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.

As for the public transport, yes there is a train line, but it would be easier for me to drive them.

My point is though that it would be easier still to walk them to school, if I could get them into a local one.

www.hertsdirect.org/services/edlearn/admissions/adminfo/appinyear/inyrvac/

Thsi shows a list of all schools in Hertforshire, who has spaces and in what year. I dont know if you live near any of those schools but there does seem to be places.

Thanks Tantrums, I have that list and I know it says there are places, but when you apply or phone, it turns out there is a huge waiting list. So I don't know why it says p[laces on it. Sometimes there are even places for schools like Hokirill and that usually has about 50 waiting for every boarding place. So I don't know.

Tiggytape, I noticed they changed the guidelines in February so they no longer recommend the 30%. I will be making inquires into why that is the case. I fully understand all your points, all I wanted to do was point out how there is a problem here, and see if anyone had any positive ideas.

I wasn't expecting any miracles from the council, but to just tell me to get lost like they did was a bit of a surprise. More importantly, if there is no law that stipulates how far they can send your children, what's to stop them just telling me 'we have found a place for you in Scotland' 'on your bike'.

There needs to be some guidelines here. I know a few others from around here who are also unhappy about the situation. If it continues people will be up in arms.

How far is the school with places in Essex from your house? (Apologies, I can't see whether you ave answered that one).

If it is 15 miles away, then that is obviiously a problem and you are entirely entitled to get hot under the collar about the idea even being mentioned.

If it is 3, or even 5 miles away, then that's NOT a big problem, tbh, as long as there is transport (and if that is your nearest school WITH PLACES then there wold be help with transport costs).

I know it seems daft to go past lots of closer schools on your way to one for your children BUT you are late applicants. You have to accept that it puts you at a disadvantage - a school does not have elastic walls, and they cannot reasonably be asked to either admit more and more children or to remove children alreayd there to give incomers spaces.

Best option is to accept the places in the nearest school available to you - counties, btw, seem a bit irrelevant here, surely it is easier to get to a closer school rather than stay 'in county' where the nearest school with places may be many, many miles away, get on the waiting list for closer schools, appeal and keep waiting for a place to arise.

The school admission code rules are very clear, if you live in Herts and you have applied for a school or schools in Herts and been rejected as they are full, then they have to find you a school for your children.
As others have said it is almost for sure not going to be the best school in the area but they have a legal duty to find you school places. Look it the other way around, if your children were not in their registered school but playing truant, then the LA would be there quick enough handing out fines and threatening court action.
I would write to the school admission manager at Herts confirming that you have been rejected from school places at 4 near by schools and that you wish to appeal for all 4 schools for places in year 8 and 10. However you are also aware that it is a legal requirement for them to find suitable places and therefore you require them to find places in a suitable local school within the next 14 days. If after 14 days there has been no offer of school places then you expect them to instigate the Fair Access Protocol and offer them places at the nearest school to your home address.
No idea what they will do, though I can imagine they will offer you places at any school that has places in Herts, but if you do not force the issue they will just take their time even though it is imperative that your children are attending school.

What is considered a reasonable travelling distance does vary. However when it comes to providing assistance to get to school for a secondary school that is usually three miles. However when it comes to admissions there are legal precedents that would say that an offer of a school over an hours travelling distance is considered appropriate.

Admission, that's really interesting - so even if you're 20 metres into County A, then the county has to find you school places within that county (even if up to an hour's travelling distance away) rather than being able to work co-operatively with the neighbouring county to give a place in a school that might be much closer, even 100 metres from the front door, but in the 'wrong' county?

[I appreciate that many aprents would apply to the close school in the next county anyway, but it's interesting that, theoretically, unless the parents actively apply across the boundary, it is an 'absolute' boundary in admissions terms)

tiggytape in your first post (apologies, on phone, can't quote) you said you can't apply directly to another LEA and have to go through your home authority. This has now changed. Herts and other London authorities are no longer co-ordinating in year admissions from sept 2013, so if you wanted a school place in a neighbouring authority you would apply to that authority directly. That's my understanding of it anyway?

OP Write to herts. Say that as they have not been unable to find you a school place, you expect to be considered under the fair access protocol. Herts have to find you a school place.

No - the county has to find you a place. That place could be in a neighbouring county, the point is your home county/ LEA has to find the space, not you and not the neighbouring county.

So County A can say 'we have found you a place 3 miles away in County B', but what they can't say is 'ask County B for a place'?

Is the problem that they are trying to find two places in the same school? And are you in BS?

Hi guys,

In reverse order!

Yes I am in BS, no they are not trying to find 2 places, they are not trying to do much at all. They dismissed it out of hand at the off.

Teacher with two kids- The rules seem to change every day, if they are even rules. Until February it was how Admission stated it, but now I am not so sure! Its like they are all running away from any responsibility and it gets harder and harder to pin anything down.

Admission- Thank you very much, you have given me a lot to go on, and a few good ideas there. I will be doing as you suggest tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone else too, and I would like to add that this isn't so much about my own issue here, I am more worried about the situation as a whole, there are a lot of people in this predicament, and something needs to be done.

To be honest, I had already decided that if I cannot get a half decent school within a reasonable distance I will be home schooling anyway. Until Admissions just gave me a few ideas, I had pretty much resigned myself to it. For others home schooling may not be an option though.

So there are a lot of people who are late applicants and face the same problem of finding it hard to get school places?

Whilst I have sympathy I would have thought this would have been sorted out before you moved.

Ilovegeorgeclooney it's impossible to sort before you move, because admissions authorities will not offer places before a permanent address is secured. The OP could only ask for a place once she had moved.

I think I know the two schools that you are referring to regarding a low intake of local children. But just imagine what it's like applying for year 7! One of them appears to admit about 50 siblings a year out of an intake of 77! Very hmmm. Its main criteria (after siblings) is distance and apparently some BS children DO actually get a place there . If the other is the faith school then it's because the diocese (?) is so large. Both get a lot of stick in very oversubscribed years but maintain they are applying their admission rules fairly.

If you are considering Mountfitchet, it's come out of special measures recently and turning itself around, although not in the same league as BS schools at the moment. Is it worth taking up places there but going on waiting lists for the others?

Sorry I might have given you the wrong impression. It is for the LA to find you school places but it does not have to be in that LA, it can be in another LA. The reason they will only do that as an absolute last resort is that they will have to pay the other LA for educating your children if they are in a different LA. Hence I suspect that they would rather give you places at the other end of the LA and say they have fulfilled their legal requirement to give you school places than pay for school places in Essex.
Also as of yesterday, in-year admissions are now the responsibility of the school not the LA, so you should apply direct for a place to a school in another LA or to the schools in Herts directly. However any admission appeal is still through the Local Authority if it is a maintained school or the school if it is its own admission authority.

Sorry teacher with kids, the school i believe they want to send DC to is about 9 miles. So right in between.

The train would take hours so I would drive them, but at rush hour entering the M11 it would still take an hour.

Besides from what I have been reading about the school in addition to the distance I would just home school.

DD1 goes to school 9 miles away as it's her nearest suitable (special) school. They give her a taxi/minibus.

"Sorry teacher with kids, the school i believe they want to send DC to is about 9 miles. So right in between."

Is that an in-County school? I thought there were no places at all in County?

'So there are a lot of people who are late applicants and face the same problem of finding it hard to get school places?'

No, there are a lot of people who have trouble getting their kids into the one school for the whole of BS who take children from the 'lower' classes.

There are 3 other state funded schools in town, but some how they don't have to take the riff raff and all of their pupils are from privileged backgrounds.

Or to put it simply there are 3 private schools operating here, being funded by taxpayer money, while the taxpayers have to fight for a place in the ONLY comprehensive.

Hi Lougle,

No it is not an in county school.

Their letter states NO PLACES IN THIS COUNTY.

I was taken aback by the curtness of it. This is the reason I joined up here... More to point out what is going on than to find out what I personally could do about it.

""Sorry teacher with kids, the school i believe they want to send DC to is about 9 miles. So right in between."

So that is a school in Essex?

How they came to be full isn't going to help you find the two places you need in time.

Have you actually been offered a place at the 9miles away school?

I'm with meditrina on this one. In many places with good schools, whether or not they were selective (I am unsure how to interpret "but some how they don't have to take the riff raff and all of their pupils are from privileged backgrounds" - are they academically selective, which I agree is indirect social discimination in general but allowable under current rules, or directly socially selective, which isn't?), finding in-year places is HARD, although the appeals process is a little more flexible at secondary age because you are not dealing with infant class sizes and the rest.

I understand that you are angry because there are no places. However, in many ways the selectiveness of the schools (academic or social) is not the nub of the problem - any school full in the relevant years would be the same, regardless of how it came to be full. The nub of the problem is a) you are a late applicant and b) the LEA is not working as hard as it should to find you a school place within 1 hour's travelling time, or invoking the FAP if they can't do so.