Applying for a primary school place

[SallyCinnamon2009]

My son is due to start primary school this September. He turns 5 in October. We never received a letter inviting us to apply for a school place, so we missed the deadline. We have sent our application in now but the local council (Leeds City Council) are saying we will just be allocated a school and have to go on the waiting list for the schools of our choice.
They have admitted we were not sent a letter as they did not have our son on the census, yet they billed us for his nursery fees in September 2020 and the letters for school went out in October 2020. Can anyone suggest anything else we can do? We have pointed all our concerns out and asked them to reconsider our applications and give us a fair chance of applying.

Thank you

We moved council areas four times before DD1 started school. And again before DD2 started school. We did apply for a school place for DD1 in the third place we lived, but gave it up in the July as we knew we were moving in the August... No forwarding information needed. Moved again since then, and prepping to move now.
We actually did school applications in the new areas before registering with GPs.
They may know roughly how many children live in an area, but not exactly who they are.

@NinePremium

We weren’t sent a letter by the council and it was never mentioned by our nursery either. I thought everyone just knew the dates? Don’t you have friends with the same age children? Honestly, it’s all we talked about for months before the January deadline.

Personally, I don't have friends (yet) with children the same age, new area for us too (my Dd's are 2&3) - since covid the parents at Dds nursery haven't been able to mix/ talk at the gates either, clubs & groups closed for Dd2 also, so no opportunity to make any either or have those discussions.

Dd1 also attends a private nursery, not school attached- so chances are there won't be alot who she's currently at nursery with starting the same school. I would have loved the opportunity to discuss school choices with other mums in the area, the immediate 3 schools currently fall under 'inadequate' on ofsted.....also her age (slightly premium, late August born) and pros/cons of her starting young....

There's always MN thankfully, but socialising has been non existent recently, obviously.

It would be quite time consuming and difficult to get an up to date list. Not everyone registers with a local GP, people often don't tell their GP they have moved because they don't want to change practises, there are data sharing regulations etc. There are a number of families moving regularly (including between countries), living in inappropriate housing e.g. illegally subletting so won't tell anyone their address, not enough English to read letters/fill in forms. These families will be hardest to keep track of and arguably may need a letter most. If the LA makes it their job to inform people individually, they set themselves up to fail and can then presumably be held accountable.

Also, legally you don't have to be receiving an education until the term after your 5th birthday, so none of the children in Reception (other than those deferred) have to start in September. (And of course you can homeschool if you choose). So even if the LA wanted to (and was able to) chase non-applicants, there would be questions about when to do so.

Families properly registered with GPs etc will receive letters from health visitors etc. Plenty of families won't be receiving these due to reasons similar to above. This can (and does sometimes) become a safeguarding concern. I am not saying any if this is good BTW, I see the fall out at work sometimes, but it is the current reality, although clearly other countries work it differently so I guess it is possible.

The frustration this year is that many of the informal communication channels have been impacted. People aren't driving past schools with open day banners up and chatting with parents at nursery. It's frustrating for parents who have missed the deadline, and OP I hope things work out for you. Fingers crossed that even if you don't get the place you want straight away the waiting list moves.

We didn't get a letter, we knew that our kids were coming up for school age and checked the website in the September after they turned 3 to see the rules - I was overseas at the time so no posters etc to remind me

@NinePremium I'm assuming that was for me, there appears to be two of us Frazzled on here...

It's great that your so well locally connected via Social Media & your friends group having children of the same age....I'm not on WhatsApp or FB (through choice) and was hoping to make connections irl attending groups, classes etc, chatting with parents at nursery, getting to know people in the (new) area....unfortunately not to be right now.

@BendingSpoons explained the challenges collating lists and reasons very clearly (thank you, lots of info there that helped!).

As I mentioned, there are many reasons people make late applications- by stating nearly everyone manages to on time (that you know of) there's a considerable amount that don't, especially right now (many reasons for that also explained well by @BendingSpoons).

Good luck with your application OP, I hope you get your school of choice!

I remember at a secondary school open day the headteacher said that she believed that there were x children of the right age living in catchment - this was based on GP's records. But she then went on to caveat it with "people aren't registered at a GP", "people are registered in a GP with wrong address", "people have moved house" and the numbers were generally not that accurate.

(The point of her talk was to show that there were more children living in catchment than there were places, so to realise that if you lived out of catchment that it needed a fair number of catchment children to actively choose other schools if you were to get a place).

I think I only really knew the process because at some point after having a baby I started thinking about what school they would go to, what age they would be when the start school etc and just googled stuff.

I put some reminders in my electronic calendars for the deadline date for DC2 as soon as I’d made the application for DC1 as I thought there was a very real chance of forgetting!

Good luck OP!

We're in the middle of a pandemic. People are actively staying away from places that have these reminders up - nurseries, GP surgeries, community centres. OP is by no means alone in missing the deadline this year due to misconceptions about the system and the likely key dates. Good on you for those who are more clued up, but smugness about this is unhelpful. OP, I hope you get the best school for your DC.

Yes, we are in a pandemic and I hope that people aren't gloating. But you''ll understand that there might be some puzzlement (speaking generally) when members of MN say they don't know how to find information online. In this instance, we've given OP some advice on what she could say to the LEA, to persuade them to treat her application as on time.

My LA required proof that my child had a place at a private school when I turned down our place.

@Zodlebud

My LA required proof that my child had a place at a private school when I turned down our place.

That's not really the same situation as the OP though? To turn down the place, you must have first applied for a place, so the LEA was aware that your child existed.