help with admissions please - 'late applicant'

[ChippyMinton]

My lovely but disorganised friends has just found out that her DC hasn't been offered a primary school place as the application was submitted late. It's a VA school (in Surrey)which is responsible for its own admissions.
Head teacher has said that her application will only be considered after the acceptance date for those already offered a place.

Has anyone got any advice/experience of what happens next in this situation?

I think her application will be set alongside those who ask to be placed on a waiting list once the acceptances/refusals are collated. The same criteria are applied .

Yes, the same criteria will be used for the late applications, so if your friend's child might have got a place if they had applied on time - lives very close to the school, for example - they are likely to be near the top of the waiting list. (This really is the biggest impact of applying late - even the children who would have been certain to get places won't get them because they applied late, and children who would have been lower than them according to the oversubscription criteria 'overtake' them).

HTH, although it's probably not what your friend wants to hear.

PS All this is assuming, of course, that the school is over-subscribed and all the places are filled on first allocation.

Thank you - so in effect she will be on the waiting list, placed in accordance with the over-subscription criteria? It is definately over-subscribed. She would've got in if she'd been on time, so I presume she will be near the top of the waiting list.

Yes, the waiting list is ranked according to the admissions criteria and doesn't distinguish between on time and late applications. So that will presumably put her somewhere near the top of the list. The school should be able to let her know where she is on the list, once offers have been accepted.

Thanks, I will tell her it may not be the end of the world, but possibly a long wait...

I presume that your friend has actually put in the application form to the local authority. Although it is a VA school it is still the Local authority who do all the administration for admissions on behalf of the school.

It would also be worth checking whether or not any appeals for the school would be infant class size or not. If the admission number is 15, 30,45 or 60 it will be, if it something different it may not be. Given the circumstances of a late application there is no chance of winning an infant class size appeal but if it is not infant class size then there is no reason not to appeal. You can appeal on the basis of having made a mistake on how to apply etc, but would have got a place if they had applied on time.

I would also strongly recommend that your friend tries to get an offer at a school as a backstop, just so they know they have a place. It is a long time till September so there is plenty of opportunity for places to come available at this school.