School place application process (England) after home ed

[DobbinReturns]

We had huge issues with our local school due to a rather fraught situation with DS3 who has SEND and an EHCP. The LA accepted that the relationship between home and school had broken down and named a different school. We named wanted an independent special and recently won at tribunal. DS3 is due to start after half term. The LA were supposed to be providing tuition for DS3 but it didn't actually happen. This is just backstory to try and explain. There was also a horrible report submitted by the LA EP where the head allegedly said things about us which were not true, and we were able to prove it.

Because of the situation with the school and not knowing where DS3 might end up placed at, we decided to de-registered DS4 and electively home educate. He is Yr1. There really is no way back with the local school.

Most of the schools in the area are over sub-subscribed and the only school likely to have space is the old school. I'm going to apply anyway and it allows 4 preferences, my concern is they will allocate the old school again even if I explain why he is not going to go back there. Will anyone actually look at the application or will it just be a case of us being assigned the nearest school, regardless of us saying anywhere but? If they do offer the old school, will that school be informed we've been offered a space?

If another school has spaces then you should be fine. If there is a space they have to give it to you regardless of how far away you are. You probably need to try and find out which schools have spaces, as if the four you apply to are full, they may default to your old one.

If all the other schools are full, I would think they are likely to offer you the old school and you would probably have to either appeal (tricky with infant class size regs) or stay on waiting lists.

Good luck

They will go down the list of 4 that you have given them, and if there are spaces, you will get one.
But if they are all full, they will allocate you the closest school with spaces.

If that school is the one you don't want, then you need to ask to go on to the waiting list for one of the other schools. You can ask to go to appeal for one of the other schools, but you can't quote the school you don't want in the appeal.
It sounds as if you might need some expert advice.

This could get quite complicated. You need to apply for places at the schools that you want and see what reaction you get. If by chance there is a space in yr1 then you will be offered the place. If however all the schools you apply for are full then there are three parallel options. Firstly the LA will attempt to offer you a place at the nearest school with places, which you expect to be the school which you cannot accept because of previous history. Secondly you can appeal for a place at any school that has turned you down. However most schools will be covered by the infant class size regulations, which will make winning a case difficult and relying on a panel accepting that you cannot go back to the school that you were in originally.
The other option is the fair access protocol which is a statutory requirement in every LA. It is meant as a means of getting pupils without a school place back into education quickly. The rules around being able to access the fair access protocol can differ from LA to LA. However in my LA, anybody wanting to move from elective home education back to a school would be covered providing you have been in elective home education for more then 2 months. The idea is that a committee agree what is the most appropriate school for you to attend, which does not have to be any of the schools that you have named, it is about spreading such pupils who have been outside education across all schools in the area.
The difficulty you may well encounter and certainly would in my LA is that they take as a expectation that the pupil will return form elective home education to the school that they were last at, which is exactly what you do not want.
In theory schools that reject offering you a place, knowing you are elective home education should automatically refer you to the fair access protocol but that does not always happen. However you first route has got to be apply for places, be rejected and go to appeal.

Thank you both

Their old school is the one that mops up the shortage of spaces at the other schools, in January there were 2 minibus coming from the next nearest town. A lot of development and more due to be complete, means we'd be very unlikely to get a space, but we might as well get on some waiting lists.

Would the old school know we'd been offered it, or is it something that wouldn't trigger until we'd accepted?

In our old EA you’d do best by phoning round the schools first to see which have places. I don’t know if that’s the case for everywhere.

Ah x-post with @admission

Do you think the LA stating that my DS3 needed a change of school because of the breakdown in relationship between home and school, would make any difference to this situation?

I've not applied yet as I wanted to get DS3 settled. His school is nearly 50 miles away(!) And he'll start off part time so I'll have to pick him up until his full-time. Hoping that's only a week but he's not been in school since March and it's rather a big change.

I only de-registered first day of term in September

If there's space you'll get one, if none of your listed schools have space then they will allocate the nearest one with space or you can ask to be on the waiting list

I held on for my chosen school and told the council I would home educate until then, we got a place a few weeks later.

you can ask to go on th ewaiting list for one of the schools you want and continue to home school until a place comes up. The place may not come up for a year though.
And if someone else moves into the area and goes on the waiting list, and they live closer to the school, then they will go above you on the waiting list

I think your best bet is to apply for the school's you would be happy with and then go through the appeals process if they are full. The appeals panel are the only ones able to add additional kids into a full class. I'm not sure whether they can put you top of the waiting list if they decide not to do this. But they will take all the evidence into account and weigh it up.

@ToelessPobble

I think your best bet is to apply for the school's you would be happy with and then go through the appeals process if they are full. The appeals panel are the only ones able to add additional kids into a full class. I'm not sure whether they can put you top of the waiting list if they decide not to do this. But they will take all the evidence into account and weigh it up.

appeals and waiting list are not connected. You can be on the waiting list and not appeal. Not true about the appeal panel, a school can, at their discretion, take an extra child into a class to go over 30. The LEA can also impose a child (not via appeal). This actually happened for our son, dd accepted into a class, ds class were full. I said I would go on waiting list and home ed. Head took him in to make class 31 kids.

BUT and this is the issue for the OP: the school, LEA and appeal panel really have their hands tied when it comes to Key Stage 1 classes as their is a legal cap on class size. An appeal panel will only break that in very exceptional cases, usually when the LEA has broken the law in some way over admissions

Another point for you OP. The LA is legally required to find you a place, but if you then turn down that place (eg because it is at the school you don't like) they are then not legally obliged to do anything else, so it would be then for you to eg home ed until the place you wanted came up.

Thanks all.
I've rang around and all confirmed full and to apply via LA.

I guess the sticking point is that it's much deeper than just not liking it. The LA acknowledged the breakdown in the relationship between home and school in DS3's appeal and named a different mainstream. I've got evidence to back up what the school did and dispute the outright lies that have been attributed to the head.

But that won't be helpful for DS4 so I just feel really guilty about it all. The Home Ed team said they were getting a lot of de-registering due to Covid so we might get lucky I suppose.

yes I do understand that it is more than a preference.

And regardless of spaces, you always have to apply through LA.

I wonder if the LA would consider taking that into account when allocating a school. If they will, then they have to find you a place somewhere else.
Might be worth calling them.

How far from other LAs are you? You can try for schools in a different area too.

They might find a place somewhere else but not at a school making the class size over 30. It could be some distance away.

I thought I'd update

I applied for 4 schools, no spaces at any and the LA won't try and find a space elsewhere, because of the local school having spaces.

They are sending a letter but their advice is to either appeal or stay on waiting lists. They can't tell me what schools (if any) have spaces so I would just have to keep doing application of 4 at a time and go through the process again.

It was what I expected to happen but I do feel really shit about DS4.

It seems odd that they won’t tell you which schools have places - but the schools themselves should know if they have spaces, if you contact them individually.

That isn't just odd. It is a breach of the Admissions Code. The requirement is in the appendix so easy to miss, but LAs must provide information about schools with places available on request.

The LA person was adamant that they only found out about school spaces when they did the individual applications?

If I could have that information then it would make life a lot easier as there's no chance of winning an appeal as he's Yr1.

Will the LA definitely know this is a requirement? having been through an EHCP tribunal I have not found them to operate transparently. Or at times, lawfully.

This is something a lot of LAs and schools get wrong. They should know it is a requirement. The Admissions Code is clear. But I've come across some very senior people in LA admissions teams who don't know the Code and I've been involved in a number of appeals where the LA has clearly broken the Code.

@DobbinReturns

For local authority schools they will know where spaces are but for academies they won't know until they feed the admission through. As there's places available (just you don't feel it's suitable due to the past relationship) they are at no obligation to do anything. You can go on lots of waiting lists or look out of area

For local authority schools they will know where spaces are but for academies they won't know until they feed the admission through

For this reason, academies and other schools that are their own admission authority are required to notify the LA of any applications they receive and the outcome of the application so that the LA has up to date information on the availability of places. That does not, of course, mean that all schools comply with this requirement. However, it would be much better for parents if schools kept the LA informed so that the LA could tell parents which schools had places available.

Nearly all schools in this area are academy schools but the LA is the admitting authority as far as I can see. So does that mean the LA would definitely have the information?

It's really not about feeling the school isn't suitable, the LA agreed my other son needed a change of placement due to the breakdown in home school relationship, and I have evidence of lies told by the school which were presented to the tribunal. Fortunately I was able to provide evidence to refute it. I don't see how the LA can say it doesn't have an impact on DS4. Schools don't seem to operate waiting lists as such either.

Try not to worry about the other school finding out etc etc
I know how you feel as I had a similar relationship when my dd eventually moved to a specialist school.

Just reapply for the ones you want, put ds on all the waiting lists and refuse any offers that you don't want ie old school.