ACCEPT THE OFFERED PLACE EVEN IF YOU HATE IT

[TeenDivided]

End of public service announcement.

The only reason not to accept would be if you can genuine home school for the next 3 years (until infant class size are in the past), or you confirm a private school place.

Go on waiting lists.
Appeal (but in ICS situations there are few reasons that will win)

But accept the offered place

Genuine question as I’m trying to get my head around it all for 2024 entry. All the primaries here are tiny (50-70 kids 5-11 with mixed age teaching). The classes are nowhere near 30 and the PAN for my nearest school seems to vary from 8-15. So what does 30 apply to in a small school?

Any children in Key Stage 1 (Reception/Y1/Y2) must not exceed a ratio of 30 children per teacher - so a class of 45 could have two teachers, or there could be a class of 30 made up of Reception - Y2.

The legal wording is:
(1) No infant class may contain more than 30 pupils while an ordinary teaching session is conducted by a single school teacher. (2) Where an ordinary teaching session is conducted by more than one school teacher, the class may not contain more than 30 pupils for every one of those teachers.

Interesting- I wonder how they are getting away with saying they are “full”
here with classes of 15-20 per teacher then?

My nearest school has 3 classes with 3 teachers covering Reception-Year 6. There’s roughly 60 kids total so around 20 per class although I know it’s not an even split as one class has 3 year groups and the others have 2). But they won’t take any more. We should get in but I’m intrigued that they are nowhere near 30.

None of the schools nearest to me get anywhere near a class size of 30 yet there is great competition for places!

The 30 is just the legal maximum per teacher.
An admission authority can set their official PAN - published admission number - at whatever it likes. If a school is physically small, it may set a PAN of say 20. Then once 20 places are allocated, it is full.

It would mean that any appeal would be a normal prejudice appeal, not ICS.

Thank you, that makes sense-the PAN is usually 8 although has been 15 sometimes. I think they are hoping to move to 15 long term and move to 4 classes instead of 3.

I don't get your logic.

We have a similar situation - the nice school and not nice school are the same distance from us. We used up the three choices - the nice school, and other further away schools that are usually undersubscribed. That way, if we didnt get nice school, wed have definitely got 2 or 3, and would never be offered not nice school.

If you didnt get nice school, and you had no other choices, the likelihood is you'd be offered not nice school, as its more likely to have space and is near you.

That way, if we didnt get nice school, wed have definitely got 2 or 3, and would never be offered not nice school.

Why would you ‘definitely have got 2 or 3’? I’ve seen people not get any of their preferences.

There are lots of reasons someone might only put 1 school, and not to ‘force the hand of admissions’ (and that doesn’t work anyway).

Like I said I only put 1 down because anything else would be too far for me to travel.

Equally you might have one school you really like, but be pretty indifferent as to the school you get if you don’t get that one.

@Waitingforsummertocome

If the council have made a mistake, your DC will be taken on as a 31st pupil, and 'excepted child' they won't kick another child out to make room.

If it turns out to have been your mistake (I really hope not) then get it rectified for waiting lists and you'll be top of the waiting list, but I'd be tempted to appeal anyway in your situation and you may get a sympathetic panel who understand why ex LAC is a high priority. If it turns out to be this (or even if they make you appeal even though it is their fault) then make a separate thread and the admissions people on here will help you.

Yes in theory but in practise many la’s Sen systems are a shambles and they are struggling to allocate suitable places for Sen children. This is mainly due to lack of specialist places and then trying to place children with Sen in main stream without adequate support in place so schools refuse to take children as they say they cannot meet needs. I know of children that should have started last sept still without a place and waiting for tribunal which now has a backlog of around 10 months

How risky this is depends on local factors. If school 1 has been undersubscribed for the last 10 years, and you live nearby, it's not that risky, as you can be fairly certain of a place.

If the school is more popular, or you are lower down the list e.g. living further away, it's riskier. The LA will look and see if they can offer you a place. If they can't, you will get a space wherever is left. It might be that the concrete school is full, as are the too far schools, and you get offered super-concrete school 10 miles away as the only one with places.

Chances are the first scenario is more likely for you which is great, but the second scenario does often happen and people are shocked. I have just applied for infants and juniors with 1 school each as I was confident in the admissions criteria, but that is based on our particular situation, and I wouldn't necessarily advise others to do the same elsewhere. (The juniors prioritises kids from the infants, for the Reception place we have a sibling link in a PAN of 90, plus live nearby).

DangerousBeans1 EmilyGilmoresSass If DC has an existing EHCP it should have been finalised by the 15th February, if it wasn’t you need to email the Director of Children’s Services threatening judicial review as they are in breach of the statutory deadline and frustrating your right of appeal.

If the EHCP has been issued but doesn’t name a placement have you appealed? If so, let SENDIST know this is a phase transfer appeal and a DC is (or will be) out of education.

If DC doesn’t yet have a finalised EHCP but you are going through the EHCP process you were badly advised not to also apply via the normal admissions procedure as well.

Phase transfer appeals and appeals for those out of education are prioritised, whilst the wait is still long isn’t 10/11 months so parents should alert SENDIST to this applying to their appeal.

The LA must also still provide anything specified and quantified in F. And if a MS is named in I the school cannot just refuse to admit them.

When I applied for one of Mt dc they ( initially) got none of their preferences and were offered a place at our oversubscribed catchment school ahead of people who had actually applied there.
So I find the whole thing mystifying

This isn't how it works and must have been an error, unless those who applied there were offered a place at a school they placed as a higher preference instead, as you can only receive one offer? Places are always offered to those who applied there first, even if they live at the other end of the country.

Yep scenario 1 for me.

I think this topic is a bit removed from reality on MN. A lot of people don’t live in intensely competitive areas. And the ones who do who are all ‘sorry but you’ll have to suck it up, that’s just the system’ I guarantee are wealthy enough to ensure they get their first choice or can go private.

All a bit okay-when-it’s-not-me.

Yes, because 3 has a history of being very unsubscribed. They basically offer an place to anyone who applies because they have space. It's a good school, just very rural.

They even wrote us a letter after offer day basically saying 'I know we weren't your first choice but any chance you fancy coming here anyway'.

It meant that we'd only be offered a random school (inevitably the rubbish school), if we were turned down by 1&2 and if (for the first time ever) school 3 was full. Vanishingly unlikely.

Your logic still doesn't make sense though. Ok, so anything other than your '1' might be too far to travel, but it's not like all alternative options are equal, and at least that way you effectively choose your own contingency school.

It doesn't alter the likelihood of you getting your number 1, but it virtually eliminates the risk of your child ending up in a specific school you hate, or means it'll be the closest of the 'far' ones, which will probably be better thak the ones even further out.

If you dont/didn't get 1, would you prefer the rubbish school or the far away school? Or another random school which might be far further away? Do you truly have no preference?

Twins can't be separated if that's not the parent's preference, so if they are through error this would always be corrected.

Look on the council website I see the rules have changed since then

I also note in our LA looked after children are prioritised above EHCP

This isn’t the case.

EHCP admissions aren’t via the normal admissions procedures, it is a separate system. All pupils with an EHCP naming the school must be admitted, and there are only limited circumstances the LA can refuse to name parental preference (wholly independent schools excepted).

The highest priority in the normal admissions process oversubscription criteria must be given to LAC/PLAC (or LAC/PLAC of faith), but that isn’t before EHCPs as EHCP admissions aren’t part of the normal admissions process.

Ok, so anything other than your '1' might be too far to travel, but it's not like all alternative options are equal, and at least that way you effectively choose your own contingency school.

Believe it or not some parents are not THAT picky or obsessive over where their child goes to primary school.

You keep repeating ‘your logic doesn’t make sense’ but that’s because you don’t live my life or in my area (as far as I know!). It doesn’t need to make sense to you; these are my reasons.

The town I live in has a handful of primary schools. All are OFSTED ‘good’ or above. It’s not a competitive area, schools don’t get madly oversubscribed. The only one I didn’t want (in a mild sense, I wouldn’t have been sobbing and appealing had my daughter been allocated a place there) was the nearest one. And my preference was the second nearest, so I put that. Knowing that if she didn’t get into that one, it didn’t really matter which she went to because the nearest one was at least very close (bonus), and the ones a bit further out would be a bit annoying to get to but had nice playgrounds etc.

You keep pushing for some kind of explanation that makes sense to you, but it doesn’t need to.

That has been a breach of the Admissions Code (which has force of law) for many, many years now.

All LAs must operate an "equal preference"

So how you rank your preferences on the form has no bearing whatsoever on whether you are offered a place. It is only considered if you qualify for more than one school, in which case you are offered the one you ranked highest

Yep, I believe it was 2007 when the equal preference system was made law across England, but has been in use in many areas before that (e.g. was used in my area for secondary school allocations from 2003 entry).

I'm in Northern Ireland, not England. The actual amendment meeting took place before that date but the decision about school and amended statement hasn't yet been received.

Thank you so much, though so sorry to hear of others in this boat. It isn't a pleasant experience. Equally, I will have my fingers crossed for you x