I don't bloody believe it!

[cory]

Today we received a letter from the LEA asking if dd wishes to remain on the waiting list for the local secondary school. This being the secondary school to which she was admitted two years ago (!) by the same LEA. She started in September 2008 and has been attending ever since. Unless she steps into some parallel universe with an identical looking school every morning of course.

The reason I am less that impressed by this is that we are applying for a place for dd's younger brother for this autumn. The school is not our catchment school and it is always oversubscribed, but we had been advised (by the LEA- haha!) that we have a very good chance of getting him in under sibling rule. Except that now it seems they haven't even noticed they did let a sibling of his in two years ago.

We had to go to appeal for dd and thought at the time that the LEA representative made a complete dog's dinner of her argument (panel clearly thought so too). I do not fancy having to go through all that again because they can't be bothered to update their records. Will ring them tomorrow- but what do you reckon my chances are to actually get the database changed before ds' application next week?

Not much consolation but if they foul up it should be as straightforward an appeal as it is possible to get.

accept it and then sell the place on ebay

prh47- if he doesn't get in, how do I find out if they have admitted children without siblings? (now supposed to be top criterion after statements and foster children- comes before medical and social which he also has).

It would be very unusual for them not to admit any children without siblings, especially since it is so high in the admission criteria. The letter they send allocating you a place is supposed to state the reasons you failed to get a place at any of your higher choice schools. If it doesn't I would still go ahead with an appeal. The paperwork for the appeal must set out why your son didn't get a place so that will clearly show which category he was placed in. If he is in the wrong category you've got a very straightforward case (although I would take a letter from the school confirming that your dd is already a pupil and has been for 2 years just in case the LA try to deny it).

Do they actually mention children with statements in the admission criteria? They aren't supposed to do anything which implies that they can refuse admission to a child with a statement, so they aren't usually mentioned in the admission criteria at all. I'm assuming you are in England, by the way.

Sorry, I was being sloppy. Statemented children are outside/above the criteria as they have to be admitted if the statement mentions the school. SO they are mentioned in the paragraph before the criteria proper. They have just changed the admissions rules so siblings trump virtually everything else, including catchment and medical/social. (We are going to use medical/social too and have letters from ds' paed and GP to show that he really needs to go to this school.)

I don't trust this admissions lot though. Haven't forgotten how they tried to claim last time that dd couldn't really need to be considered as a disabled pupil (i.e. under medica/social) as the school we had mentioned was not on their list of schools with full disabled access- therefore we couldn't have a disabled child. I had to explain very, very slowly that all disabled people do not have the same needs, and that therefore whether a school ticks all the boxes or not can actually be totally irrelevant. The LEA representative looked genuinely surprised at this.

Cory, not sure what to say to your last post other than say what a shower.

I like the sound of Custardo's suggestion- it's a really nice school so somebody ought to be pleased to have it

keep the letter - telephone and ask them to send you the letter agian for your son and give his name

All sorted: they were using an old list, but have now taken dd off, and assured me that in any case they will be using school records and not their own lists for admissions.