GemstoneDaddy.

It would be simplest to move to your preferred area before the admissions round closes.

Yep, what Exploded said.

Move now. Get into the new Borough before the admissions deadline and apply from there.

If you can't, then yes, you'll have to apply in your current borough. You CAN put schools in the new borough on your application form, you're obviously unlikely to get them if they're usually oversubscribed.

Otherwise you'll have to make a late application into a subsequent admissions round and go on waiting lists etc when you move. But that makes you much more likely to end up commuting back.

You need to be very strategic about where the new house is. if you are likely to be moving between application dates and school entry dates before you start looking at houses you need to look at schools, then buy as close to your preferred school as you can, ensuring that when you go on the waiting list you are immediately at an advantage because you live closer to the school than anyone else on the list.

re the Highbury school, apply for schools you want so you have a place for sept 18, you never know what could happen to your moving plans and you might find you are still living in Highbury this time next year.

The best way forward would be to move before the closing date for applications. You have until 15th January. If you do that you will be able to apply for schools in your new LA.

If you can't move by then you will have to apply to the new LA once you can give them the evidence they want to support your new address. They have to come up with a place for you somewhere even if all schools are full. If you've already got a place at a school in Highbury you should inform them of your new address. They can't take your place away just because you've moved but, to make sure there aren't any slip-ups, it is best to emphasise that you want to keep the place.

Depending on the journey time, your new LA may decide that your son can commute to the school in Highbury. That means they won't have to come up with a more local place although they will have to provide free transport for your son. However, if the journey is more than 45 minutes each way you can argue that it is unreasonable and push for a local place. They can't just leave you on waiting lists. They have to come up with something.

Good luck.

Thank you everyone very much - this has been most useful and, despite not what I had hoped to hear (probably in denial), at least it's some clarity.

Unfortunately we are not in a position to move before January 15th - money being the main barrier - so it would have to be a move first then work out what we do about the school/commute issue. Commute from where we are imagining living would not be out of the question (apart from it being difficult to find a space on a commuter train, it's probably c.40mins door to door), but it would be very difficult balancing that with work commuting and then collection/childcare at the end of the school day (that's just another complexity we haven't got our head round)

I really didn't know about the school wait-list, free transport thing or the fact that the LA have to find you a place regardless of how full - I sort of assumed you'd be forced to home school or send them to private school!?

Councils have to find you a place if you apply for a state school.

It will be the nearest school with a vacant place. If there is no school within a reasonable distance with a place (what counts as resaonable depends to a certain extent on locality, but free transport must be provided for under 8s for over 2 miles - note that's just for the pupil)

If there are still no vacancies, then the council activates the Fair Access Protocol which forces a school to go over numbers to admit a child who has no other place. You can of course tell the council which schools you like and why , but you don't get to express preference as part of the FAP: it's all about the council horse-trading with schools to establish which can take an extra pupil with least impact to the rest of the pupils.

Which is a rather wordy way of saying that you might get a school you don't like much initially. But there is lots of churn in London, so you can ask yo be out on the waiting lists for schools you actually do like and there's a reasonable chance something will come up.