No school place AT ALL in my county. I have to apply to neighboring county

[gaba]

We moved into Hertfordshire, and applied to the county council for places for the two DCs, only to be told, nothing is available, please try Essex?

Their last school is over 30 miles away so it isn't an option, but I have four schools within walking distance from my new home. I had no idea things were this bad, I thought I would be given a choice!

I have spent weeks reading through miles of legislation and can find nothing that defines what a reasonable distance should be, or what exact rights to an education there actually are. (It is all very vague, there is little or no detail in the laws on this that I can find).

If anyone has experience with this sort of problem, I would really appreciate any help.

Daphne,

I understand your sympathy with the OP, given your similar situation.

However, the advice that you have given her might, unfortunately, be hampering her in acquiring the school place she so much wants.

For example, you have advised her to refuse the school that she has been offered, on the grounds that it is not a great school. That is fine in itself, if places in better schools are likely to come up in a timely manner. However, what perhaps you haven't made clear to the OP is that this is a 'game changer' in terms of everyone's roles. Up until a place is offered, the council has an obligation to find one. Now, if she turns down the place offered on your recommendation, the council is not required to do anything else, and it becomes HER sole responsibility to find education or her children. I wonder whether you made that consequence clear enough?

Also, by implying that appeals are 'difficult' and 'heart breaking' and 'stressful', you may have put the OP off what is now, realistically, the best route for her to obtain a school place. The document I referred to earlier said that something like 26% of secondary appeals in Herts are successful - which implies that if she puts a good case, and appeals to enough schools, this route may well give her a place eventually.

The school I work in (junior) is ALWAYS full. We admit children on appeal all the time - not in vast numbers, every applicant has to appeal, but enough that every class has 2 or 3 more children than originally admitted into the youngest classes.

I do think, though, that your advice to look into Essex is very sound. Do you have an understanding of why the OP has not persued this avenue actively to date? She mentioned something about 'legal issues' - are these clear and well-founded, as the OP has not always seemed completely well-infomed about the details of processes, rules and responsibilities in school admissions?

The heartbreaking appeals are those in selective areas where people are appealing on the grounds on non-qualification. You don't have to read the appeals forum of PushyMumsNet ElevenPlusForums for long to read lengthy sagas of distraught and delusional parents pursuing non-qualification appeals, often the grounds of rather weak mitigating factors rather than strong academic evidence, which you know are going to end badly.

But the OP would be launching a straightforward oversubscription appeal. The schools claims it can only admit so many over PAN. The appellant claims they can admit a few more. The panel, the authority and the head argue it out. It's nothing to do with the child, per se, in that their reasons for wanting a place are pretty much irrelevant. It's about floorspace and the number of lavatories.

"It's about floorspace and the number of lavatories."

Absolutely! The other 'heartbreaking' ones are those which relate to infant class size regulations, because those are so much harder to win - Daphne may have experienced one of those. A set of straightforward secondary oversubscription appeal, argued rationally, are very much about 'tea and toilets'. It is likely that several appeals have already been made - and won - per year to the very sought after schools, which will make OP's case harder, so she may still not get places in her 'most desired' schools, but somewhere in those 27 nearer schools a rational and cogent argument should find a place for each child - not necssarily in the same school, but in a school. After all, time is ticking away for the Y10 child's GCSE courses as the OP 'waits patiently' expecting someone else to 'do something'.

Thanks, medi. I had missed that.

No time to waste waiting for a place to materialise because chances are it wont. We moved area after researching school options & were able to get my youngest who has ASD into what isn't considered the best primary (who were brilliant with her) & then into our so called outstanding secondary which is also pretty good. My eldest was year 8 & was turned down for the local school but got into the school in the next town which had a terrible reputation locally. I was worried & considered HE until a place came up, but decided to at least visit the school. When I did I was pleasantly surprised & very impressed tbh so accepted the place.

Almost 22 months on & I couldn't be happier. My daughter has blossomed at the school, which I struggle to find fault with & certainly doesn't deserve the historic bad reputation it has. Not being at the same school as her sister has been good for both of them too. When her sister started at the local school just over a year ago my eldest became 2nd on the waiting list for our local school with sibling priority. Still not been offered a place, not that id move her now anyway.

I suppose what im saying is put their names down on a list but don't count on ever getting a place in an oversubscribed school because chances are it wont happen.. My main concern now would be your year 10 who is at a crucial stage in their education.. Is there any possibility you could afford to send them private seeing as it is only for less than 2 years now while you HE the year 8 & wait for a place at a more local school? Not sure if this is possible or if anyone suggested it already. Clutching at straws really..

Another thing.. The journey to school that you find so unacceptable may not be such an issue for your kids. My eldest leaves the house an hour & a quarter before she's due in school & has to catch a bus & then walk to school from the bus stop. She leaves the house to go to school 5 minutes after me & her sister get up. The youngest can walk to the local school in 15 minutes. On the face of it it is very unfair, but my eldest doesn't have a problem with it at all & it has really helped boost her confidence. So what on the face of it was a bad situation has worked out better than I could of ever hoped. Good luck. :)

Can I just say that in 10 years of sitting on admission appeal panels I have never decided a case on the basis of the number (or quality) of toilets in a school. The day I give any weight to such an argument will be the day I stop sitting on such panels. On the size of the school and its classrooms yes but never toilets.

Apologies, admission :-) I did not wish to trivialise the admissions panel's judgements. I meant 'tea and toilets' in the 'practical not political considerations' sense, not literally toilets [though tbh since I teach in a school designed for 8 classes of 30, which has 12 classes of 33 but the same number of toilets, and a considerable number of 'toilet blockage / backup / overflow' issues, I suspect that we may have reached / exceeded our own personal 'limited by toilets' capacity.... and assembly does require a certain amount of synchronised breathing!]

teacherwith2kids,
I can't see that the OP has good grounds for appeal, which is why I would advise caution. She might very well be just prolonging the agony. I know that's what happened when I appealed and I believe my case was stronger than hers. I also sought advice from somebody who has written a book about appeals. Maybe I was unfortunate. I went to the LGO, because I had complaints about the way the appeal was conducted and obtained the written notes made by appeal panel members. The chairperson had made some (unfounded) derogatory and personal notes about me and there were a number of inaccuracies in the distance and methods it was claimed my ds could get to school. The LGO was about to order another appeal when I was offered a place anyway, but it took months and I found the whole thing extremely stressful and upsetting. I just feel that if I were the OP, I would prefer to get my child into a school rather than expending energy on a futile appeal. All this time my ds was at an out-of-county school with his own personal taxi after I had refused the place offered by Essex.
I'm glad you agree with me that the OP should investigate the possibility of places outside Hertfordshire. I've worked in most of the schools which have been mentioned (one as a permanent employee and two as a supply teacher) and I know exactly what I'd do, but I'm not the OP and I don't know her dc. I would get my dc into one of the two Essex schools which is likely to have places. There is no way I would send my child on a long journey to a sink school. In my case, I would home ed as a last resort, but the OP might not be in the position to do that.
As for some of the comments she's had...Have people really never been in the situation when something is blatantly unfair and wanted to curse and kick before calming down enough to be rational?

If the figure of 26% of secondary appeals being upheld is correct, the OP doesn't need fantastically good grounds for appeal.

Basically, she has to show that the prejudice to the school of admittance is less than the prejudice to the child of not being admitted.

The fact that pupils will be in GCSE groups (all likely to be smaller than form groups) will be relevant, because it reduces the prejudice to the school. On the other side of the coin, the need to be close to a new home and make local friends, potentially specific GCSE courses available, detriment due to long journey, specific extra-curricular provision etc etc etc are all available. None of them need to be 'brilliant' if the case against admittance isn't strong. In some cases, the case against admittance will be strong - 4 or 5 appeals to realistic schools may be needed. But it remains the only way of 'creating' a place where there is currently none.

The point is that you state "I would prefer to get my child into a school rather than expending energy on a futile appeal". At the moment, the ONLY realistic way of getting her child into a school is through appealing. There isn't another way of 'getting her child into a school', as I suspect that she will also have to appeal to the Essex schools. You are setting up a false opposite, a straw man - there is, as far as I can see, no other reasonably timely way of acquiring a school place. Her oldest child only has 10 half terms of their GCSE courses to go - sitting around waiting for another of them to go by is NOT a sensible way to go.

Admissions experts on here would be very, very willing to help the OP craft her case (by PM if required) A LONG AS she approaches it reasonably and rationally.

teacherwith2kids

I doubt whether she will have to appeal to the Essex schools. One of them is certainly under-subscribed. I worked in the other one and the head's attitude is usually "the more the merrier". Both of them are nearer than Sheredes and, whilst possibly not ideal, certainly have better behaviour and pupils who want to work do well. There are only two Bishop's Stortford schools to which the OP could appeal. Both almost certainly already have a long waiting list and any vacancies in the Essex schools will undermine her argument.

No, vacancies in Essex schools will not undermine her argument unless she has been offered those places and has rejected them. The only schools under discussion at an appeal should be the offered school and the appeal school. The panel should not conjecture about possible offers from other schools.

So what grounds does she have to appeal to one of the BIshop's Stortford schools? She can't claim that there are no school places within a reasonable distance because one of the Essex schools is practically on her door step - there just happens to be a county border between her and the school. I think her DC is a boy, so there are only two schools who could take him in Bishop's Stortford itself and both are heavily over-subscribed. Bishop's Stortford High is notorious for arguing against extra admissions. She might stand a chance of a place at Hockerill, but only if she's prepared to pay for boarding .

Anyway, I've had enough of this thread. Interestingly, I had a very similar response from MNers seven years ago.

If anybody is interested in the current situation with extra places in Bishop's Stortford, they can read this:

www.stortfordcf.org.uk/news/proposedschoolsrelocation.html

The secondary school place saga has been going on for years!

If there is a school in another county practically on OP's doorstep (with spaces?), then I don't understand why she hasn't applied there.

She has cited "legal reasons" for not considering a school in Essex. But right at the top of th thread, you will see she was informed of vacancies at an Essex school considerably nearer than the current offered one and even before offer letter she rejected it. And LEA have gone on to make second offer.

She has not explained these 'legal reasons' (and I can't think of any), and like teacherwith2kids I have been wondering if there are misunderstandings. Accepting the vacancies at the Essex school would make no difference to success or otherwise of a appeals to other schools. And any legal issues would have to be put fully to the panel.

Thanks again medi - I did read the thread, honest but it was a long time ago.have just re-read!

Tiggytape is spot on.

If the current offer was the only one that had been made the OP might have been able to argue that it was not in a reasonable distance and the panel might have agreed. However, the LA could argue that the OP has rejected places at Essex schools nearer to home. This could undermine the reasonable distance argument and would also justify a refusal to provide free transport. As it seems no places at Essex schools were formally offered we are in a bit of a grey area so the appeal panel could reject the LA's argument but I wouldn't bank on it.

Notwithstanding that, the OP can still argue that her child will be disadvantaged unless they attend the appeal school. The appeal panel will decide if the disadvantage to the OP's child outweighs the disadvantage to the school of having to cope with an additional pupil.

The only legal reason I can imagine for not accepting a school in Essex would be if the child's father has a court order preventing the child going to school in Essex. I am struggling to think of any other legal reason that would prevent the OP accepting a place at a school in Essex.

gaba - I would strongly recommend that you don't bring up at appeal any of the things you have said on here about Hockerill or the LA. Even if you were correct on these subjects (which I don't believe you are) there is no upside to raising them in the hearing. They are not relevant. At best it will make no difference to the outcome. At worst you may alienate the appeal panel in which case they will be less likely to give you the benefit of any doubt.

Add message | Report | Message poster Lester2014 Thu 05-Feb-15 11:01:37
So I need some advice. I applied to a school from an address out of the local catchment as I was in the process of buying a place right near the school. I purchased my new place just as places were being allocated and I was given a place. I've lived there for three years now right on the doorstep to the school and now need more space. I kept my old place. Can I move back to the old place? Is there a rule or a law that applies? I have physically lived on the doorstep for three years. Surely I'm entitled to do as I please now? Any advice appreciated.

Lester - as long as your child is on role for that school then you can live where you like!