Failed to get a primary school place and panicking, What should we do?

[staranise]

Please help!
We have failed to get a school place at any of the seven local schools we have applied for for our daughter, who will be four in June. We're 19th on the waiting list for our first choice but our council has told us that we haven't a chance of getting in. I don't think we've been too fussy about our choice of schools (all walking distance, non-church), though we didn't apply to our very closest school as it is very rubbish. We're appealing on grounds of distance, but I don't think this will help as they've already said they won't change the distance criteria for this year. The council say we either go to a rubbish school (probably about 2 miles away) or we skip a year's school as they're not legally obliged to educate her til she's five.

We are considering private but could barely afford it - even the deposit is £1200
Has anyone else been in a similar situation and what did you do? i feel like we've really let our daughter down and she is soooo keen to go to school

Thanks for any advice

star

staranise I would certainly send yr DD to school in Sept.

Why not go and look at the one you have been offered. I bet as you say at FS2 level it is really nice. Through work I have been to a lot of primary schools in the city I live in (not London) and there honestly isn't one I wouldn't happily send my children to.

A 2-mile journey wouldn't need 2 buses surely? Couldn't you get one bus and then walk a mile? Does that make it seem more feasible?

Then wait hopefuly for place at nearer school?

BTW how is allocated school "ranked bottom" if not by SAts results?

Just to clarify: my eldest will be four in June, hence is due to start school in September. I also have a two year old and am pg, due early December. I'm reluctant to commit to a school over two miles away as, even with one bus, it woud mean walking presumably up to four miles a day, with my two year old and being 6 months pg+ and then a small baby. It's also in a grim area, alongside the A3 (you can't cycle it), with no shops etc, and as I tend to walk the mile (the other way) into town a lot, I'd spend my whole day walking. The more I think about it, I'd rather send her private for a term and wait for a place to come up than all that hassle for a school I dread.

You're right, I guess rankings are done on SATS, I just looked at the table without really checking I guess. I don't really agree with the idea of league tables for primary schools but yes, i did look at them, and alarms bell ring when a school is bottom out of 50 in a London borough. But I reiterate again, I'm sure most reception places are happy places.

My mother taught reception for years at a big inner city primary that was always low-ranked and her classroom was a lovely place for any four year old to be - bright, colourful etc. However, the children were way behind in terms of speech, discipline etc, the parents (in general) were rough and just did not care and gave the poor teachers so much stick, there was so much aggression around. I don't want to participate in a school with that type of environment, excuse my precious middle class principles!

Thanks for listening

S

or spend the money on a car or driving lessons rather than going private? oh and for future reference even precious middle class kids can have speech delay/disorder.....

StarlightMck - no, sorry, badly expressed. My eldest is 4 and I have a son who will be two in September and I have just had my third child so, logistically, sending dd1 to a school some distance away will be a nightmare and will also mean that ds may not be able to attend the local nursery as we will be traipsing around South Circular picking up/dropping off her when he is meant to be at the nursery.

lalalonglegs, you clearly live near me, we are just off the south circular. Apparently it has been a particularly bad year for school places in Richmond and Wandsworth

Yeah, I'm Wandsworth. I'm completely wretched about the whole business and, having just given birth, getting quite run down with stress of it all. It's really all I can do not to sob the whole time. The thing is, we really didn't play the system - just applied to the four nearest schools and we are from no 4 to no 67 on the waiting lists... And this is meant to be a big-time, family-friendly neighbourhood .

we are border Wandsworth/Richmond (though we live in Wandsworth). First choice Hotham - 19th on the list . Sick of speaking to useless Pupil Services...

4th sounds quite hopeful though? A couple of friends have been through the process and say that the movement takes places later, about May/June; they both got into all their choices eventually. But the not knowing is wretched...best of luck to you

Bear in mind wih private school yu normally have to give at leat one term's notice. If yu leave earlier you will still need to pay for the term regardless. You could end up having to pay fr two term's private schling even if your DD only did one term there, dependng on how much notice you could give them.

However also check if the private school takes nursery vouchers. DD school did and this knocked a fair bit otf the first two term's fees.

Staranise - do your friends mean that there was movement in May/June BEFORE their children started at reception or in May/June when their children had already started at another school?

Pupil Services completely useless - told me that they did not have to do anything to find my dd a place until September and suggested that I ring round all the schools in the borough seeing if any of them had spare places. Spent several days doing that before finally getting back to PS and being told that they could tell me over the phone which schools had places. Needless to say, it's the schools which are in special measures or get less than half in the SAT scores.

The May/June before reception started (and my friend was number 30 for her first choice). Have also heard this morning that at least two people I know have accepted their places at my first choice school but are actually going to go private, so can expect some movement I guess (there has been none so far...).

Pupil Services told me that if I was in the top 3 or so I could reasonably expect to get in but that at number 19, we only have an outside chance, though that's not what the local mothers say. Going to look around the local private school this week

Best of luck. We thought we could appeal as we were told by pupil services that the last entrant lived 700m from our no 1 choice school and we are a few metres within this cut-off point but they have just sent us a letter and have now changed this to 585m .

Ah, you're near me then, staranise (Hotham, Our Lady of Victories and whatever the CofE one is are our three local schools). We have decided to go private (DS will be the year below your DD) rather than put ourselves through the mill of primary applications next year.

The joys of living in London! 585 m!! tha tsoudns extreme even for round here!

Yes, Port&Lemon, we are definitely int eh same catchment! We are looking round our nearest private this week but no way can we afford three children private so sending DD1 private would really force us to leave London soon.

On the upside, I spoke with someone who was 20+ on the waiting list for Hotham last year and got in. Plus, the playgroup I help run have all written a letter about how i do lots of work in the community, therefore we should get a school place as you would if it was a church school. The priest even signed it! it probably won't work but has cheered me up enormously that people can be so thoughtful!

Best of luck with it all - ket me know how you gt on lalalonglegs!

I know the unresolved nature of this is torture, but please don't give up yet!

A friend of mine was offered no place at all (and she had put her two very closest schools down) - except at a failing school at the far end of the borough from her..but she put her name on waiting lists for every school that was practical for her to get to...and before the term started (just before) she had a place at a very convenient school which has just been designated 'outstanding' by ofsted.

DS's school is heavily over-subscribed, but even so places were not taken up, people moved away or accepted other schools or somply didn't show up on the first day of term. And 8 places have become available in DS's class since he joined two years ago. People are very mobile in inner-London - and more so where a school has a sizable refugee intake. 2 places in DS's class have been refugee families moving to a more permanent address elsewhere, and both have gone to local families who were just too far outside when places were first allocated. Put your name down fr the faith schools, too - you never know - a place might come up, and once the original scramble for reception places is over, peple who WERE on a waitng list fond that they are actually hapy and choose not to move thier child. I know pwoplw who got into very very sought after schools from miles away in Yr 1.

Thanks for peptalk Blu, I think we all need it! Might send my newly-acquired priest's letter to the church schools

Port & lemon - forgot to mention, am very early pg, and nobody knows yet, not even my parents! Whoops, perhaps should have thought of that before posting precise details of school applications on community website .

But if you are Hotham/OLV catchment, I might know you already in RL

Oh, the letter was a lovely idea. Everyone around here far too paranoid about their own chances of getting in to be so community minded and, BTW, the 585m school is our preferred choice but there is a school which is even nearer that we still didn't get into .

And I live in Lambeth - so very similiar sort of scramble.

Any further moves from John O'Farrell's bunch's Parent Power school in Lambeth? (That's secondary, I know.)

Seems from here that it was all a no-go in the end?

I thought that the Lambeth Academy was the John O'F school - apparently not a very good one, almost as poor as his witless book.

Oh, right - I'm confused then.

I don't know what that was all about: the 'rubbish truck re-location' was so that work could begin on the Evelyn Grace Academy site in Shakespeare rd - a new secondary school which will be run by Arc, and opened nest year. As I understood local talk, the Nelson Mandela school was to have been half way up Brixton Hill on a site owned by Thames Water and found to be not acquirable or suitable.

The new Elmgreen School was also a parent intiative - it has opened to the first year at temporary premises in Gypsy Hill, and will have a brand new building on Elmcourt Rd later this year or next year. The Head is the former Deputy Head of the sought after nearby Dunraven.

But I think that John O'Farrell was indeed involved in the Lambeth Academy school in Clapham.