In-year admissions and siblings: confused!

[Maranello]

We're about to return to England from overseas with dc who'll be rejoining in year 5 and year 3 in April.

Our local authority has given us a list of schools that have vacancies currently - though this might change by the time we're back and have to submit the application - and no schools close to us have spaces in both years.

My question, which the admissions team doesn't seem to have an answer to (or at least not one they're telling me!), is whether the application forms will be considered together, ie as a pair of siblings who ideally would be at the same school, or not.

We have four choices, and my intention would be to list the same four in the same order for both dc, but if they end up at different schools, it is going to be a real headache.

Is it a situation in which one dc (the oldest?) would be placed first, which might then bump the younger up the list? Any advice on wrangling this would be much appreciated!

This isn't the normal admissions process eg in reception or high school. So when you arrive they will tell you who has places and who doesn't or who has a place for one but not the other. Then you decide what you want to do. They aren't considering an application against at criteria unless you are going on a waiting list for a school that is full.

They are considered as individuals rather than family unit. (Lots of siblings attend different schools) The council aren't obliged to give you a space for both at the same school. You could sent up with one in a school 0.5 miles away and another in a school 2 miles away.
Getting one child in will bump the other one up the list if the admissions criteria prioritise siblings.

They will offer both children places at the same time, in whichever school is nearest that has a space in each year group. This is likely to be two different schools.

You can accept both places and have two at two different schools, or home ed one and accept one.

In either case each sibling would generally get bumped up the waiting list a bit as soon as their sibling started at a school. How much further up the list depends on how high siblings rank in their published admissions criteria.

If a school has a space you'll get in. The waiting lists are ranked by admissions criteria.

Thanks all for your help - the authority runs in-year admissions in monthly cycles so it seems like my best bet is to find out vacancies as close as possible to the application closing date and hope there's a school that has places for both.

But if not, and so assuming they might well end up in different schools, I guess I could then put them on waiting list(s) for September? Which would be disruptive but might boost chances of getting them in the same place?

Presumably once you accept a place for one the other will be high on the waiting list. So you could do that for both and move whichever child subsequently gets an offer. You could also appeal since class sizes are less restricted from y3.

There is no application closing date for in year applications

You are in a tricky position, OP, nerve-wracking and confusing!

They will treat each child as an individual for an in year place.

As soon as you accept a vacancy for one child, your other child can then go on the waiting list under the ‘sibling ‘ criteria, usually a high priority.

This can be the case at each school, so if they are at seperate schools to begin with, each has sibling waiting list status at the other.

Make sure the vacancy/ ies you accept have siblings as high priority. If one school does breakfast club and after school club that might give you leeway to drop and pick the other?

Get the Yr 5 child into a school within easy walking distance: many walk to and from school by themselves by Yr 5.

Good luck!

Only classed as sibling place after one has been admitted tbh.

hi LIZS, this authority (a London one) runs in-year admissions on a four-weekly cycle so there's an application cut-off date and an allocation date each month. I suppose if you apply after that, you just go into the next month's round of allocations.

OK. Most areas it's a case of is there a space or not. If yes great, if not go on the waiting list or find somewhere else. Often just by calling up the schools themselves.
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However, if you're saying your LEA has a rolling admissions process where you indicate 3 school choices and they then allocate schools based on spaces and admissions criteria, then your children will be assessed individually. Your choices for each child will be assessed eg is there a place? Does anyone else want that space? Who is further up the admissions criteria? Etc etc Then your children will be offered places which may be in different schools depending on the above. If only one gets into a school then you can reapply for the other child next month with better chances due to there being a sibling link (assuming that all had sibling priority as an admissions criteria)

Unfortunately, they are considered individually. We were in a similar situation and were told a place couldn't be guaranteed without evidence of a rental agreement or mortgage but obviously we didn't want to take on these commitments without a school place. In the end we moved to a slightly different area that had a rural school policy. Ie they would take children even if they were over subscribed.

I think before you assume that there is a sibling link that you need to check for each of the schools that you are talking about. Whilst there is a pan-London admission process, the actual admission criteria can change from school to school, especially in academies.
Many schools do have some kind of sibling admission criteria but for instance Tower Hamlets has admission criteria that allow priority for siblings living in catchment but give a much lower level of priority for siblings living out of catchment of the school., which could well be the case where you are just looking for where there are available places.

I’d call the schools directly as in my experience the list provided by the local authority is unlikely to be up to date

Thank you everyone, I will definitely investigate sibling priority criteria and contact some schools directly too.

As a complicating factor, my oldest dc (year 5) has ASD, but diagnosed since we've been overseas so he doesn't have an EHCP or anything that could be used in an application on those grounds. But it does mean I'm keen not to move him around too much.