Desperate mum with son without secondary school place

[Mumofboys109]

Hi all, I have a son who is leaving year six and has no school place as we are relocating from London to Maidstone. He currently has no place as he got offered a place and had it withdrawn due to me mistakenly applying through the wrong channels and instead of going through my London council I went to though Kent council. Anyway we had an unsusessful appeal and have now found out the only school places available are in the worst school I've seen and are miles away from our Kent home. I don't want him going there at all! I have two options somehow to homeschool (single mum low income but own my home mortgage free) or to split my family up and apply to have him go to school in London and live with my dad weekdays which will break my heart. What do I do? Any ideas on what I can do to manage home education?

Accept the offered school.
If far enough away the LA should provide transport.
Go on waiting list for every better nearer school

I would say send him to the better school, hard as it will be for you, and get him on the waiting list for a better one closer to home... education is so, so important, hard choice either way though

Is relocating essential?

Also, sorry to be pedantic, but you do have a school place - you just don’t like what you’ve been offered.

No he doesn't have the offer of a place, but those are the only schools we've been told have places available to do an in year transfer should we want to. Even then he may not get a place. Relocating isn't exactly essential but its not practical to be living with my dad while I own my own home which will be empty but paying council tax on.

My concern is once he's in a school he's not a priority on a waiting list for a better school. If he is out of education the LA act quicker I think x

Could you do some research on homeschooling? And if you then feel confident in doing so inform the lea that you intend to homeschool until he is offered a place at [preferred list of schools]

Apply again as soon as youre in the new address. The LA will find you something, although you may not like it.

Waiting lists are held according to the admissions criteria. You don’t get any priority by not having a school place.

Already having a school place won't affect waiting lists. You're better off getting a place somewhere so at least he has a school and then waiting out for a waiting list place.

My concern is once he's in a school he's not a priority on a waiting list for a better school. If he is out of education the LA act quicker I think

It doesn't work like that.

Waiting lists are held in priority order. e.g. looked after, siblings, catchment, other.
If not in education they have to find you 'a' school within reasonable travel time (there is a limit for this 1ht or 1hr1r or something).
Nothing stops you appealing for a school you think suits better, e.g. if your DS is ace at chess and a school has a chess club that competes nationally.

If he is living in London in the week then I think that would have to be his address for waiting list purposes though. (?) It might need to be short term pain for long term gain.

1hr or 1hr15 or something

Others have already explained how waiting lists work.

Your best option is to join waiting lists for as many Kent schools as you can (LEAs vary in how many they permit) and, if nothing moves in the next few weeks, ask them to invoke the Fair Access Protocol to find him a place in a local school. They might refuse, or they might offer a place in the school you’re saying you don’t want, but if you’ve already appealed and lost there isn’t much left to try.

And, yes, you need to think through the ramifications of using a London addressto get into a London school. In the first place, it might well be rejected if you haven’t got strong evidence that you actually live there, rather than using it for convenience for a school application. Even if it is accepted, it might then hamper your chances of getting a place at a Kent school because you’ll be (say) 30 miles from the school and so way down the waiting list.

This guy, Peter Read, might be able to offer some advice, though I think he can only help if you actually currently live in Kent, but worth a try. He’s pretty scathing about Medway Council admissions.
www.kentadvice.co.uk/what-i-offer/can-i-help-you-and-what-will-it-cost.html

I second @Judas's advice to contact Peter Read. He's a private consultant on Kent school applications. People I know who have consulted him have said his advice has been invaluable, eg in terms of giving them a detailed consultation on which school might suit their child, and what to expect from the applications system, and what your realistic chances are of getting into each. As he's a private consultant rather than a LA employee, I would expect him to be able to advise you even before you've moved.

My personal suggestion would be to accept the place you've been offered, but contact all the schools you would consider individually and ask to go on their waiting lists. When we were looking for a school place at short notice, we found that there was sometimes leeway from the official position. Once schools had established that the sprog in question was a well-behaved one with the prospect of decent results, they started to make noises about seeing what they could do.

Home education worked out well for our family but that was as a first choice option. It's a hard choice when it's not what you really want to do. Social opportunities vary a lot between areas, eg in one area you might find lots of 'alternative' families, while in others the majority of kids at home ed groups could be those whose parents have reluctantly pulled them out of school because they were having serious problems. I wouldn't suggest it in this situation yet - see if you can exhaust other possibilities first, and try whatever school you get allocated and then see how he settles in. It may turn out that actually he gets on well there - OFSTED only tells one side of the story. As others have said above, pulling your child out of school does not give them any priority in getting a school place.

to split my family up and apply to have him go to school in London and live with my dad weekdays which will break my heart.

Don't do this - this is a BAD IDEA! Ridiculous, really. Unless your son has a free place at the best school in the world, no school is worth that.

Peter Read does do consultations for families who are moving into Kent - just not for people who are doing 'speculative' grammar school applications, ie presumably while considering moving:
"I can only help you if:

You live in Kent or Medway Local Authority Areas and your enquiry is about school matters in these areas. The exception is for families seeking to move into Kent or Medway, who want to find out about local schools in the area they are considering, often moving from abroad."

Surely you are making a late application to Kent for secondary transfer rather than an in-year application?
Are you living in Maidstone yet?

Of course all the places in favoured schools are allocated NOW but if you move, apply and move onto the doorstep of a favoured school you will be at the top of the queue when any vacancies come up.

How did Kent come to offer you a place when you didn't have an address there? Did your DS sit the Kent test?

Have you actually applied for all the schools nearest to your Kent address? I would check the Kent CC rules for transport being provided very carefully before just applying for the nearest school with places of your own volition. This may affect whether or not the LA regards your DS as qualifying for transport. Also, to be able to appeal for a school, you have to have applied for a place there and been turned down, so you might as well put in an application for all the nearer schools - making sure, if it matters, that you include the one which counts your nearest for the purposes of having transport provided (to either it, or any other school which is the nearest one the LA can offer you).

Thank you Judashascomeintosomemoney.
That looks helpful thanks 😊
Thanks everyone I know how waiting lists work in theory however in year three my son had to suddenly move primary school diluent to a teacher stalking me incident. I removed him immediately and the education welfare officer got involved and said no places were available for my children in year 3 and 1 in the school I wanted and to return them to the school immediately. However when I refused miraculously two spaces became available in the school I wanted within a week. I think they certainly act a bit faster and pull a few when they have to. I am due to move probably mid August. Do you know if the council education departments work in summer holidays?
Thank you xxxxx

Thanks newelthammum13 xx

They do not "pull a few"!

I very much doubt that they “pull a few” and holding a gun to their head, in an attempt to force your child into a school which doesn’t have a place, never works. I can’t speculate on how and why you previously managed to get your children into a new primary school but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because you took your children out of the old school.

LEAs definitely do work year round. Over the summer they will be dealing with appeals, waiting lists and all the other business of the new school year.

Be aware, too, that many of the “consultants” selling their services don’t offer much more than you would get from the combined output of MN school admissions threads and a trawl of the various schools’ and LEA websites. Whether that’s worth paying for is your decision.

OP, you need to take up your Kent address and actually apply and go on the waiting list for schools you want /would accept.

Lots of places become available over the summer hols as people move House then. Places become available in tne first week of term as families accept a place and then fail to inform the school they have moved, or gone private.

Get your DS on the waiting lists!