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.

[FannyMcNally]

If you live within walking distance of the BS schools then you must be within walking distance of BS station. It's a really easy train journey with no changes. By road, I don't think it's 30 miles, although I could be wrong, more like between 15 and 20 I would have thought and half an hour tops in a car. I can understand that you are upset about the situation but I would accept the places and go on the waiting lists for all the BS schools.

[keepsmiling12345]

OP any chance you moved to be near outstanding schools and are now really pissed off to discover you don't get an automatic right of entry into them? By the way, love your "local schools for local children" when you moved there just before summer holidays!

As others have said, schools are full. This isn't school or Council victimising you...it is simply what happens at vast majority of schools in south east England. Your council have offered you a school which other posters are suggesting is more doable than you are claiming. Ether way, council has met their obligation and can't magically conjure up places in the schools you may prefer.

[gaba]

Well alien,

It took the council 4 months to offer that school, and it doesn't meet any obligation.

The local schools for local children as you put it is just common sense. Having kids criss crossing the country to go back and forth to school just costs time and energy. Sooner or later it will have to end.

What difference does it make when I moved into the area?

That doesn't make any sense, someone has pointed out that some parents can't get any schools nearby even though they have lived in the area all their lives.

And all that brings me to investigate further the local schools without local kids in them. Surprise surprise they are rammed full of the kids of local government, and the rich.

[gaba]

I going to investigate further into this now.

I think I need to start taking down numbers and photographing the parents coming and going to these schools, I can soon find out who is who.

I have just decided, someone needs to stand up against all this corruption.

[bruffin]

The children i know who go to school in Bishop Stortford from Cheshunt arent rich or kids of local government. They are catholic and St Marys is their nearest catholic school. Even the ones that went to Bishop Stortford College arent rich and have gone without to pay the fees or have won scholarships.

[gaba]

Hi, Bruffin

Thats OK if you are Catholic, or can afford fees.

I have been told in no uncertain terms to educate my own kids.

As Alien just pointed out to me above... My kind arn't welcome here.

[prh47bridge]

It is not a 'private' school where the parents pay a fee, it is a 'exclusive' school where rich kids magically get a top but free education.

Only if it is grossly breaking the law and ignoring its own admission criteria. Its admission criteria are pretty standard - LAC, siblings, a small number of places on aptitude for MFL or music, children of qualifying staff, then up to two thirds of the remaining places going to children from feeder schools with one third going to children from other schools, distance being the tie breaker. If they were behaving as you suggest they would be facing huge numbers of successful appeals, references to the EFA and so on. And as I already pointed out your allegation that they get far more per pupil than other schools is simply wrong.

And they don't have to be "genius level to keep up the scores". A school such as this cannot permanently exclude a child for poor academic performance.

Are you seriously telling me they are not just being bloody minded?

No they are not. If the 27th closest school is the nearest one with places and is within a reasonable distance of your home that is the one you will be offered. That is the way the system works. What reason would they have for being bloody minded?

[bruffin]

You chose to move there. Did you ask at the schools if they had places in the first place before moving. FWIW my children go to school 7 miles away due to DS passing an aptitude test, we arent rich either.

[tethersend]

Please don't photograph parents coming out of local schools.

You really won't be doing yourself any favours.

[gaba]

Well Bruffin do you have to check with the council to see if they have local school places before you move into an area?

I would not have thought so, though next time I will admit I will do just that, but I shouldn't have to.


Now PRH47 I sm not sure what school you are talking about but your list doesn't tally up with anything on my local school's criteria. The rules have all changed again this year, are you sure you are up to date?

How do you know that my allegation of the payments they receive from the government is wrong, you don't state which school I am supposedly talking about, and I bet you have not even checked the numbers. You just state that 'I am simply wrong'.

The times did a full report on per capita costs a while back, I will look for the article and post a link.



The bloody mindedness is probably not the correct description, they are probably just frustrated at their own impotence to affect anything, and taking it out on my kids. (Much the same way you are made to wait for hours in A and E to prove that the NHS doesn't have enough resources)

[Northernlurker]

I have a friend who moved and was looking for in year places. Yes she investigated where would have places and where she wanted her dc to go at the same time as she investigated where to live. The council are not responsible for your lack of planning.

'I think I need to start taking down numbers and photographing the parents coming and going to these schools, I can soon find out who is who' This will get you arrested. Don't be so absurd.

[TheDoctrineOfSpike]

Even if the council started building a new school tomorrow next door to your house, it wouldn't be ready in time for you.

Even if there are some pupils at the school you want who perhaps joined when criteria about short term renting etc were not as strict as they are now, they are still at the school and are unlikely to have places removed so that school is still full.

Practically speaking, there is nothing you can do about the schools you want being full. Photographing parents will be a waste of your time.

[bruffin]

Gaba
Yes, we were thinking of moving when my ds was in yr8 and the first thing i did was look at what schools would be available to them and in the end DH decided to commute 100 miles a day rather than move dcs school.
Hertfordshire are only asking you to do a journey that 100s of others are doing by choice.

[keepsmiling12345]

OP what an absurd allegation to make about me. Nowhere in my post did I suggest your "kind" aren't welcome. I have no idea about who you are and you have no idea about me. I was, perhaps harshly, trying to point out that I would have more sympathy if you had applied at usual application time and found you couldn't get a local school. (I have friends in london in the same situation and have every sympathy for them). But you moved to the area after all schools were full so I can't see how railing about how you now are not magically being given a place at a local school is fair.

[SolomanDaisy]

I'm mystified by this thread. Do people really move house without checking where their GCSE age kids will go to school? Then instead of concentrating on getting them to school, spend their time planning to photograph parents arriving at local schools? Surely not.

[difficultpickle]

Fwiw I have a school aged child and I don't know anyone who has moved without finding out where their children will go to school first, and that includes friends moving from abroad to the UK and vv.

Hertfordshire is a wealthy area and lots of local state schools will have wealthy parents. Weirdly lots of people are happy with state education and do not see the need to choose private schools even if they can afford to do so.

Good luck finding a suitable school. I assume you are on the waiting lists for your local schools?

[freddiefrog]

I don't really understand where in Bishop's Stortford you live if you live in walking distance of the high schools, but not in walking distance of the station.

I used to live in Stortford, the station is at the edge of the town centre. Broxbourne is about 4 stops up the line

Are there really no places at Boys High, Herts & Essex, Birchwood, Leventhorpe, Newport, Stansted, Helena Romanes, Saffron Walden, the schools in Harlow? I would have though all of those were closer than Hoddesdon

As for checking for school places, well yes, I would have thought it was common sense to make sure you can get your child into a place at the school you want before upping sticks and moving.

My friend is in the process of moving and she's been told by the LA in the area to which she's moving to, that it's tough luck - if you move mid-way through a school year and can't get into a school. The council will find you a place but it could be anywhere and the council won't pay for transport

[prh47bridge]

I am still talking about Hockerill.

I have checked the numbers for this school. The amount they receive from government per pupil (approximately £5400) is broadly similar to other secondary schools in the area. They also receive income from parents in the form of boarding fees where appropriate which takes their total income per pupil up to around £10800. I am sure some parents will be receiving assistance with these fees (e.g. some children of Armed Forces personnel) but in most cases the fees will be paid in full by the parents.

The admission criteria I gave were for non-boarding places. For boarding places the criteria are:

• LAC
• Children of members of the Armed Forces who qualify for financial assistance from the MoD
• Children with a significant degree of boarding need
• Siblings
• Random allocation

Children have a significant degree of boarding need if their parents are Crown Servants working abroad, or the child is at risk with an unstable home environment, or the parents spend much of the year abroad for work purposes, or the parents are resident abroad, or the family do not have a stable home address, or the parents' work means they are unable to care for the children outside school hours.

All the above is fairly typical for a state boarding school.

The criteria for 2014 (both day places and boarding) do not appear to have changed significantly from those for 2013.

If you are talking about another local boarding school please tell me which one and I will check it out.

[freddiefrog]

I always thought boarding at Hockerill was predominantly children of armed forces personnel.

My Mum was a house mistress there when I was a kid (albeit 25-30 years ago) and it was pretty much all armed forces then.

I haven't lived in Stortford for 10 years although most of my family and a lot of friends are still there, I hadn't realised how out of touch I was

[prh47bridge]

Given that armed forces are number 2 priority on the boarding admission criteria I suspect that is still true. I would be surprised if they get many applications for boarding places from looked after children.

[prh47bridge]

And if it is still true I suspect the MoD will be contributing towards the boarding fees for many of them, so my statement that "in most cases the fees will be paid in full by the parents" may be wrong. However, to characterise them as "rich kids" is also wrong.

[JakeBullet]

You sound like a self entitled twat to me and your comments to PRH47 were rude and uncalled for given that this poster works in the system you are dismissing and evidently knows considerably more about how this works than YOU apparently do.

I feel nothing but respect for PRH who responded to your comments civilly and with more facts unlike me who thinks you have displayed your true colours and cannot help saying so.

You moved just before the school holidays thinking you would get an automatic place in a nearby school, you were wrong and have been offered a school place as near as possible. If it is a state school then you would even be offered transport if it is over a certain distance.

" They" are not being bloody minded but YOU are being so....stamping your feet and shouting "it's not fair" because "they" cannot magically produce a school place any nearer.

[freddiefrog]

Hockerill was certainly not full of "rich kids" when my Mum worked there (she left when I was early 20s so 15 odd years ago), just a variety of children from different back grounds whose parents were in the armed forces. They also had children from disadvantaged backgrounds whose parents were unable to look after them full-time for whatever reasons.

I have a friend who has children as day pupils there. They're not "rich kids", they just live really close. As do most of their friends.

My friends and family all have children in Herts & Essex, Boys High, Birchwood, Newport Grammar, their children all have friends from the town.

When you say "there are no school places" do you actually mean they have no places in the schools you want your kids to go to?.