Yr3 school place/waiting lists

[ArianaDumbledore]

DS4 is currently home educated, however I'm thinking about applying for a school place for September when he will be Yr3.
The only 2 schools I would consider are full and I would have no compelling grounds to appeal, so I would prefer to carry on EHE and see if a place ever comes up. But I am a bit confused if this is a possibility, it seems they don't have to keep waiting lists unless I've misunderstood? One is an LA community primary, the other is a CofE VA.

The reason for appealing for a place for September start in year 3 would be the fact that you are home educating and that you now feel the time is right to move to a school situation.
You need to apply for a school place at each of the schools at the end of June / start of July which gives you sufficient time to apply, be rejected as the school is considered full and then appeal for a place Both school will normally be operating their own admissions for "in-year" applications. There is no issues with applying for a place, it is in your interest to apply in fact.
Some schools do operate waiting lists or expressions of interest but they do not need to, so you need to ask the school for exactly how they operate.

Thank you, that's very helpful. The reason I say we have no valid reason is there's a closer school that probably had space which he attended reception for. We had a hugely hostile EHCP tribunal for DS3 which resulted in a complete breakdown between school and us. We will the tribunal but the school had been obstructive and untruthful in their accounts. Fortunately we has evidence to refute it but there really was no way back.

We did move DS4 to a different school only for the head of the old primary to move to it -they're in the same MAT. She failed to get the permanent job at the old school but was given the head of school position at the new one. So we deregistered and have been EHE.

Obviously I'm aware that explaining all that will not be helpful to us, particularly as the headteacher we had the problems with is active and well-regarded in the local community.

So there's just no way I can stand in front of an appeal panel.

Given that there is no limit on class sizes in year 3 are the schools definitely full? In my area schools that can’t take children in year 2 because of infant class size limit tell the parents to come back in year 3

If I were you I'd try and find other schools that aren't your preferred one but would be ok and might have space to pad out your list. You'll get offered any of them if there's space, before the one you don't want. But if you don't accept an offer I'm not sure they'll keep you on any waiting lists as they've done their bit by finding you somewhere. I could be wrong about that though

There has been a lot of housing development and it's still ongoing, but because our local school is historically very under-subscribed, no increases have been made to those 2 primary schools. So higher priority children are bussed to our local school which has caused a lot of upset.

Realistically, I know a place in very unlikely to come up, but obviously no chance if I don't apply at all, which is why I'd just like to hang around on waiting lists.

In that case I think you'll need to accept a place somewhere and then sit on the waiting lists for your preferred school. Like I said I'm not sure if they will let you sit on waiting lists if you reject the place they offer you

You can apply, if full they'll allocate a different school. Turn that down and get on the waiting list for the school you want. You can continue home educating meanwhile