Admissions

[3peassuit]

Can anyone help with an admissions query please. My daughter is a wheelchair user and is looking at primaries for her child to start in 2022. Would her need to have a place at a school with a car park close to the school be taken into account for an out of area school. The local school is lovely but very limited parking which is quite far from the main body of the school.

This is difficult to answer. All school admissions are dictated by the admission criteria for the school. In most cases this will not have any relevance to the need for easy wheel chair access. The only admission criteria that may help is if there is an admission criteria which is around medical and social reasons. If there is you also need to check who that applies to. In some cases it is only the pupil, in other schools it also applies to parents.
Sorry that is not that helpful for you. I think your daughter needs to be thinking in terms of how can she deliver her child to a school, which causes the least issues for her. So for instance would the school allow her to use the staff carpark and for the school to pick up the child from the car park rather than your daughter taking the child to the school.

Does she have an ehcp? If so she would get her first choice school. If not she would go into the admissions in the same way as everyone else.

@stardust40

Does she have an ehcp? If so she would get her first choice school. If not she would go into the admissions in the same way as everyone else.

I think it’s the mother of the child who is in a wheelchair, not the child.

Generally, social or medical reasons apply to the child, not the parent, and need to be backed up by evidence from eg a medical practitioner or social worker. Worth a try though?

Are you concerned about physically accessing the school or getting a place at the school?

We have school parking some distance from school. We have a child who uses a wheelchair. They have permission to park in the bus bay right outside school. Nobody else does. Could the school arrange for something similar?

On getting a place, I agree it's down to paperwork.

I think it’s the mother of the child who is in a wheelchair, not the child.

My apologies, I havd just re-read it. That might be harder to sort. I would hope that most schools will help. Unless that's naive.

One of the DC in my youngest's class got in due to the mums mobility issues. They were out of catchment for our school, but the closer school wasn't as wheelchair friendly. Her GP wrote a supporting letter which they included in the application.

You can supply supplementary evidence with the online application under the medical/social criteria. A letter from the GP will be enough. For example I deal with Reception admissions and I've had a few of these come through this year - one from a parent who has fibromyalgia and needs to come to our school as she can't walk very far. We are consulted to see if we can meet need. I said yes we can and so if we are oversubscribed they will get a place after any EHCP or LAC children.

It does depend on the admissions criteria for the school though, ours are general standard LA ones but academies can do things differently.

Thanks for the replies. There is a brand new school that’s just opened, has parking and is all on one level. It’s just out of area and DD is hoping that they’ll take DGD. Other than that, it would have to be the very small but accessible local prep and hope that an out of year place in the new primary will eventually become available.

It's very unusual to find a primary to have parking apart from school staff, I think she needs to speak to the school. Otherwise a transport plan will be put in place to get her to school.

As already mentioned, her success will come down to whether the school has a criteria for exceptional medical/social need that includes the parent, and then whether they accept her application under that. She would need to provide evidence as to why this is the only school that could meet her needs.

Not all schools have such a criteria, and even if they do, it may not apply to the parent. It should be clear from the admissions policy if it does; for example, Surrey maintained schools have this as a criteria for exceptional medical/social need -

"Occasionally there will be a very small number of children for whom exceptional social or medical circumstances apply which will warrant a placement at a particular school. The exceptional social or medical circumstances might relate to either the child or the parent/carer. Supporting evidence from a professional is required such as a doctor and/or consultant for medical cases or a social worker, health visitor, housing officer, the police or probation officer for other social circumstances. This evidence must confirm the circumstances of the case and must set out why the child should attend a particular school and why no other school could meet the child’s needs"

As others have indicated, without knowing the specific school involved it is impossible to answer. Whilst many schools do have a category for social/medical needs, it is relatively rare for them to consider the parents' needs. Even if they do, there is no guarantee that they would consider your daughter's needs sufficient to justify giving priority to your grandchild.

If you check the admission criteria for the school in question you will be able to see if they give priority based on a parent's medical needs.

To be honest, your daughter would be far better advised to send her daughter to a local school. In a few years she would be able to walk to it. Otherwise you are talking of 7 years of car journeys and no local friends. I wouldn’t choose a school based n my needs over my child’s needs. If she stays local, another parent or two would help. Has she no local friends from nursery for example?

At our local primary school there is limited parking for parents and some inconsiderate parents use the parking spaces reserved for those with a disability however the school has made it clear to the parents with a blue badge that they are able to use the staff car park if there are no suitable places to park.

The school also makes accommodations when there are events at the school with reserved seating, etc

I would speak to the local primary first to see how they would make the necessary accommodations.

It is very unusual for parents circumstances to be taken into consideration for school place.

Does the school have a disabled parking space?
Is it worth asking the school about that?

I would alos point out that atmy kids primary, which was only one class entry, I think there were 3 parents in my dds class alone who had severe mobility issues, one a wheelchair user.

That may be a lot, but I saw plenty of other parents in the playground.

So it is hard for a school to accommodate everyone.

PresentingPercy DD is in rural area, the local school is too far to walk and is not served by a bus route. Asking friends to help out occasionally is fine but not fair to do so everyday.

Just about all council run primary schools have really bad parking.

I've never heard of a school taking a parents disability into account with admissions though, just the prospective pupils.

It definitely can and does happen if the admission criteria allows it. The key issue is to check and if you can apply under that admission criteria start the conversation with the LA as soon as is possible, so that it is all agreed that you can be considered and will be accepted under this admission criteria well before the cut off point for on-time admissions

If the school is specifically suitable because they are single storey (and others aren't) then parking might be arranged. If you choose an out of area school they may not be sympathetic. As your dd uses a wheelchair, having to park a few hundred metres away isn't an issue in the same way as for instance a child who uses crutches.

They may be very understanding but not always, took me a year to get permission (not wheelchair, other reasons)

Thanks all. DD is going to talk to the LA and the preferred school to see what the chances are. She’s looking into it early so finances can be arranged to cover fees should it come to that.