Should we move before school admission date, or wait?

[HowToMum]

Wise ladies in my phone, I need some school advice.

My oldest is due to start primary school next September, which means we need to have applied for a place by mid January.

The problem is we have very much outgrown our house! We had always planned to move or extend this year, but unfortunately I lost my job at the beginning of lockdown. I’ve been lucky enough to have a new one starting next week but, when we actually start having to go back to the office, that’s in another city about 40 minutes commute away. Whilst all this has been going on, my husband has fortunately stayed working but another branch of his company has been trying to poach him - it’s not more money, but the role is just better suited to him and has a training element which would really help us in the long term. That would be on the same city as I now work in.

Ideally, we would then want to sell up and move closer to where our jobs actually are, renting until we can hopefully buy again later next year. We don’t have ties or family locally so not much pull to stay where we are.

The problem is we may not have that arranged for another 2 months. I know houses are selling fast at the moment but I’m worried about missing the schools deadline and not getting a school we are happy with in all the rush to sell, rent, find childcare for the baby oh and actually move... It just feels a huge task before January!

I know right now this is one of the better problems to have but does anyone have any experience of trying to move last minute ahead of the schools admissions deadline, or would we be best waiting a year and trying to move schools next summer? How easy is that to do? How have your kids adjusted when you’ve needed to move?

I would try to move before your children start reception if at all possible. Check you LA guidelines - some have a later date for changing address (I think ours is mid-Feb). Or you will be quite high up the waiting list if you move before offer date

Otherwise you are reliant on school place being available for year 1 which is a lot less likely for the school you want plus the disruption of moving schools

I would try to move or rent before the deadline.

It would be much preferable to move before 31st January 2021, which would allow you to indicate your preferences for schools local to where you rent. As TingTastic says many LAs allow some leeway for parents moving into an LA, so that is worth checking out.
If you leave it till next year then you will not have the choice of school that you will have if you apply before 31st Jan, many schools will be full and most appeals will be an infant class size case which are near impossible to win for someone moving into an area.
The other thing you need to be careful about is that you are selling a home to then rent in another area. Many LAs will immediately wonder whether you are renting solely to get into your school of choice, which then could lead to the application not being accepted. You firstly need to be totally removed from you current home, all signed and sealed before the 31st January and secondly it would be preferable if you took a 12 months plus rental, which will give the LA more comfort that this is a genuine move.

@admission

It would be much preferable to move before 31st January 2021, which would allow you to indicate your preferences for schools local to where you rent. As TingTastic says many LAs allow some leeway for parents moving into an LA, so that is worth checking out. If you leave it till next year then you will not have the choice of school that you will have if you apply before 31st Jan, many schools will be full and most appeals will be an infant class size case which are near impossible to win for someone moving into an area. The other thing you need to be careful about is that you are selling a home to then rent in another area. Many LAs will immediately wonder whether you are renting solely to get into your school of choice, which then could lead to the application not being accepted. You firstly need to be totally removed from you current home, all signed and sealed before the 31st January and secondly it would be preferable if you took a 12 months plus rental, which will give the LA more comfort that this is a genuine move.

@admission surely this would only be the case if the new house was pretty close to the existing one. I wouldn’t have thought this would be a concern if the new house is 40min away?

I agree you should move sooner rather than later. Even if you miss the deadline you can get on waiting lists and you will jump up them when you move into the area. There is likely to be more movement between April to Sept prior to starting than once everyone is in school.

Also doing in year admissions due to moving house can result in you not getting a local school for a while, so you could be in a position where your son is either out of school or you are commuting back to near your old house. If you move before he is due to start school then hopefully it will be sorted and he will have a place to start on time.

TingTastic,
I agree with you that if the new rented accommodation is 40 minutes away that in theory it should not be an issue but some LAs are pretty paranoid about rented accommodation near to a school. In my local LA there is a row of terraced houses right by the "desired" school all of which are red flagged on the LA system. They are frequently being rented out to people who are trying to get into the desired school and every application using these addresses will be investigated no matter the circumstances.