Why accept a place at a school we really don't want?

[Wannago]

A number of posters have said that, if not offered any preferred schools, one should still accept the school offered, and go on the waitlist for the preferred school, launch appeals etc.
They then say something about the LA having discharged its duty if you refuse.
If there is no way one would send one's DC to the offered school (even if it means one has to home school while waiting for a place at one of the preferred schools, even if one doesn't really think one has the skills to home school properly, but that the home schooling would still be a better education than the offered school), why would one accept? Wouldn't one find oneself being fined for not sending one's kid to the offered school if the appeals/wait lists don't come through?

If you are genuinely going to home school rather than send your child there then decline the place and go on wAiting lists.

Because most people when push comes to shove won't home educate and will reluctantly send their child to the school allocated. (A lot of them will also reluctantly admit subsequently that their child is doing ok.)

Secondly if appealing you risk antagonising the appeal panel by declining the offered place.

If you would genuinely home school rather than send your DC to the offered school, then it's fine to decline.

Many people decline the school thinking it means the LEA has to find them another place (it doesnt) or that having no place will give them more advantage at appeal (it won't unless you've been offered no place at all) and have no plan B for when another place fails to materialise and any appeal fails.

If you accept the school then it means you actually have a school place for your child in September. You can still be on the waiting lists for the other school. If a place for one of those comes up then you tell the offered school that you no longer need the place. If you turn it down and no places come up on the waiting list schools then come September you will have NOTHING. No place at all. What is so awful about the offered school. Have you actually visited? Or going on local gossip? I would accept the place for now.

Because most people don't have the option of home schooling and some people seem to believe that, if they turn a place down , the local authority will HAVE to find a place at the desired school.

Because a shit local school is better than a shit school miles away ( and spaces at shit schools are usually the only ones with spaces left no matter how many times you reject) where you cant even make the most of things like after school clubs and friends meeting up.

Plus it's not a good look at appeal.

I suspect that one would be shooting oneself in ones foot by not taking the place offered. As one could fine that ones child could be placed in an awful school many miles away. So one now not only has an awful school, but alot of travel also.

Fatty

Because the vast majority of people can’t or don’t want to home school indefinitely. There’s no guarantee of a place from a waiting list so unless you can hone school for their entire secondary education then a bad school is better than no school. If you decline crap local school and then later decide actually Home Ed isn’t viable, you could end up with crap far away school instead of crap local school.

As others have said, the reason we recommend taking the place is that the LA is under no obligation to come up with another, so accepting the place means you have a backup plan if all else fails. Also, if you reject the place and appeal for your preferred schools, the panel may feel that you are trying to blackmail them into giving you one of your preferred schools. That will make them less likely to give you the benefit of any doubt.

I understand you would home educate rather than send your daughter to this school but, if you plan on appealing, I would accept the place at this stage. Even if you don't plan on appealing, I would recommend accepting the place. It gives you more time to think.

Wouldn't one find oneself being fined for not sending one's kid to the offered school if the appeals/wait lists don't come through

No. If you accept the place now you can always reject it later. There is no problem with that.

Also a lot of people say they will home school rather than send their child to the unwanted school, but for many it’s a bit of a knee jerk reaction.

Do you have the time, inclination and resources to be able to homeschool indefinitely until a suitable place were to come up (it could be weeks, it could be years)?

Depending the school there is generally movement between National Offer Day and September. Accept the place, go on the waiting lists and see what happens.
People move, people send their child to private education, some people home school.

If you are prepared to homeschool and / or go private until after GCSE (because you might never get a place at your preferred school) fine, reject.

But as prh47bridge said, it won’t help at appeal, and some labels may feel irked by what looks like an attempt at blackmail. Because some appellants do try and use the ‘we have no school place’ ‘we are so determined to demonstrate that we need this school and no other that we have turned down the allocated school’ plea as an argument . And it really isn’t. Panels will not and cannot use the general performance or perceived desirability of a school as a factor -for good or bad.

Some panels, not labels.

You won't be fined if you choose to home educate in September, you should still accept it now if you want to go onto waiting lists or appeal.

As a home educator, all my kids who've reached that age have been offered a place with or without me applying for one. Each time I've emailed to refuse when given the offer as detailed in what I was sent, and I've again had to do it in September with one child due to communication issues. No fines even though she was on their list and didn't attend for the week or so before they knocked on my door to ask where she was.

The thing is as others said, if you refuse, it is assumed you're making your own arrangements. It doesn't help with appeals (as others said, it could hurt) or waiting lists. Home educated kids who move into secondary schools later, even in Year 7, just go onto the end of the waiting lists, if there is one. At least that's my experience, with a home educated child currently on a waiting list for a local secondary, and the experience of many other home educators I know who have had children who have wanted to move into school. There is no preferential treatment just because your child doesn't have a place if you refuse the place you were given. That's just how it is and I can see why appeal panels would find that attitude annoying.

Re home schooling, given that at the moment I seem to be teaching my older kids maths and science (the one thing the maths teacher does is set homework, every week, and I then teach from that, as my DC (and all their friends) feel that she is such a lousy teacher they are not learning anything from her). Science the teacher doesn't even set summaries, just a list of textbook pages to know before a test, and I teach from the textbook. I could do that on my own.
English I can't do, that is why I have had to find an English tutor, as they are not getting it in school. Ditto with French. Geography and History they don't seem to learn much in KS3, except for the occasional bit of homework where they learn on their own, and school doesn't seem ot care much if they learn very little in these subjects in KS3. I could probably provide Geography from a text book, and probably history and do a better job than is done at the school.
And with inadequate schooling, one ends up teaching them everything after hours, and squished into the evening, and between either impossible or irrelevant homework.
So the main point of at least certain schools seems to be social, and if one thinks that aspect is going to be a disaster (eg bully is going there), should one really be accepting?
KS4 I am less sure about being able to teach, but that is a long way off.

At the end of the day, it’s up to you whether you accept or not. As established on this thread, accepting doesn’t have any down sides at this point, even if you are adamant that you will never send your child there.

Rejecting, however, may have a negative impact on appeals as other posters have outlined up above.

And the questions about HE were less about your teaching ability, and more about whether or not you are actually prepared for the reality of having a child at home full-time come September without a clear end date. Maybe you are, again, fine, but if you’re looking at appeals then at the moment the clear advice from those in the know is to accept.