When to register?

[gottasmile]

Hi,
I'm moving from Canada to London and on a previous thread found out that it might be difficult to find a place in a school for my ds (6yrs old) if I don't register him early.

I was planning to go over in June, to find a house and look at schools, but is this leaving it too late? Does primary school start in September or August?

We don't know where we'll be living yet. My dh will be working near Victoria Station and we were thinking of looking for a house about a 1/2 hour train ride away.

Thanks to anyone who can answer my questions!!

It's a different process when you start school after moving house. It's a case of finding out which schools have places available.

School year in England starts in September - I take it your child is still going to be in key stage 1 so the 30 pupils per class thing still applies. I think you have to contact the LEA and they will give you a list of schools with places still available and you can choose which one you prefer.

thank you for the info Shoshanablue. What does LEA stand for? (so I can look it up)

local education authoroty

I would also like to ask when will your child be 7 as in Britain start school well in my LEA the term after thier 4th birthday so they may have had more formal schooling longer.

Thanks thecloudhopper!! He will turn 7 in December.
I was able to establish on previous thread that he'll be starting Yr 2.

He did kindergarten (only half days) in the year he was turning 5 and now he's in grade 1.

There we are so he will have had formal schooling before coming to the UK.

probably best to narrow it down to a few LEAs and then call and discuss with them the process and if they think any schools have spaces.

most good schools esp in south-east seem to be oversubcribed and its the less good ones that have spaces... however if there is a school you really want i would strongly recommend you rent a house right next door (literally!) as then you will jump to the top of the waiting list. if you choose a 3 form entry school its fairly certain that someone will leave at the end of year 1, even if its a top performing over subscribed school.

if you look at the ofsted website you can see reviews of all the schools....
link

if you are religious you may want a faith school and then best to call the suitable schools yourself rather than deal with LEA.

Thank you so much for the great information MumNWLondon. I am starting to get worried though. Do you think we should make a trip over in the meantime to organise it, or will it not make a difference between now and June?
Thanks again for such an informative reply and the link.

I think make lots of phone calls to rental agents and LEA/schools and internet research between now at June, so in your June visit you know exactly where you want to be - both to visit possible schools and also to look at houses for rent, and ideally get a rental contract sorted out - you'll need to narrow it down to a smallish area (or a few smallish areas) or it will not be a productive trip. Maybe others who have moved here can advise?

Also not sure if I made it clear in earlier post here, faith schools (ie CoE / catholic mainly) are state funded... just pay (voluntary) amount towards faith education.

You can also get a good feel of an area using google maps streetview.... sort of can imagine walking down a road... i've just looked at DD's school on it and can confir you can really see quite well what the area is like.

If you won't be moving over and taking up the school place until the autumn term starts (usually first week of September) then there is not much point coming over to try and arrange everything any earlier than June, because a school cannot confirm a place for you more than four school weeks (ie during term-time) before your child actually starts at that school. So, to start at the beginning of the autumn term, the earliest you could be offered a firm place would probably be one month before the end of the summer term, which would be mid to late June.

At least, that was the case in my area when I moved back from overseas, and I would guess that most LEAs would have similar rules - if they have a space available, they have to give it to someone who needs it more or less right away, not in six months' time. Places at decent schools in the greater London area don't stay empty for long, I would guess.

You will probably also find that you will not be able to get a firm offer of a place until you have a UK address - even if you haven't actually moved in yet, you will need a rental contract and a moving date to prove that you are actually going to be living there.

So, you need to work out - with the help of local authority websites, MN, any friends on the ground etc - which areas you are interested in living in, and which schools in those areas are any good. You then need to contact the LEA (the website for the local council should have contact details), to ask about local procedures for school registration. The LEA may be able to give you lists of schools with places potentially available, but you may find (as I did) that you have to contact all the schools individually.

At the same time you will have to be going through letting agency to find properties near the likeliest schools - it is a bit of a juggling act to find a good place to rent near a good school with a place available at the right time. I managed it (just) but it can be a bit hair-raising. Good luck.

Thank you MumNWLondon and exexpat. Your posts have cleared up a lot of my queries. I see what you mean about a juggling act, but in the next few weeks we're going to decide on an area to live and then we'll go from there.

Primelocation show both the map and an arial view of the area around the house, so I've been checking out different areas already, but unless you know the area, it's hard to tell what it's actually like....MumNwLondon, the street view would be better.

So now we just have to make a decision on where to live....we're thinking of somewhere in Surrey, to be on a direct train line to Victoria (might do a separate thread about advice on where to live!!)

Thanks so much for the very very helpful advice!