Adoption

[Lila5763]

Could anyone tell me where we are up to with the move to have adopted children given the same school admissions policy as looked after children. Our adopted child goes to primary school out of Borough and now we are worried she will not get into the feeder senior school out of borough

adoption and school admissions policy

Where I live, children in care or previously in care or adopted get to choose which school they can go to, which is how it should be I think.

agree with marmite, think it is national policy, all LAC , or previously (ever)LAC are at the top of the list for school places, as it should be.
So your only issue would be if your adopted child is one of the very rare ones that has not ever been a LAC.

Was your child adopted from here or abroad? I have 2 adopted dc both adopted overseas. They did not get places as described by marmite but I did not pursue this. Not sure if they qualify as LAC (although they were in their country of origin

If your child was a looked after child under a Local Authority and was subsequently adopted then you will be in admission category that has to be first on the admission criteria by law.
You do however need to make sure that both the school and the Local Authority are aware of this priority because it is not always clear and it is new this last year.

The admissions rules have indeed changed recently to give a relatively large proportion of adopted children priority admission. We have a thread in adoptions on this which you can read here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adoptions/1464036-Schools-admission-criteria-for-Adopted-children-When-will-it-change

Basically, in order to qualify, your DC must have been adopted under the Adoption and Children's Act 2002 which came into force on the 30th December 2005. Therefore they must have been in the care of a Welsh or English local authority and the adoption must have been finalised on of after the 30th Dec 2005.

If your DC was adopted from overseas, from a Scottish council, or the adoption was finalised on or before the 29th Dec 2005, then unfortunately they don't qualify for priority school places.

Also bear in mind that some schools (faith ones) are allowed to give priority to children of the faith above lac/adopted children who are not

Hope that helps. As admissions said, if this applies to your DC then make sure the school/authority knows it.