Year 7 in year transfer, urgent help and advice needed pls!

[DadknowsBest]

Hi Parents,
Hope your little stars are settling in.

Please can you help me, I am knew to mumsnet.

My Son has started school, the school in question was his last choice on eAdmissions, now we originally only selected 3 schools all outstanding by ofsted, I read all the reports for each. My Son was happy with those.

A week or so later I get a reminder from eadmissions saying its a good idea to select more schools in case my son does not get any offers. I felt forced into choosing a school, as we couldnt think of any other, top 5 on my list were all ‘outstanding’, the very last has ‘requires improvement’ 5 years running!

Low and behold my son gets an acceptance email for that last choice and then they advise to accept it as he may not get another offer though we will go on the waiting list for others. Still we have had no calls backs and my son was forced into a school by the council, a school that has seen its highest years of exclusions due to ‘really bad behavior’ (god only knows what these kids did to get kicked out!) there was in class bad behavior where teachers were unable to control them (or couldnt be bothered), and teachers not aligned across classes!

My Son is super bright, for e.g he knows algebra, fractions at GCSE level, upto 35 times tables off by heart, he is very smart however is very soft hearted and fragile.

I saw him come out the school gate, bottle knecked in a tiny gate with older years pushing through, he was so scared my heart sank!

He told me in his first maths class they went over the 12x tables! I was like EXCUSE ME! What the hell is that! Of course my son knew it all but reiterated to me he knew 12x tables back in early primary school! What sort if education is that!

I really am shocked, the council forced my child into a school we did not want, the very last on our list and one with the worst result! Additionally I can sense the hostile enviroment, the school is agressive, there is bullying even though the school states a policy, I can see my sons education going down hill very fast and getting bullied!

I have written a letter of complaint to the council advising all of this, going on to discuss peer pressure to select the given school!

Does anyone know how I can go about in year transfer? how best to approah and attack this appeal? I couldnt sleep a wink last night worried. I know many of you are or may have been in similar positions and may be able to share your success!

I will move homes if I have to, thats how extreme it is, I simply cannot let my childs education go to waste.

Bullying is a life changing experience, ive suffered it myself so I can see the early signs.

Thank you all in advance

J

Hi ,
Sorry for delay.

We actually live 2 miles away, 5 minutes by buss. So have no idea why we did not get the preference.

We are however on the waiting list and so I will progress with them.

Depending on where you are 2 miles may be loads.

Some London schools took kids up to 0.3 miles. Then the school was full.

The school year only started this week so I'm unsure how you have got to this place or despair already OP.

You need to give your DS a chance to settle in. Your weeping and wailing must be massively unsettling for him.

My DS also started Y7 this week. So far it's about finding your way around and getting used to a two week timetable. He loves maths, he said the first lesson was good but way too easy and he had finished the work set in 15 minutes. But I'm not worried at all because I know it will get sorted out and he will be working to his level in due course.

Try to relax and give the school a chance.

Two miles can be some distance with some schools, especially if they prioritise certain groups. What was the oversubscription criteria?

So have no idea why we did not get the preference.

Would it be fair of me to infer that actually you weren't that clued up about the admissions process?

For every school you should know what the oversubscription criteria are, and where in the priority list you would be.
You should be able to find out which category they admitted up to for the past few years and the 'distance last offered' within that category.
When you chose your 6 schools you needed to have looked at the chance of getting in before deciding whether to even list them.

Most people want the good schools. So schools have criteria to say who will get the places. You don't get in because you want it more, or because your child is well behaved, or clever (unless a grammar school). You get in due to having an EHCP, being looked after, living in an area, going to a feeder school, being of a certain religion, having a sibling already at the school, being close to the school (criteria are school dependent but these are common criteria).

In London, 2 miles away is more often than not too far... especially for popular / over-subscribed schools.

I’m in South London, and when I applied for my DD the 1st two choices on my list were selection by complete lottery.

For the 3rd choice, we had a 70-90% chance, as children were ranked by distance in each band and we were 1.3 mies away.

The 4th & 5th school we lived 2.4+ miles away from both and they ranked purely by distance.

The 6th school was my local school, 0.3 miles away, children were also ranked by distance in each band - so we were guaranteed to get it if we didn’t get any of the others.

On offer day we got number 3, and 2 weeks later we got the 1st choice. (FYI - my DD was also on the schools sports scholarship waiting list)

Even outside London 2 miles can be too far. It wouldn't have got you into our school as a first child with no special considerations.

You're lucky if you have five outstanding schools within two miles op!

Where I live (small city), there are I think three outstanding schools within about a five-seven mile radius. Only one of them would be a feasible idea from my house. We didn't put it down but plenty do and some get in, in a low birth year for example.

Did you look at this info when you applied? As teentinestwo says, that was what you needed to do.

FWIW my dc all go to the very local school which has just been judged RI. I'm not massively delighted at that of course, but it's still a place where they can and I hope will do well.

Have to admit I'm wandering if OP picked "unlikely to get into " schools which is why he was contacted by admissions (something I'm happy to be corrected about, but I've never heard of happening - and we only listed 1 school on our list for DD - but one we were guaranteed to get into) because they realised this.

Of course this doesn't help OP now, but he does need an understanding of where his child is on waiting lists, where he might be on waiting lists of other schools and the likelihood of getting in.

Would the appeals not have happened already? In our area when you get your chosen school ( back in march I think ) you get an option to appeal?
If you accept the place you can still appeal but appeals happen before the new term starts.

Sorry I think I misunderstood.
I think the local authority run waiting lists but in our area you can go up and down the list. You prob should just put your child on the lists of all schools you are looking at.
If you aren't in catchment though you might find if they are outstanding that you don't really have much chance of getting in.
Is the school your child is at your catchment school?

If you are prepared to move to get a better school, why didn't you do this before applying?

If you were on the waiting lists for other schools, why didn't you appeal?

The only oversubscribed school near me took the furthest kid away on distance at 1.9 km which is just over a mile, and I know there are schools in my borough with a much smaller catchment. There will be kids who are offered places before applications on distance are considered - schools have to give preference to kids on some grounds (eg Looked After Children) and they may decide other criteria eg some schools give preference to siblings and others don't).

OP, your best bet now is to:

Make sure you are on the waiting lists for all schools you would be happy for your child to attend
And
Appeal to any you think you stand a chance if appealing for. If he is very good at maths and engaged in extra curricular maths clubs etc, you could appeal to one of your favoured schools if it has a maths club, takes part in external maths competitions etc in contrast to your allocated school.

Likewise if your son has a particular and persistent condition that causes bald patches then you may be able to build an appeal based on their support for children with medical conditions etc.

As other posters have said, during the application process every school can only make places available in the order of how the application matches their published admissions criteria. However an appeal gives you a chance to have an extra ‘go’ based on your specific circumstances.

You cannot appeal for a school unless you have applied.

You can now go on waiting lists for schools you did not originally apply to.

When you were given your allocated school were you not told that you could go on waiting lists, and that you could appeal?

They should now be able to tell you where on the waiting list you are for each school.

Peer pressure is tricky. Of course there is no need to pay for iPhones and ridiculous designer gear. However if your son needs to wear a non-uniform item you need to tell his form tutor and the inclusion department.

Good luck!

“hmm, your admissions department isn't very helpful are they?”

I disagree! They did at least alert the OP to the dangers of only putting 3 highly unlikely preferences down!

To be fair, he can’t have done more than about 4 days. Slightly too soon to be so upset, no?

www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/the-hardest-london-primary-schools-to-get-into-have-catchment-areas-of-less-than-200-metres-a119561.html

There's a uk primary school with a 93m catchment area 😮

I can't be the only one thinking surely the time for OP to be complaining about all of this was earlier in the year when places came out? Why was the decision not appealed then?!

We actually live 2 miles away, 5 minutes by buss. So have no idea why we did not get the preference.

We are all assuming a London address, because the OP mentioned eadmissions, but for a bus to be able to travel two miles in five minutes in rush hour, surely this must be rural Surrey, not a London Borough

Joking aside, OP, as others have inferred from your posts, it would appear that your extensive research probably only extended to 'Which are the school's with the highest Ofsted ranking, the best GCSE results?' and not to, 'Which of the schools, from that list and others, does my DS actually have a reasonable chance of getting into?'

The coordinated admissions scheme used in this country allows application for a place at any state school (with a very few exceptions), wherever it is, via the convenience of one form submitted to your own local authority. However, as each school must, by law, only consider applications against its published admissions criteria, whether or not any given application will be successful rests on how that applicant can be ranked according to said admissions criteria.

All schools' admissions criteria are there to be checked by potential applicants, even if the school concerned is not in your LA and you have to go to another LA's website to check. The admissions policy is one of the items of information that schools themselves are required to include on their own website.

Sadly, I would suspect that somewhere between your five aspirational preferences (not 'choices' - something else which will have been made clear in your LA's admissions information) and the 'RI' school, there may well have been at least one perfectly good 'Good' school, at which your DS could have been offered a place.

Reading your comments it seems an over reliance on Ofsted. All schools you applied to were outstanding.

Did you look at any good schools nearby . Open days are coming round . What about catchment school.

My Ds has just started year 7 . His maths lesson they did no maths at all and played a maths game second.

Currently there are no options so best to help Ds fit in.

Distance for oversubscribed schools is often much less than 2 miles - for my nearest oversubscribed school in London it's just over a mile, but there are others in my borough where it's a fraction of that. It's calculated on actual distance, I think as the crow flies, not journey time. For example, if someone lives 1.8 miles away and has a 20 minute journey from a different direction, and you live 1.9 miles away and have a 10 minute journey by bus (and those are probably mad figures but as an example), the distance will be looked at, the length of journey time won't be.

On journey time, OP may not have measured it at rush hour and added the bus journey to any door to door walking time.

I too think that it’s unfair to say the admissions department was unhelpful. All the advice is to complete the form, putting six schools, including your preferences, but also one or possibly two that would be acceptable.

I imagine that other children had higher priority than OP’s son. I know of a school where the catchment area is only yards from the school and to get a place, a child will have to have a compelling reason why that school should offer a place.

I think that OP needs to ascertain whether his son is on waiting lists and where he is on those lists, at the same time trying to be positive about the current school. Railing at the admission authority won’t really get you anywhere.

Does your son need a particular school OP, or is it just that he has not been offered a place at any of your preferences. Restricting the number of preferences you select does not force the authority to offer a place; it merely reduces your chances of securing a place at a school you would be happy with.

It may be worth approaching schools to find out whether they are at PAN. It does happen that things change at the start of term and pupils don’t arrive as expected.

I appreciate your concerns op but I'm wondering why on earth you even considered this school is it is so bad and why you didn't appeal?
I've appealed twice ( and lost twice ) with substantial medical evidence so it's not easy but I know others who have won appeals for less, well worth a try.
What have you got to lose?

Remember if you do appeal that you are not appealing against the current school but for the preferred school. You have to show that the disadvantage to your son is worse than the impact of the school admitting him and therefore being overcrowded etc.

I would also ring every school that you would be happy to send him. There is tons of movement in the first few weeks. People move, go private, change their minds, are offered higher preference schools etc.

You could touch lucky!
Very best of luck to you though.

My ds is in year 11 at a school that was failing. When we lost our appeal I had to find him a school and the thing that attracted me was it's pastoral care even though the results weren't great.
The school has turned itself around and is now the top performing secondary in the borough. I'm so glad I gave it a chance.