What should I do re Primary school??

[ithinkimtallandblonde]

Hi just wondering if anyone can give me any advice.
DD got her primary place yesterday at her 3rd choice school.
The background is this, We are in the middle of moving house, we are buying a house accross the rd from 1st choice school where dd's cousin attends but the sale on our house has fallen through.Because of childcare we are prepared to rent in the area if our sale doesn't go through. We only have dds aunty to pick up dd from school on the day that we both work till after 5. We have no other family living near and i think dd is going to find school really tough as she is a shy child so i would hate for her to have to attend afterschool clubs from the off. We have just enrolled ds in preschool in the same area so as she can collect them both and take them home.
Our 1st choice school is a foundation school and claims to have no catchment but gives priority based on distance up to a 2 mile radius of which we are at the moment 1.8 miles away and parents working in the locality which we do. She is number 17 on the waiting list. They have told me that if our house sale goes through we will be moved further up the list but with the market as it is i have no idea how long that may be.

What i really want to know is whether i should appeal the desision or wait until we have moved and then hope for a place. I don't want to fallout with the school and start on bad terms because of an appeal.
I should say the school she got into is a very good catholic school accross the road from where we now live but i don't have a car and it would be a long way on public transport.Help

How much further up the list would your DD go if you lived in the catchment area?

We were is a similar position when DS1 started school although we lived 100 miles away from the school when we put in the application so we were at the bottom of the list. When we moved we went up to near the top and were told that it was highly likely that the top few on the list would get in as people drop out at the last minute, or like us move. It took until the May half term to hear something and get a place

I wouldn't appeal as you will probably get in if you move and if you don't and it all falls through then you may have to think again about where you are going to live anyway. If you are prepared to rent, don't leave it too long to move as the sooner you get up the list the more chance you have of getting in.

Good luck.

Thanks Niecie, its good to speak to somebody who has been in a similar position. I think our only option is going to be to rent in the area until the house sale goes through as even after that theres about 3 months of building works to be done on the house so no guarentees that we will be in the house on time.