Can a secondary school offer you a place before March?

[aurora2003]

Today I received a letter from a secondary school I applied to for my daughter (Catholic school so had to send them a SIF before 31 Oct) saying she'd been accepted and asking me to fill in a form to confirm my acceptance and they would let the council know. They would then give me final confirmation in March but my daughter definitely had a place.

I was puzzled by this as:

1. this seems to undermine the whole "transparent" process by which the council makes you an offer in March, based on your priority list;
2. what implication would my confirmation of acceptance to this school have on the likelihood of receiving an offer from any of the other schools in my list? Would my daughter automatically not be considered for the other schools? Especially as this was my 6th choice!
3. Is it correct that a school should be doing this? Seems a bit dodgy to me...
4. Has anybody had similar experiences of schools interfering with he application process?

Thanks!

Had the school got your application mixed up with in year applications?

It sounds very odd to me.

I don't think so, it's very clear from their letter that they mean admission to y7 in 2014

I would contact the LA to be honest - it sounds very worrying, and could lead to local chaos; as it could lead to successful grounds for appeal.

This has got to be a mistake by the school. There is no way that the school can offer places that is the LA who does that on the 1st March. The school will only know which pupils are being offered places at their school, something like a week before this
What you need to do, is write to the School Admissions Manager at the LA, enclosing a copy of the letter and ask them to confirm what the situation is, as it seems to be contrary to what you understood. It is then up to the LA to sort out this mess with the school.
To me either the school have sent the wrong letter out to you or the school are doing something that is very naughty. Either way your best bet is to make sure that the LA know now and then hopefully you will receive an offer (official one) from a school that is a higher preference.

Thanks for your replies, I will definitely get in touch with my LA.

@tiggytape: about your first point, the school actually does know how many children have applied to them. Being a Catholic school they required the submission of a SIF far before 31 Oct, without which a child wouldn't be eligible to be considered by the school even if they put the school in the CAF list. So every child who was going to put that school in the CAF list would have sent them the SIF before 31 Oct.

I'm pretty sure the letter is not a mistake, but a pretty deliberate way of pressurising parents to commit to their offer, here some text from the letter (sorry msg is quite long, but may be of interest to some):

"Thank you for your application on behalf of your daughter [name]. The governors have considered your application and your daughter fulfils our entrance criteria. On behalf of the School Governor's Body I am delighted to offer [name] a place at our school for September 2014. I write to reassure you now at a very difficult time in your daughter's career. [...]

In order for me to offer places to further applicants to our school I am asking you to complete the acceptance form enclosed. This will allow us to place your firm acceptance on record at our school. We will notify Brent that we have offered the place and that you have accepted it. ...."

Then in that case you have a school who are deliberately flouting the admission process. One has to assume that is deliberate but if it is down to ignorance, quite frankly they still need a good kicking for being so ignorant of the admission code. Hopefully Brent will sort this out.
The SIF only has to be received in school by the 31st October and in fact completing a SIF is not actually necessary. What it means if you do not satisfactorily complete a SIF is that you would be considered as the bottom category "all other applicants".
In fact both the relevant schools in Brent say that the GB might not be able to consider your application if they do not receive a completed form. That is illegal in my opinion, they have to consider the application based on the preferences on the CAF, the fact no SIF has been received just means you will be at the bottom of the pile of applicants.

If this is the school I think it is, they have no problems flouting the admissions code.

@admission: thanks, I think you're right they are deliberately flouting the admission process.

However, for the record, with regard to the SIF, I applied to 3 faith schools which required a SIF as part of their admission criteria, and 2 out of 3 had a submission deadline for the SIF much before the 31st, including the school that sent me the letter. So it seems to me that when this is the case, faith schools know how many pupils have applied to them before the 31st, even if they don't know in which position of priority they have been placed.

They know how many have applied and remembered to complete the SIF. They don't know how many have applied and failed to submit a completed SIF by their deadline. But in any case I am dubious as to whether or not a school can actually enforce a deadline for submission of the SIF that is earlier than the national closing date for applications. The Admissions Code doesn't say anything specific about this so it really needs someone to refer the schools concerned to the Schools Adjudicator to see what they think.

I agree with Admission that schools cannot refuse to consider an application just because there is no SIF, although again a reference to the Schools Adjudicator would be necessary to be certain.

The letter is a clear breach of the Admissions Code. I would inform Brent. I would also write back to the school saying that paragraph 2.10 of the Admissions Code specifically prohibits schools from contacting parents about the outcome of their application until offers have been sent by the local authority and that in view of this you will neither accept nor reject the place until offers have been made in March.

Just to let everybody know the end of this saga, I did contact my local authority and as @prh said they reiterated this is a breach of the Admission Code, para 2.10, and that the school should not be sending letters offering places. They said they had already had reports from other parents about the same thing. They also contacted the Brent Admissions Team Leader who will contact the school as soon as half term is over and will write to all parents who have received this letter asking them to disregard it.

Thanks for all your messages.

And there goes a load of council tax payers money: sending out all those letters!

They should fine schools that flout the law in this way and create extra work and expense.

It sounds to my suspicious mind that they are contacting you in order to ensure you do not accept a place elsewhere.

For example- you may have applied to an all girls Catholic school in Hammersmith or an all girls Catholic grammar school. You may have put down this school as 6th place. But by you confirming acceptance of this place, you then cannot accept places at any of the other schools???

Very underhand indeed!