Primary school admissions - two applications...what happens

[Cathhender]

Ive been trying to coparent with my ex for the last couple of years. I am the resident parent, and our son spends 2 days/2 nights with father.

I tried to come to an agreement re: schools (start in sept 2023), however Father didn't like any of the schools in my area, much preferring the schools in his area. We live about 30 mins away from each other and live in different local authorities.

The reality is the schools in my area are absolutely fine. I therefore based the school application on my address etc, and listed schools locally. However, I've just found out, that the also submitted an application for schools near him. So essentially our son, has two applications on the go.

In this instance, do the local authorities talk to each other? Will they know there are two applications? I've struggled to get hold of anyone working there.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? It would be great to hear how this is dealt with typically from an admissions point of view.

In these cases, LAs do much prefer for parents to agree, but sometimes of course they don't.

The application address used must be the child's permanent address at the time of application. Given your situation, that would seem to be you - you have the more nights, and I am assuming it is your address on, for example, the child benefit application. So the application that stands should be yours.

What I would do is inform the other LA that you are aware an application has been lodged, but the address is not that of your child's permanent address. Some LAs are more proactive on checking this than others.

Don't know what the local authorities will do, but as your son spends most time with you you'll have the day over where he goes to school. Is the contact schedule court ordered?

Have you tried asking your ex if he would do mediation with you? I think that should be the next step.

In my local authority, if parents submit separate applications for the same child, both applications are put on hold until they agree or get a court order, but the guidelines don't say anything about an application in a different local authority. I think in a way you're lucky that he lives in a different area because hopefully his application there won't jeopardise your application. You should suggest mediation, though, because that's a prerequisite to going to family court, so if he refuses or it's unsuccessful, you would need to get legal advice about possible court action. Otherwise you may find you are hampered at each stage including when it comes to secondary school application.

This is not my local council but it has helpful information that would apply to most councils I think:
www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools-index/school-admissions/school-admissions-guides-policies-and-statistics/legal-guidance-note-on-parental-disputes-and-school-admissions/

JanglyBeads - thanks for this. The contact is court ordered.
AnotherEmma - no chance of mediation. We are in family court at the moment unfortunately, so i have no doubt this will come out. I wonder if family court can over rule the Local Authorities?

If you read the link I shared, it says that the local authorities will need a court order to confirm which parent decides about the school. So it's not about the court overriding the local authority - they literally can't make a decision about which school to offer your child if both parents have parental responsibility and they can't agree.

We would process the application from the main residence of the child - tell the other authority that the child lives with you and they will do some checks and withdraw that application. We have applications like this every year - copy in your home authority too and they will all sort it out with the other one and only one application will be processed.

I have made that seem more simple than it is - you'd need to show evidence that you are the main carer but very often the other parent will come clean and admit the child lives in the other borough and will voluntarily withdraw the application on having the rules explained - sometimes there are issues but we look at court orders, child benefit, length of time at the address and the doctor they're registered with to ascertain main address if the child.

schooladmission - thank you so much for this. Father is fully aware of the rules already (I informed him before applications were made), however he made a separate application anyway. Would neighbouring local authorities pick up on something like this automatically, or do we need to be pro-active with alerting them?

you'd need to be proactive - if neither of you have named a school in the same authority it is unlikely to be picked up. If you have both named a school in the same authority it should get picked up.

Agree with PatriciaHolm and schooladmission - you need to inform the father's LA that you are aware he has lodged an application, but your son only spends 2 nights a week with him and therefore he has used a false address.

Hi! How did this work out for you? Going through a similar situation and stressing out about it. I assumed LAs would pick it up automatically as all admissions are now electronic via eAdmissions, no? Thanks!

Not necessarily - our LA will not see applications made to another borough unless they name one of our schools so we cant see all applications across London.

There will be numerous children with similar names and the same date of birth across London - but the applications have different addresses and parent names and will not be linked as the system has no way of knowing they're the same child.

In the local authority the applications are imported and the system will not import any that it is not sure of. Someone has to manually check to see if they are the same child or different children with similar details. e.g. there are hundreds of Syed Khan's across London and if we're importing a new one, we can check address current school, parent details etc and see if it matches, but only if the child is already in our system.