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.

[gaba]

Russians you are patently wrong, I have seen the figures for the school and it has less than a 10% intake from within 5 miles of the school.

Everyone knows most of the children there are from London and the suburbs. 'They just do'!

As for your point about me being excitable and using emotive language, well if you find the truth to be emotive then maybe you are the one who is over excitable.

Yes there are many good helpful posters on this board, take FannyMcNally above, making good points with interesting information.

I was just derailed last night by the odd one or two who were throwing in little short lines designed to aggravate, that I should have ignored. Maybe troll is a bit strong, without sifting through their points on other threads.

[lougle]

I'm mystified as to why you are taking such an aggressive stance. This section of MN has a number of admissions and appeals experts, who could help you to formulate an effective appeal.

Instead of focusing on your appeal and giving your children the best hope of getting a school place, you are focusing your outrage on factors outside of your control.

You have steadfastly refused to answer the question I have asked (twice) and others have asked about the school which 'they want to give you' that is 9 miles away.

If this is how you are behave at an appeal you will be sure to alienate the panel and if they have a borderline decision to make, it will go against you.

[lougle]

Incidentally, you are classing yourself as 'local' because you happen to have bought a house in the area. You are implying that there is a conspiracy against 'local' children. The fact is that you weren't 'local' until you moved and by the time you moved the school was full. You are speaking as if you have lived here for years, fully expected a place at your local school and have been denied it maliciously.

[lougle]

On the point of the 12 selective places:

"1.24 Schools that have arrangements to select by aptitude must not allow for more than 10 per cent of the total admissions intake to be allocated on the basis of such aptitude (even if the school has more than one specialism). The specialist subjects on which a school may select by aptitude are:
a) physical education or sport, or one or more sports;
b) the performing arts, or any one or more of those arts;
c) the visual arts, or any one or more of those arts;
d) modern foreign languages, or any such language; and
e) design and technology and information technology. Only schools which selected on either of these specialist subjects in the school year 2007/08 and every subsequent year may continue to do so." School Admissions Code 2012 pages 12-13

10% of the total admissions intake is 120/10=12. There is no distinction between boarding/day places.

[gaba]

Hi,

Quite a few questions so here goes.

The issue with the commute is more of a principle matter that is true, but previously I lived near the Chelmsford school so there wasn't a big commute.

The principle issue is that if there is no written guidelines or limits on distance then they could easily send you anywhere.

I have not been offered the place in Essex, because the rules state that I must apply to the council to find me a place in Essex, currently I have only applied to them to find a place in their county. Its just their rules.

As far as the school in Essex is concerned, they havn't named it, I am assuming they mean the one with plenty of spaces. Well I am not too concerned since I would switch to home school if that is all that is available, since 2 hours a day commute for the children and 4 hours for me is too much for the education they would get.

Lougle don't worry I will save the rant about the unfairness for the message boards. Maybe I will start a new thread, since I am getting too carried away with the principle of this (the distance thing) and this thread is titled with my personal circumstance. Thanks to everyone who gave me good advice though I will post an update when something happens.

[meditrina]

"The principle issue is that if there is no written guidelines or limits on distance then they could easily send you anywhere. "

No problem here then. There is written regulation of this. Mileage is not spelt out, as it depends on local geography and transport links. But it has been established in terms of journey time and must be "reasonable". Binding precedent means max 1 hour each way for secondary but in practice it can be much lower.

Your DC will qualify for free transport over 3 miles for secondary.

Term starts this week, and you appear to be without a place for either DC. How long since you first applied for places? Timeliness of offer is also something that an appeal panel might consider. It is important you keep up the pressure on Admissions for an offer - it will help any eventual appeal if you can show all the foot-dragging was by them.

[PatriciaHolm]

There is no absolute requirement for a normal state school to take a percentage of local children. Some may have that as an admission criteria, most won't and will simply do it by a mixture of siblings then distance. If they are grammar schools, free schools or religious schools then admission policies will be different, but whatever their policies are they need to be explicit and they need to follow them. They can't just cherry pick rich parents from London, unless these are the parents who fit the admission criteria.

[PatriciaHolm]

Oh dear thread has moved on a lot! Sorry I am somewhat behind. Good luck with the place search.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

I didn't say they were not from London - though I doubt most of them are. I said they weren't rich kids. That's an example of the emotive language you were using.

[prh47bridge]

I have not been offered the place in Essex, because the rules state that I must apply to the council to find me a place in Essex, currently I have only applied to them to find a place in their county. Its just their rules.

Not sure what you mean by this. If the local schools are full up it is up to Hertfordshire to find you a place. They may come up with one in Essex but that is up to them (and, as Admission says, it is unlikely). You could apply direct to schools in Essex but you cannot apply to Essex County Council - they won't accept your application because you don't live in Essex.

If Hertfordshire are telling you to apply to Essex CC they are wrong. Even if their rules say this is what you must do they are wrong. The Admissions Code takes precedence over any rules they set.

[lougle]

Perhaps what they suggested was to try 'Essex schools' rather than 'try Essex'?

[FannyMcNally]

It is secondary to the thread but I just wanted to clear up with lougle the way in which the 10% of aptitude places is unfair to local children applying to Hockerill. The 10% is taken off of the day places available and not shared with the boarding places so out of 68 places, 12 are allocated to students passing the aptitude test leaving 56 places to local children when it should be 62 or 63. As an example year 2011 had 38 sibling places so that would have left less than 20 places available on feeder/distance. If you take the intake as a whole that is a very low percentage of outsiders getting in! One of their other day criteria is 'the need for future boarding' and they sometimes allocate 5 places on this. I've heard parents are VERY creative when applying in this category

[FannyMcNally]

I've just had a thought gaba, you're not confusing BS High School with the (independent) BS College are you? Your percentages of very few local children would be absolutely correct in that case!

[eddiemairswife]

Just looked on my local authority guidance for in-year applications. It says that from 1st Sept 2013 any any requests for out of authority schools must be made to that authority and not the home one. This is news to me and I shall ask about it when I next hear an appeal. I'm in the Midlands.

[lougle]

Fanny I wasn't saying it can't be perceived to be unfair. I'm saying that it complies with the Admissions code, which simply says that no more than 10% of the total admissions intake may be selective. In the case of Hockerill, that is the 62 day places plus 58 boarding. There is no requirement that those places are evenly distributed.

[cory]

These are the things you have to hang onto:

if your child has not got into any of the schools you applied for your LEA has a duty to find them another school- whether in your county or another

this is not your job

if the distance to this school is above 3 miles they have a duty to arrange transport

again, this is not your job- they will have to fork out on a taxi and CRB registered driver to deliver your child at the school in time for lessons

However, once they have done the above, their duties towards you end: once you have rejected their offer, you are on your own.

So think carefully about what you want: do you want a situation where your children do have a school place and a guaranteed means of getting there, or do you want to risk a situation where they are stuck at home with nothing?Remember, you can still appeal or apply again if you do take up the offer the LEA are making you.

[2GirlsDad]

Hockerill is a great school if you can get a free place. If you pay for boarding then it is not so obvious.
Regarding fairness to local children, you have to ask how fair is it that local children get education that is in fact benefiting to some extent from the extra funds from the high boarding fees...
What is also clear is that day place pupils addresses change at a very fast rate after admission. You'd expect that families that need boarding will be a bit more mobile than he others, but at Hockerill it is the other way around!

[daphnedill]

gaba, Does Birchwood have no places? I know it doesn't have the same reputation as the other BS schools, but it's not terrible. I'm guessing the places you're being offered are at Stansted Mountfitchet or one of the Harlow schools.

I'm afraid I've been in the same situation. I live in Essex, but within spitting distance of the Cambridgeshire border. When I first came here, my ds couldn't get a place at the local primary school, partly because it was full to the brim with out-of-catchment children, some from Cambridgeshire.

Essex offered him a place at a school which was on the verge of special measures at the time, but a Cambridgeshire school was geographically nearer to where we lived and so I opted for that. Essex had to pay for travel.

Hertfordshire does have to find you a place, but it would possibly be in somewhere like Stevenage. There are many Essex schools nearer than Stevenage to Bishops Stortford, so you have the option of sending your dc there. Put your dd on the waiting list for your chosen school(s) and just wait. I went to appeal and the local government ombudsman, but all to no avail until a place came up (which it did eventually).

[daphnedill]

PS. Just realised Mountfitchet College has been renamed Forest Hall School.

[gaba]

Hi, 2Girlsdad.

I would put it this way, how fair is it that a private boarding school, is receiving state school money and at a very high per capita rate.

That is to say some rich kids getting their high fees paid by the taxpayer. The point I was making before is precisely that there are no local children, or very few anyhow.

[gaba]

Hi, daphnedill.

First time on here in a while and you just posted before me. In the end last week they finally offered Sheredes, that is best part of 30 miles away!

We estimate that on the morning run it would take well over 2 hours to get there, and since it is nearly impossible to use public transport (7 or 9 changes of bus and train) we would have to drive them. The council said there would be no chance of taxi fees being paid, I suppose because the cost would be too high.

So for the time being we have not accepted their offer and will look into home education, as we were recommended to do by the council. I guess this is Herfordshire county council's cunning wheeze at austerity measures, I wonder how many other children have no school to go to in this county. They must be saving thousands.

[bruffin]

Bishop Stortford to Sheredes is a very easy journey by train trip certainly nothing like 2 hours. Bishop stortford is on same line as Broxbourne which is a 15 minute walk from the school. There are very regular trains and fast ones. I use that line to get to work and children come a lot farther than hoddesdon to get to schools in Bishop Stortford.
Sheredes was a failing school but i think its on way up. Unfortunately its in between two outstanding school

[meditrina]

Which private boards school is receiving state money?

I know there are occasional SS placements into the private sector, but thught those are in cases of exceptional need only, not enough to keep a private school afloat year on year.

And if the school is 30 mikes, then the LEa has to offer transport. For secondary age, this might be a free termtime travel pass. Did they offer one? For if they offered nothing, then this needs to be pursued as it is a clear breach of their duty.