Secondary school rejection any advice?

[mummymidwife1]

Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone has any experience or any advice with secondary school rejection. All of my sons choices were rejected and I have been allocated a catholic free school which has been set up last year in a temporary building, no ofsted report and not much information on the school. I rejected the offer today due to not being religious. My son also has social anxiety and needs to be in a settled environment. Does anyone know how I can go about finding other vacancies in other schools?

Many thanks in advance :)

First of all, you've not been rejected by anywhere, neither has your son. Try not to see it as a personal thing.

The LA should have a list of available places but they've presumably offered you the nearest one. Apart from that you need to ring any schools you would accept and put his name on the waiting list

You shouldn't reject the place you have been offered. The LA are under no obligation to find you another place.
Get yourself on the waiting lists for any schools you are willing to attend.
If a place doesn't come up, are you prepared to home-ed?
Is he diagnosed with anything?

You should have accepted the place and then gone on the waiting lists for the other schools which you would like him to go.

Someone more knowledgeable than me can tell you the implications of you rejecting the place offered as I don't think it is recommended!

Nope not taking it personally at all I understand that the schools I applied for are oversubscribed and was expecting not to get a place, almost all of the schools around me are oversubscribed.

The school I was given a place to is 5 miles away. I will contact a few other schools in the morning :).

As above you should have accepted the place and got on as many waiting lists as possible. The council are under no obligation to find you another place.

I live on a council boundry. We went through this last year.

In one council are you called the schools to get on the waiting list and find out about places. In the other you called the admissions office at the council. It's seems everywhere works differently.

If you have rejected the offer then they aren't obliged to offer another. We rejected our place but that's because we genuinely were going to home school. We have done it before, so it wasn't a empty gesture.

You can also start the appeal process. At our appeal hearing last year some of the other parents had appealed for every school.

Having rejected the place, the council now has no obligation to find you one.

Are you in a position to HE or do you have a private school place lined up?

If neither than you might want to see if you can rescind that rejection ASAP.

If you can't, then you are a bit stuck.

Yes, you can do on the waiting lists for schools you prefer. Check this has happened (LEA for community schools, school itself if academy/VA).

You can apply for more schools.

You can appeal for a place at any school that has turned down the application.

In offering this school, the council (if going about things in the normal way) has offered you the closest school with a vacancy.

So you may have to look further afield to find another one with a vacant place.

You will not qualify for free school transport for any more distant schools as you have rejected one at this distance.

in this case you could possibly appeal and say the school you were allocated wouldn't meet his needs, however I have no idea if this would be successful. Does he have a proper diagnosis?

It isn't enough to prove the school you are offered isn't suitable. You have to prove the school you are appealing is the only one suitable iyswim.

Our panel agreed dd couldn't go to the one offered. But that doesn't mean you automatically get the one you are appealing.

I rejected the offer today due to not being religious

I agree with others that this is a bad move. I would strongly recommend contacting the LA and seeing if you can still accept the place. As others have said if you reject this offer the LA doesn't have to come up with anything else so you need to be prepared to send your son to an independent school or home educate. I would also recommend taking a look at this school. Faith schools vary. Some of them are less religious than some non-faith schools.

You can appeal for any of the schools for which you applied. Remember, however, that you are appealing for a school, not against the offered school. You must therefore concentrate on why your son needs the appeal school rather than why you don't want the offered school.

Why is it a bad move to reject the place? I would do the same in those circumstances as there is no way I'd send my son (asd so needs stability) in those circumstances. However the op must make alternative provision.

Last year I rejected a place for my ds at a failing religious academy (seriously failing, two bad ofsted a, head on indefinite sick leave & where children who bully him attend)

I phoned to make sure he was still on the waiting list & made alternative provision - depending on circumstances/finances that could be private or home ed)

He was eventually offered a place at our first choice in October but by that time we decided to keep him where he was.

OP- there will be movement on the lists. Phone round & see where you would be prepared to send him & get on all those waiting lists.

Its a bad move because if you can't afford private, home educate and don't get a waiting list place, the child could end up in a worst school even further away.

OP should accept spot, apply to every school between home and this school and see what comes up. If a more acceptable (nearer) offer comes up she should reject school 1 and accept school 2 and if that's not good enough then hold a school 2 spot until she gets a spot at a nearer school. If she's able to wait until October then she might be lucky and get a spot when somebody doesn't turn up in September.

It's a bad move if you can't HE or go private.

I did rejected our place. I could HE and had done before. It was something I was totally willing to do.

If you can't HE or go private you could find yourself without a place.

Places in secondary schools come and go. I would have done the same. Then again home educating wouldn't have phased me. If you move to an area you easily get a place somewhere don't you? You just have to be proactive in phoning schools to see where the places are once everything settles down in September, making sure you are on the waiting list for every school you would consider. Many Families situations change between now and September. Not all the students given a place will take them up. Hence the waiting lists, but come Y8, I'll bet not many school still have waiting lists because most people get a place somewhere and after a year they are settled so wouldn't move schools anyway. It will turn out ok. No need to panic. If you have to home ed for 12 months, so what? Plenty of kids I know have been home educated until Y9, then join my kids school in Y10 for GCSE.

Go to elevenplusexams.co.uk website. Although primarily aimed at the grammar school situation, it has some great advice on the appeal process, how to appeal, etc. Although some of it will be gs specific, you may get some useful information there.

Knowing that the schools are over subscribed, what was your contingency plan when you applied for them? Was there any local school in which you fulfilled their admissions criteria?