School admissions & coronavirus

[NYnachos]

Will these be delayed? I haven't a clue how places are allocated (I imagine a big computer program...) but I'm guessing that if departments grind to a halt we can kiss goodbye to the mid April decision date.

Anyone have any insight?

I'll start by saying I don't know the answer and may be wrong in this.
But I work for a local authority, we all have laptops and (where not customer facing) partial WFH has been the norm for about 18mths. The people that process this will now be fully wfh but have the equipment/systems necessary to carry out their job without much disruption. I don't know if this is the same for all local authorities, but for his particular one I'd say there's a good chance of school place allocations going ahead. Again this is based on my (slightly informed) opinion and could be way off the mark.

I do know something about it and it should be fine.
I don't know what they'll do about appeals though.

Definitely the majority of the computer work has been done by now, so unless somebody nationally decides otherwise I would expect the places to be announced as per the schedule.
There is bound to be more disruption in the aftermath of the initial allocations and what happens about admission appeals is going to be an interesting problem when many secondary schools will have 50+ parents appealing for places. Need to wait and see on that I would suggest.

Agree that decisions about initial offers will likely have been made. Our school is its own admissions authority and I gave our rankings list the once-over a few weeks ago.
Appeals I wouldn't like to speculate about.

I'm keen to see what will happen about acceptance of places and provision of address evidence. Generally (in my LA at least) this is all done in person in the three weeks after offer day (which we've been told will go ahead as per the timetable). I think there could be issues with fraudulent applications going unchallenged (because it won't be possible to interrogate address evidence properly) and a risk of places being wrongly released for reallocation by schools to the LA because parents miss aceeptance deadlines through illness or try to accept by phone or post when schools are closed. Also, parents are going to seriously miss the large amount of hand-holding they usually get from school staff and LA helplines. Plus I think there might be a rush of late attempts to defer entry for summer-borns, by parents who are worried that their children won't be ready because they've missed a term of nursery. Finally, I think there will be a lot of anxiety in September from both parents and children who have grown used to being at home with just their family for months. In short, I think it might all be a bit of a mess...

In my la the system was ready for offer day. I assume they are continuing to work from home. I can access the school-facing side of it from home.

I'm an admissions manager. We have just about finalised our offers and will exchange with other authorities next week. We then will sort out those offers and then do something called resolving which will reallocate any places freed up by offers from other LAs. We are all working from home and doing what we need to do.

We have been told that appeals for In Year are cancelled until the start of April and a plan is being developed after that for transition. A lot of our panel members are over 70 which means they are self isolating already. I think some emergency legislation may be needed to deal with transition appeals being delayed but not sure how or what they will look like.

Does either of you know what will happen about place acceptance though? The message we're getting from our LA rather implies 'we've done everything we need to do, so we're now working at home (so we can't answer your calls) and we look forward to receiving your acceptance numbers in a month's time', without giving much thought to how the bit in the middle is supposed to work.

School office here.... LA have already told us we cannot deviate from the timeline of the process. They haven't given guidance on ID yet... I would expect we will have to accept photo's sent by email and then await originals.

I agree, the system is already flawed with regards fraudulent applications and this year is going to be really hard to prove.

We haven’t heard anything yet and were told it would be this week. No info on LA homepage.

I wouldn't like to guarantee they'll start in September either, so I wouldn't get too worried about it.

Although LA officers are working from home they can still connect to the phone system and are logged in to the computer system. I was talking to an LA officer on the phone today and we were both working from our respective homes. Parents will still be able to accept online or over the phone and will be able to send proof of address, if required, by email.

My LA is going to attempt virtual appeals. I am a panel member, and received an email yesterday for some kind of trial run through next week to see if it is feasible.

Mine too - I work for a MAT but use the LA appeals panel. Single appeals should be fine but I'm not sure how successful group appeals hearing Part 1 will be.

I can just imagine the chaos that there will be if you have 50 appeals and therefore 50 parents all trying to get their point of view across.The Chair of the Panel is going to have their work cut out keeping order.
Think I need to be practising my stern voice.

Ha yes admission, me too, and my Paddington Bear stare!

I have completely lost track. When are we supposed to hear about reception places?

I think it is April 16th.

All our evidence (proof of address etc) was submitted online so it's feasible. A bit antiquated if you're still expected to do it in person to be honest. We're in a London Borough.

Interesting Nanoocov, do you submit it to the LA as part of the application process then? Here it all needs to be given direct to the schools once the offers come out. I would much rather the LA checked it, TBH - would save us a big job, and would be fairer (not reliant on different schools to enforce the same standards).

Oh, and with some things like birth certificates, the LA insists on original documents - scans and photocopies not acceptable - so can only be provided in person.

Thanks eddiemairswife. I might even welcome the frisson of excitement this year .

Our LA website has now been updated. It says to wait 16 Working days to hear something but that is later than the last date for appeals so I’m a bit worried now

I am almost certainly going to change plans and defer my mid August born daughter to starting Reception next September so she can repeat the nursery school year. Our LA has a blanket acceptance policy for summer born deferrals. I wonder if loads of other people will do the same?

What happens if admissions are decided by the governing body of the school?
For the school we put as our first choice the governing body are responsible for decisions on admissions. The school is closed. Will we still find out on the 16th?