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,

I do not know anyone, at all, however ignorant about education they may be, who has moved house with school age children who has not at the very least rung the council when the move was proposed to find out which schools (if any) have places for them, or might do at the time that they were needed.

I also cannot believe that anyone who has actually been through the process of applying to primary or secondary schools could be totally ignorant of the rules related to such applications, to such an extent that they believe that simply turning up and asking for places mid-year would result in a place.....

All these tantrums and posturing seem to be the kind of bluster my 12 year old son comes up with when he KNOWS he has made a mess of something and tries REALLY hard to blame everyone else for his mistake - but he has the advantage that he does so for about 5 minutes and then it's done....and he's 12.

Nobody is deliberately 'depriving you of a place'. Pretty much everyone will be working / will have worked to the rules as they are - remember that there are no rules about moving away once a child is in a school (except in the single case that they are moving back to a permanent address after a temporary rental for admissions purposes, which locally triggers an enquiry and usually a removal of the school place). You have been offered a place in a school which has places. You are choosing to have a tantrum about it not being the school that you want, despite having made a huge error in failing to check up whether any such place was ever a realistic prospect.

Schools are not allowed to 'keep places in case someone moves into the area'. Councils are obliged only to offer you an available school place within an age-appropriately reasonable travelling distance (and as other posters have said, if you are THAT far from the station, then you don't live where you have implied you live by your statement of which schools are 'really local' to you .. do you just mean 'those are the schools I would be WILLING to travel to, even though I'm not really close enough to them to have ever had any chance of getting a place if I had done proper research).

Gaba,

Ona more positive note, how many of your local schools have you put in carefully-worded, cogent, coherent and rational appeals to? When are those appeals due? How many waiting lists are you one?

If the answer to that is 'none' then you need to get moving, as 5 months has been a long time.

• Put yourself on as many waiting lists as you can.
• Appeal for all the schools that you would even consider.
• Put together a rational and cogent representation to each of these appeals.
• Be flexible - consider separating your children into different schools for the moment, for example.

All those things are in YOUR hands, not the council's. It's not their job to 'argue your case' with every local school it is your responsibility to appeal and to do so on a rational and (hopefully) vaguely realistic basis, based on where you ACTUALLY live and the acceptable schools that might most realistically have places available.

I am presuming in the meantime that you have given them 5 months of good quality HE? HE is fun, I rather miss my HEing days although my children are happily schooled now.

Gaba, it might be worth investigating the Essex schools yourself. E.g. Newport, Helena Romanes, Saffron Walden, Forest Hall. I think they are all closer than Sheredes and Newport especially is only a couple of stops on the train.

Fanny, I should probably add to my list of questions:

• How many schools have you rung directly? How recently have you rung each school you might consider within, say, a 10 mile radius (or longer along good communting routes for you)? How many have you visited so as to be able to put together a really convincing appeal as to why they might be the best schools for your children?

Or are you just expecting 'someone else' to sort out the problem for you, while your children miss education?

HI fannyMcnNally

I have llooked into the Essex schools. I didn't want to let the council apply to Essex because that then means I am not entitled to a Hertford school. There is a very good legal reason for this.

I do like the schools you have listed though and it would be nice to get a place in one of them but those four are also fairly well over subscribed and I would be very unlikely to get a place at any of them, so I have had to hold out for a Hertford school.

teacherwith2kids

If your local council could not offer you a school within 25 miles of your home I think you would be pretty disappointed with them too.

The council are supposed to be responsible for all this arn't they?

What are we paying them for and their 700 plus staff for educating children? , if they cannot find school places why not do away with the whole department and we will just all find our own way.

Gaba, but there are clear responsibilties in this.

The council has offered you a school place - they have fulfilled their responsibility. They have no responsibility to 'create' a school place for you.

YOUR responsibility is now to appeal for schools that you would prefer, as well as getting yourself onto every single waiting list available. that is not, and never has been, the council's job. It is YOURS.

Are all 700 working on admissions? Are you sure?

Freddie Frog

Things have changed a lot since we were at school.

I am not complaining about the way Hokerill is run, Obviously if there is money available to people then they will grab it. I don't even know why Hokerill keeps coming up (though it is an obvious target)

When I said there are NO SCHOOL PLACES it means that is what I have on a printed letter from the council, and that was their position for four months until we were finally 'offered' a place at a school nearly 3 hours away.

I would be very disappointed IN MYSELF for not having done proper research about school availability and places shortage in my new area.

I would also be disappointed IN MYSELF for not understanding where my responsibilty lay in finding places for my children through all means available, including waiting lists and appeals.

I would be disappointed that I had chosen to move into an area where there was such a shortage of in-year places - although this is not very uncommon - and would feel sad not to have been lucky enough that someone moved out just as I moved in. I would feel a little grumpy about the way that 'the system' works - although bear in mind that where you lived previously, your children were probably 'blocking' school places for children moving in in the same way as all those children cuyrrently in your localish schools are unwittingly - and innocently - 'blocking' the places that you would like. But I would at least have bothered to UNDERSTAND that system.

Gaba, so i ask again - how many schools have you appealed to, and with what success? That is the avenue open to you, and you have surely had access to all the information that tells you that you are able to use the appeals system?

Sitting saying 'but they haven't found a place for me, woe is me' woefully misunderstands YOUR responsibilities in this.

Three hours away?

teacherwith2kids

I just read your second post with all the nasty vitriol about 12 year old tantrums and so on....

Well who is having the tantrums here and resorting to personal insults?

I do not consider being offered a school 30 miles away a serious offer.

This has nothing to do with not being offered the school I want.

There are 27 schools closer to me than that, why not offer me any one of those?

One of the 3 on my doorstep would be nice. Failing that there are 6 more just a short ride on the bus.

What is the point of all these council staff if they cannot offer ANY education for my children?

How many of those schools have you applied to and appealed for?

Gaba,

Do any of those 27 have places? Have you rung them to ask?

Are you on all the waiting lists? Have you pending appeals to every single one of the schools that you would like?

If they do not have places, then you CANNOT be offered places there - the council staff cannot 'magic' up places that are not there BUT YOU CAN, because YOU can appeal, and ask a full school to take on an extra child because of the 'balance of prejudice' argument.

Stop waiting for an offer - surely you now understand that no member of staff can offer you a place if it dosn't exist - and prepare all your appeals.

I do not consider being offered a school 30 miles away a serious offer.

Unfortunately, it would be considered a reasonable offer within cureent legal interpretation. Legla challenge is, of course, an option available to you.

This has nothing to do with not being offered the school I want.
So ring your nearest scool in Special Measures, and see whether they might have places. Such schools often has a faster turnover than other schools, and thus you may be more likely to get places there. if you do not want to do so, then i am afraid that this is at least slightly about 'a school that you want'.

There are 27 schools closer to me than that, why not offer me any one of those?

Because they do not have places, as expelained above. You can appeal to any of them, but if they do not have places, you cannot be offered one.

One of the 3 on my doorstep would be nice. Failing that there are 6 more just a short ride on the bus.

So appeal to all of these, as it does not look as if you have done that yet, despite advice way back in this thread and elsewhere.

What is the point of all these council staff if they cannot offer ANY education for my children?

I do not quite understand how this question is relevant? They do not all work in admissions, and they work within the rules as set out, which is that they CANNOT offer a place in a full school EXCEPT in response to a successful appeal.

Jake you wrote "*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 have waited patiently for 5 months for a school place.

I will probably be patiently waiting another 5 months for a school place.

The place they have offered me would take nearly three hours to reach in the mornings and over two hours to return from.

No I absolutely DID NOT KNOW that the school situation in this country was this bad. I find it hard to believe in fact, but if it is so then something urgently needs to be done about it doesn't it.

As for my 'self entitlement', I didn't ask for any miracles from the council, but if this is the best they can do then there is not much point in keeping their dozens of departments and hundreds of staff and all their self importance, and self entitlement..

Sorry, forgot this one:

Well who is having the tantrums here and resorting to personal insults?

Um - well, I haven't mentioned photographing parents, nor abused hard-working council staff who have nothing to do with finding school places....

But why are you waiting 'patiently'? You have been told that your best hope is to appeal - and you haven't done so.

Why not?

It does also seem a little self-absorbed to believe that all 700 staff should drop what they do all day - supporting children and teachers and schools - to create 2 school places, when the person with responsibility for appealing for those places chooses not to do anything?

Why have you and why would you continue to wait patiently? What active steps have you taken? What was the outcome of the appeals you made?

Where are you on the waiting list of your preferred schools?

And how big is Bishop Stortford? Other posters who know the journey say it!/ 15 mins train, plus 15 mins walk to school. Is it really 2.5 hours from your house to the station?

"As for my 'self entitlement', I didn't ask for any miracles from the council, but if this is the best they can do then there is not much point in keeping their dozens of departments and hundreds of staff and all their self importance, and self entitlement.."

So, despite these people supporting all the many thousands of children who are in school in your county, they should be disbanded because they have not found 2 school places for someone moving into the county? Sure?

teacherwith2kids

Why do you keep saying I haven't appealed I don't get that. How much appalling do I have to do?

Now about these 'hard working council staff' - that as ANYONE knows is a contradiction in terms.

If someones job title (and therre are many of these entitled jobs), states something like 'he who finds school places for children', then yes, I do expect them to drop their biscuits and tea, pull their thumb out of it and do what it says on their tin.

Why is that such a big ask?

If the first closest school with any places at all to you is genuinely 30 miles away, OP, the CC have to provide transport. If that would involve a walk of more than 3 miles to catch public transport, they would almost certainly offer a taxi.

What transport have they offered you for this three hours' away school?