Child left with poor options reception 2025

[BluntPlumHam]

Hi looking for some advice.

We are in the North of the country and in an area with a low birth rate. We were advised by all the schools we visited that you’re more than likely to get your first preference because of the low birth rate and last years admissions criteria’s going beyond the usual limits, I.E going well outside the catchment area.

Our first preference is well within our catchment 10mins walk, second 15 and the third option is not but we applied because they told us that over 40 percent of their intake is from outside of the catchment.

Despite this our DS has not been offered any of his three preferences and instead been given another school which is the closest but not suited to his needs at all.

He has been put on a waitlist for all three schools of preference.

I spoke to admissions and they said it won’t be till next week when the schools data is published that we will know where he is on the lists. She was agreeing with me that it was a low birth rate and doesn’t understand what has happened until the data is published. His nursery are also confused because they’ve never heard of anyone not getting any of their preference especially when sensible options were selected.

i have rejected his offer because the school isn’t right for him, they mix their years and don’t perform well at all. This won’t remove me from the waitlist, they have confirmed.

I am looking for advice, thoughts, anecdotes and anything really because I’m stressed as he doesn’t really have a plan B.

Have you checked there wasn’t an error in their admissions allocation.

Hi can this actually happen? My husband was pushing to query this but I was thinking surely they get this stuff right?

If you reject the offer then the council is not obliged to offer you another. They have met their legal requirements and you cannot blackmail them into providing a place at another school by refusing the offer. Instead you must find out if there was an error in the admissions allocation and keep your child on the waiting list of all the schools you prefer.

Preferences will have depended on other people’s choices. If there are a lot of siblings they will have had priority. I don’t understand turning the offered place down.

Yes of course errors happen. One digit wrong in the postcode, system not importing your application properly because it crashed right at the wrong point, applicants wrongly assumed to have siblings when they don’t. No system is infallible.

You shouldn't have declined your place though. In the event that you appeal you risk getting the panels backs up if they think you did that to force their hand. Mixed age classes aren’t a bad thing btw - and a poor school is probably better than no school, at least till year 3 when it is much easier to appeal.

You should never reject an offer. Even if it's not the school you want, the LA could end up offering you a place miles away as you refused the closest school. There is no guarantee you will get any of your other schools as you don't know what their waiting lists are like.

It is always advised to accept the offer, appeal or be added to other waiting lists.

I too think rejecting was hasty.

Accepting loses you nothing and gives you that school as a fallback.

You may feel now you are prepared to home educate as long as it takes, but by September you may have changed your mind, but right now you have lost the only school place you have on the table.

Are you really prepared to home school if he doesn’t get a place via waiting lists? If not, you really should not have rejected the school place offered and you may want to speak to the LA to see if the place is still available.

Yes I’m quite aware that I cannot force their hand and ‘blackmail’ is a tad strong … They have confirmed I remain on the waitlist even though I have rejected the offered school. Ultimately it’s my responsibility to ensure he has a good start in a place suited to him. The offered school would not provide him with a good start so I won’t be sending him there.

Find out quickly if you can rescind that rejection. The first thing I took from your OP was that you should never reject an offer. As has been said, the LA will not look upon this kindly and you may end up with something far less suitable.

What's your back up plan if you've rejected the offer and you can't get him into the one of schools you want him to be in?

Rejected the place puts you in abit of a tricky spot and won't put you at the top of waiting lists

We may have to go independent. I didn’t want to because our preferences are great performing schools, in our catchment and diverse.

I just don’t understand how he didn’t get any with the low birth rate and previous stats showing no issue with getting your preference.

Mistakes can and do happen.

Nearly all admission authorities use a computer package to measure home/school distance and I’ve chaired appeals where the package hasn’t recognised the family’s address and substituted a rogue measurement of its own. It isn’t common but it isn’t impossible either.

Do check with the admissions authority why you weren’t offered a place at any of the three schools, but it’s really up to you to decide what Plan B will be.

If there hasn’t been an error (in which case the admissions authority should put it right without making you go to appeal) and if a place doesn’t come via the waiting list, your only remaining options may be home-schooling or an independent school. Waiting lists aside, the admissions authority isn’t obliged to keep offering you school places until you accept one.

Def ask to get back on the offer list not just the wait list.

worst case is he starts a school you don’t like and he starts learning while you wait for a space elsewhere - he might love it and will certainly be learning so not time wasted.

It depends on many factors such as number of looked after applicants and pupils naming a school on ehcp, siblings, faith where relevant and distance all of which may have taken precedence over your application. Turning down the offer leaves you in limbo. You may or may not get lucky from the waiting list but if these are one form intake schools chances are limited. When is your dc five? Could you wait until after Christmas to start? It might be worth looking for schools with vacancies further away as a back up. If you go private and a space at a preferred school comes up you may need to pay up to two terms of fees to move.

Thank you, I will definitely get them to rule out there wasn’t an error in admission. We have good grounds to request this given one of our preference takes 40 percent from outside of their catchment! We are talking almost 5/6 miles out! We are about a mile away.

You seem so sure that the other school won't give him a good start. I really don't understand how you can be so sure, without having tried it? So many people start at schools which they aren't happy with, and many find themselves pleasantly surprised. Different people have different experiences. You only have to look at your local FB pages to see that, for everyone who recommends a certain school, another will say no it was terrible for their child. For everyone who says avoid a certain school like the plague, another one will reply that that school is the best thing to happen to their child. You can't tell or word of mouth and reputation how your child would get on there.

You really shouldn't have rejected the place as you could end up with something absolutely miles away and appeal panels will not look favourably on you doing so.

He’s an April born. Yes we could potentially wait till after Christmas but keeping him at home would just set him back. He’s been thriving at nursery.

Which would you prefer - an unsuitable school close by or an unsuitable school 10 miles away? That may be all that’s left if you’ve rejected the unsuitable school close by. If you can afford independent or can home school that gives you other options to be fair, but state wise this may be your best option so I’d see if you can un-reject the place. You’ve got nothing to lose by accepting now, as you can always reject it later if you get a more suitable place. In some areas you’ve left it very late to look at independents and they’ll all be full (though in most I think you’ll be fine.)

I’m not scared of appeal panels. It’s not their job to look at applications ‘favourably’ they should be applying independent criteria/framework and decisions without bias.

I am sure because I attended open day, spoke to local mums, checked their reviews and most importantly have checked their performance stats.

I would argue that performance stats are not the 'most important' factor in whether a school would suit an individual child.

Fair enough, you've visited, but I wouldn't put any weight on the other things (reviews and other people's opinions) in terms of how good it would be for your child. If you don't try it, you won't know.

I hope it works out for you and you don't need to try it, but rejecting it could leave him without any local place. It seems like such a risk, whether you care how it looks to an appeals panel or not.

How do catchments work in your LA? You refer to ‘within our catchment’ but usually catchments belong to schools. You can have schools that cross over, so some houses are in 2 catchments, but basically you either applied for your catchment school or you didn’t. It doesn’t matter whether you perceive a school to be ‘within our catchment’, you can be 100yrds from a school and yet not be in its catchment because lines have to be drawn somewhere. If you’re outside catchment, you may go down the criteria quite a lot as lots of schools have sibling and church attendance, even certain preschool attendance, above distance (ie how far you are from the actual school compared to other applicants out of catchment)

If what you say about birth rates etc is true then I agree it’s very odd but at the same time I think you have some misconceptions about how the systems work. Perhaps if you tell us your LA someone can help?

OP you have mentioned your catchment area several times. You don't have a catchment area, the schools do. Did you apply for the school whose catchment area you live in?

i understand your concern and the other posters too. I appreciate it. Honestly, if I knew it was this cutthroat it wouldn’t be as hard to swallow or I would have just gone independent. We were genuinely led to believe that due to low birth rates go for what you want because you are very likely to get it. This mirrored their published data too, the booklet released by admissions.

Yes. We are in the catchment area of preference 1 & 2. We are not for the 3 but 3 takes almost 40 percent from outside.