Nursery/pre-school attached to a school asking if I’ve applied to reception?

[FreshCop]

Just that.

Was picking up my daughter from preschool today which is attached to a primary school and her teacher had a list asking have I applied for schools yet for reception, where did I apply for, and did I put this school first?

I asked why and she goes so she can go back and tell the office… but I thought schools don’t even get the applications nor can they see them it goes to the LA and they make the decision?

So why are they asking.

I just said yes I did put ours down (obviously they can’t see what order I put down?) and where else I placed in my preferences but she even asked what I thought of other schools I visited?

Thought it was a bit odd considering they say preschool attendance has no influence if you will get into reception or not. Seems like a bit of a heads up...

Are they able to somehow swing things so they get the pupils they prefer?

The offers for Reception school places are made in mid-April.
That’s about 3 months before the end of the school year, so there’s plenty of time for the school to have settling in sessions after that date.

Our school do this, it’s to remind parents to apply for reception, also our preschool has 55 kids but the reception pan is only 35, some do go to another local primary because they don’t have a preschool but the vast majority apply for our school, inevitably some kids don’t get a place but school like to keep track of who applied where to plan for the next year.
Last year they had 68 1st choice applications for 35 spaces and no one got a place on appeal.

Our preschool asked and reminded me applications several times in the applications window. Every year they have parents who assume there's some automatic right to a reception place if they attend the preschool, or who forget to actually apply etc.

Our preschool also begin transition activities prior to places being confirmed and they can have a good idea of who is a dead cert for a place and those who may be disappointed etc. If children have particular needs or issues then an early plan in place benefits everyone. Our school varies classes dependent on numbers each year (mixed year groups) and asking preschool parents is a good place to start getting an indication of the likely popularity of places.

If you aren't applying, for specific reasons, then that is also useful feedback for them. Several schools near us have instigated more clubs, wrap around care and different parking schemes in response to parental feedback in this way.

Our preschool also begin transition activities prior to places being confirmed and they can have a good idea of who is a dead cert for a place and those who may be disappointed etc. If children have particular needs or issues then an early plan in place benefits everyone.

Yeah I see this definitely makes sense and if you were to keep them in the same school it would be a really good way to get them used to what's to come.

I however haven't put her current preschool as her first choice for reception. Let's see what happens.

Schools just like to check that parents carers have applied for a school. Every year there is someone who fails to apply despite various reminders. Then it is always the fault of the school and not the parents who forgot to apply.

This! My son was born august 2019 too.

I'm really surprised they're allowed to do that. One of the reasons it isn't a general rule is that it's discriminatory towards working parents. School pupils can access before and after school clubs making it workable for working parents, but nursery pupils cannot so school nurseries often don't work well for working families. I'm surprised that a school/academy is allowing families to be disadvantaged because of that.

A few schools in our area have agreements with council and prioritise reception places for children that have attended the nursery (on the point above nursery children can access breakfast and after school club in the same way that the rest of the school do) so they always check who has applied. A week before the cut off for applications they get a list of who has applied so they can again check no one has forgotten/confirm they have applied elsewhere.

The joys of the academy system that we are all allowing to happen.

The joys of the academy system that we are all allowing to happen.

@AdelineLou - I can only hope that the White Paper gets pushed back. Many of the schools whose governing body meetings I sit on are just sitting on the current "guidance" in the hope it changes. Many of them have no desire to become academies at all.

They might be starting to think about planning transition? Our school begins visits from nursery to the main school in January which is months before places are confirmed. If you've not applied to the school there's not much point in involving your child in those visits?

Children at a pre school nursery can attend breakfast clubs and after school clubs.
The main reason school check if you have made a school application is despite putting details in school newsletters, posters and texts, parents still don’t do it. Their application is then classed as late. It will not be considered until allocations are made. This causes a lot of stress for parents and extra work for school administration. We’ve had parents in crying and screaming at us over this. Just make your application on time.

Our private nursery asked us on the last day before Christmas if we had applied for primary school yet for our twins - we haven’t, and we aren’t, not this year anyway, as we’re exercising our rights to send them at CSA in 2024 and see no point in applying this year when we know we’ve no intention of accepting any places offered (and could lead to another 2 families being turned away from their first choice school!)

There are apparently well over 1000 children in our county whose parents hadn’t applied for places when the council released their weekly update on council matters a couple of weeks ago so I reckon they’ve asked all nurseries and pre-schools to chase parents

Every year there is some numpty that doesn't read the reminders and doesn't apply for a place despite the warnings that being in pre school usually doesn't mean anything for getting a reception place.

Probably just a reminder to all parents that you do still need to apply and making a list of everyone they have spoken to to be sure.

Don't you have to apply in the correct year and then defer?

At our school nursery children can & do access all the wrap round care. They can attend 7.45-6 if they want and a lot cheaper than private nurseries.
Our staff do ask parents as reminders and often just out of interest

Yes they can. It’s called continuity of care.

Or a child’s well being. Continuity of progression, eg child has social issues but made good friends in nursery who are all going into reception etc

in both my children’s primary schools all the children from nursery went into reception even those that lived 5-6 miles away (outstanding schools in both cases). Both times the schools were over subscribed. I think it was: looked after / EHCP and then sibling, then distance and continuity of care or special reasons

That might be possible if the schools an academy and can set its own oversubscription criteria, but “Continuity of care” is not part of the standard oversubscription criteria in my LA.

Never heard of continuity of care. Standard is that nursery attendance doesn't count. Rare that it does

A week before the cut off for applications they get a list of who has applied so they can again check no one has forgotten/confirm they have applied elsewhere.

I feel kind of awkward and guilty to admit now that I haven’t put the school 1st place and honestly don’t feel like telling them?

Won’t it just make it a little weird? I’ve chosen to put my daughter into a school that just has a lot more going for it. This school has been wonderful for nursery though.

There is not anything confirming I’ve got her into the 1st choice school anyways so I don’t see why I have to discuss it at this point.

April is a different matter I guess.

No, for our county it’s merely ‘recommended’ that you apply for the ‘correct’ year just in case you decide to change your mind between now and September. However, as our twins were premature and should have been born in the October (meaning they’d have been enrolled in 2024), there has never been a consideration that we would apply for school places when they have barely turned 4 (late august birthday) so unlikely we would have changed our minds!!

I did contact the education department at the council to confirm that it was not a compulsory part of the process to apply for this year and they confirmed it wasn’t - and that we just needed to understand that, when we do apply at CSA, we need to request paper forms from the admissions team as the online form would automatically reject any applications on DoB plus we would need to seek the agreement of any schools we plan to nominate - which we have also done for the 1 school we will be applying to.