Late school application

[sarah1601]

I want to hear from mums that have made a late school application, the closing date was yesterday and I completely forgot, the number on choice school is in the catchment area but is popular, can mums who have made a late application tell me what the outcome was? I am worried sick!

I supppose I can only hope that not all the spaces are filled and that if they are he gets through on the waiting list!

Sarah - what does the admission criteria say about unfilled places - you say 26 for catchment and 3 for non catchment. If on admission closing date they have 25 applications for catchment - do they hold the 1 catchment place open until a catchment application comes in or does an unfilled catchment place become available for non catchment applications?

I’ve never heard the thing about catchment and non catchment places? It’s normally catchment get priority and then any spare places go to out of catchment. What would happen if they had 27 people in catchment? Can you link to these priority criteria as they seem like they would be deemed ‘unfair’ or ‘unlawful’

I’m not 100% sure myself this is what the headteacher said on the open day, I’m wondering if it is 29 places and they have 26 children in catchment

Sounds like that is just what the last intake was, the actual priority categories will be on your LEA website.
It’s normally

1. Kids with special medical needs where that particular school is mentioned on a statement
2. Children in care or adopted
3. Siblings
4. In catchment
5. Out of catchment

Often siblings come after in catchment.

ah - there are lots of threads on here with nuggets that headteachers or other staff at the school have said on open days about the admissions process which are not actually in line with the LEA procedure - what does it say on the council website re admission criteria?

The selcetion criteria are at this point irrelevant.

The places will be given out between now and April according to the selection criteria, whatever they are, they will be allocated.

Then your application will be considered. If the school has filled 27 out of its 29 places, then it has 2 empty places. ANY application received after 15th Jan is an application for those empty places, and they will be given to the applicant, as long as there is an empty place, regardless of what the original criteria was. If there are 2 late applications, they are dealt with in a strict order, first one first

Secondary school applications closed at the end of October! Primary yesterday. Generally most local authorities are a little lenient.

Apologies. What I meant that was that our school will not be full after the normal application timetable. In every year of my history knowledge places have been available right up to September and so the deadline here isn't really an issue. We could accept someone who rocked up in September and this has happened in the last two years.

It depends on the village school and how full it is

Poor you?! Dear god poor child!
How could you forget?! You had over 3 months to do it! And it’s one of the most important things for your child.
Do you generally have a problem with admin and keeping on top of things?! The dad in a thread that missed applying for a school place a while ago got completely blasted - I’m not sure why you are being let off so lightly - you’ve really messed up and it’s your son that might miss out

Generally most local authorities are a little lenient.

On the contrary, if I had applied to a school and NOT got a place, and I discovered that a place had been given to someone whose application had arrived on 16th, instead of before midnight on the 15th, I would be entitled to appeal to the LEA on the basis that they had not followed their application procedures.

In some LEAs the pressure on places is such that they will stick to the letter of the law. In some (or for some schools) there is space in the system, and, like changebagsandgladrags school, there is not an issues around the places.

In most areas, they will apply the time cut off strictly

rainbows, I think she is giving herslef a hard enough time, so none of the rest of us felt the need to kick her while she was down....

@Rainbowsandflowers78 excuse me? Do you have any idea what has been going on in my life lately? I did not post this to be grilled but asking for help from other parents that have made similar mistakes or know what they are talking about. I have cried for hours tonight about how terrible I feel. I went to apply last week and the site was down for 3 whole days!! I then thought the deadline was today! I had my last school viewing on the 9th January. If you can’t help me please go else where, I’m sure you have made mistakes in your parenting, without making other mums feel worse than they already do!

sarah - your son will be fine.
Even if you don't get the school you want, he will be fine.
There is such a pressure on getting it all perfect, that we lose sight of the fact that actually most kids from most families get on fine at most schools.

Thank you to everyone for their help I have looked on the schools website and found that catchment area does prioritise over siblings outside of catchment area for this school and it has information about everything I need to know about waiting lists etc. Also I think you are right about the numbers I was given being last years statistics this year there is 30 places and that’s all it states, fingers crossed everything will be okay but like some of you have said it’s not the end of the world the other schools are still good just bigger :)

You had 3 months. The process takes 20 minutes - there’s really no excuse. Everyone else who has had bereavements, serious illnesses, new jobs, redundancies, new babies, divorces etc found the 20 minutes they needed to apply

@rainbowsandflowers78 like I said I didn’t say I didn’t have time, read my reply instead of spitting your comments at me that you have already come up with before reading the post. One day you will make a mistake and when you ask for help people will just critisize you and you won’t like it.

Maybe Rainbows has a time machine you can borrow

It will be fine. You'll have extra wracked nerves but unless you're in a real black spot (and you would know by now) it will be fine.

Haha @mrshathaway maybe she does 😂 I hope you’re right x

You have made a mistake and now need to concentrate on how to make the best of you position, based on the correct information.
Sorry but there is some really poor information on this post and I do not want you to get into any false sense of hope. Your application is late, so you application will only be processed after all on-time application have been processed. No LA can afford to be lenient or bend the rules, the date is the 15th Jan for on-time applications unless you meet a very limited criteria such as moving house in the next few weeks.
What will happen is that all applications for each school who are on time will be put in admission criteria order and a computer program will than match up the applications to give them a place at a school which is your highest preference providing you are within the admission number the school can accept. Those that applied on line but who could not be offered a place at any of their preferred schools will then offered a place at the nearest school with spare places. Pupil places will be confirmed on 18th April for those on-time applications. There will then be a short period of time (usually 2 weeks) when parents are expected to confirm or decline the places offered. At that point parents can request another school or request to be put on the waiting list for the school and at the same point all those who applied late (and believe me you will not be the only one) will be included. Given you say that you live near the preferred school you may well be at the top of the list. If any spare places come available then they will be offered to those at the top of the waiting list based on the admission criteria order, it does not depend at all on when the application was received. It is also likely that the LA will allocate a place to you at what they consider the nearest available school. If you are very lucky that will be the school you want but no matter what it is, you should accept the offered place because it will be better than anything else that might be available. You then need to ask in writing to go on the waiting list for a place at any school you would be happy with.
You should reconsider in the next 3 months all the schools that are relatively local to you, as it is probable that you will not immediately get the school you prefer. Depending on when your child was born, you might be able to defer them starting at school from September till December. They do not have to start till they are 5. That could give you an extra 3 months in which a place could come up within a school that you prefer. There will be movement in school places between April and September but it is impossible to know when and how many.
You can appeal for a place at your preferred school but I suspect from your post that it is a school with 30 in the reception year. That means that any appeal can only succeed under the infant class size regs if a mistake has been made by the admission authority. That is not the case so any appeal under those criteria have a very very low chance of success.
Sorry this is long and a bit complicated but you need to understand what you can and cannot expect now that you have missed the deadline. If you want to ask any questions please feel free to PM me.

Miaow - the op should really see how serious this is and take steps to address what caused her to get in this position (does she always leave things to the last minute?!)
This isn’t a simple ‘oops’ forgot today mistake - you could apply from 1 September. And this is her sons future. What kind of example is it setting?!
If you remember the male thread where the dad had been asked to do it and forgot - he got lambasted. It’s incredibly sexist that the op even got a ‘poor you’! Comment! It is likely her son will miss out on their first choice of school for September through this.

In my region the primary applications weren't closed until 19:00. I checked after and I was unable to access applications so you may have been lucky.

It could easily have been me tbh so don't feel too bad.