Primary Waiting Lists

[Sunnydays1234]

Wondered if someone could help with a query on waiting lists. I applied just after the closing date so didn't get my catchment school. After the allocations I contacted my LA to check what place we were on the waiting list and was advised we were at the bottom of the list because we applied late. My LA have allocated the list with catchment, then distance, then late. I advised them of the Admissions Code 3.19 but they say they are right in the way they do the list. If we had been included in the catchment list we live the nearest to school so we would be first. I have found out today that all places at the school have been accepted, one wasn't but they've allocated this off the waiting list. I have raised my query to the LA since the first week in April, What should I do now?

Great news, thanks for updating us

I know it was an uphill struggle, but you got the right result in the end, and have hopefully (via the panel referring to the school adjudicator) stopped any other family suffering the same fate in the future, well done you

Am thrilled to hear your son now has a place.

FWIW I think a number of LAs have a poor understanding of the law surrounding admissions. In the past year I have encountered an LA department over-offering places and trying to withdraw one (mine!), telling a Headteacher that the class size limit only applies to children in the Infants i.e. KS1 thus only Y1 and Y2, not Reception and also telling a friend that they would go to the bottom of the waiting list as the school whose list they wanted to be added to hadn't been their first choice and the same LA applying the medical/social exception to offer a place without any evidence of any need being supplied (it was the parent who had a medical need, apparently).

It's not just Stockport who need to brush up on the law...!

Well done for pushing through to a successful conclusion. I actually think that it is important for parents to push to the limit because as SE13mummy says there are many other LAs with questionable practices.

I sat on a panel 2 weeks ago which ended up with the admission arrangements being referred to the schools adjudicator because they seem to be wrong. It is not always the fault of the LAs because there are grey areas of admission law and the only way to get them sorted is to refer cases to the schools adjudicator or the Local Government Ombudsman as appropriate.

So it's a couple of weeks since my last post and things are seemingly moving in the right direction: our LA is seriously considering putting on a bulge class (better late than never, eh?). However, it is now tied up in knots about which admissions criteria to use. Does anyone have any experience of what systems are commonly used? Are there any pitfalls we should look out for ie criteria that we could feasibly ask to be suspended in this unprecedented situation if following 'normal' rules to the letter might risk those of us who applied last autumn, and still don't have a place in our own town, being denied one of the bulge class places? I'd like to say that's just paranoia, but the number of displaced children just keeps on rising and rising as people move into the town... six months of battling will only have been worth it if the mess we're in is sorted to the satisfaction of those who have been fighting to keep our children within our own community and, ideally, siblings together at the same school. Advice appreciated.

I am not sure what other admission arrangements could be used other than those for the school as previously applied. In theory that will give those who did not get a place before some ability to now have a place at the school but it will depend on the number of people who have moved into the catchments for the school who will have a higher priority.

Sorry that is probably not what you want to hear but the reality is that the LA has to get its finger out and put in sufficient bulge classes in the right areas to mop up all the pupils without places.

I might be tempted to pre-empt the decisions to be made by getting yourself on every waiting list of schools that you could go to to give you more scope for getting a place. A carefully worded letter to the appropriate councillor in charge of education suggesting where the bulge class should be and that you want a place could also be to your advantage in pushing people to get to the right answers.