Please help, massive panic re late documents for secondary application

[Wincher]

We had a lot of debate about which school to go for for my son and so we left it right until the last minute to do the application. We did the application on time but for some reason I had thought the deadline to attach documents was later so it took me until now to get round to scanning docs etc - only to discover the deadline was the same for these as for the application. I am such a total idiot - no one to blame but myself. I'm so stressed at the moment with work problems and everything else but that's no excuse.

I have now emailed the documents to the council (all correctly labelled with the reference number etc) and begged them to take pity on me. Can anyone give me any reassurance? Are they likely to treat my application as late now? I can't change it on the eadmissions system.

I imagine lots of people will ahve had issues getting documents scanned this year so hopefully they will be lenient.

We are 0.2 miles from the school we want so i guess we'll be high on the waiting list in the worst case. Last year they did fill all their spaces with on-time applications though, I think, with a max distance of about 1 mile.

Our second choice is the school my son wanted and we really didn't, which is undersubscribed so I guess he'd get in there. He'd be happy but we wouldn't!

At 0.2 miles from a school that took up to 1 mile last year seems like a school you would get into. What supporting documents do you need? You are pretty much a shoe in?!

You are pretty much a shoe in?!

Only if they accept her late documents as being on time.

We were late too! I can't give any advice but I feel for you, the mum guilt is unreal!!
I am also pleading for them to accept our application as an "on time" application, I was only 7 hours late but so far they are saying no :( which means we won't find out until May!! I can't even look at my daughter, feel too awful.

Late is late, even if 1 minute late.

Do the documents have a date relevant to the application deadline? If so, they'd have a job booting you off the list if the rest of the application was submitted before it.

I don't think councils want to cause problems for applicants. Hopefully they will be all right about it.

Was your application itself on time? In which case I would imagine it's ok?

What were the documents? I never sent anything in support of applications, and if you are 0.2 miles away I would expect you to get in - unless it's a faith school where you have to have evidence of church attendance.

Bottom line is that if the admission criteria says the supplementary information was required by the 30th October and you were late putting in the information then you will be considered as late. That means that you will only be considered for school places after all the on-time applications have been allocated places.
What information was required? If it was to prove address, then you might be OK as normally the LA do not put a cut off date on this as long as it is before place allocation on 1st March but really it all depends on what the admission process says in the LA admission documents

Thanks everybody. I was in such a panic yesterday, I was already having a not-coping day with everything that's going on even before I realised this. Luckily an absolutely lovely lady from the council took the trouble to phone me up to say that as long as the application was made on time, which she could see it had been, it didn't matter if the supporting documents were a few days late and the application would be treated as on time. She said it happens all the time and it's not a problem. I was so grateful to her! As was said above, I think the council wants to help parents get it right when they can.

We had to send PDFs of the child's birth certificate, an official letter (bank statement/NHS letter etc) with the child's name and address on, plus an official letter (govt doc/utility bill etc) showing the parent's name and address. I swear when we did the primary applications the document deadline was later and you could go into the admissions system and add them whenever, but they seem to have changed that.

I think maybe in some areas you only have to provide that sort of thing after the places have been allocated?

I've never heard of supporting docs like this for school applications?!?! You must be in an area where lots of people cheat? How do you manage if a child doesn't have a bank account or has never had an NHS letter???

I'm glad it's sorted for you, OP.

I think it's the pan-London system - but I didn't realise other areas don't have to send documents at all! The child benefit letter used to be the standard one to use to prove the child's address. Now that not everybody gets child benefit you can still call them up and they will send a letter out confirming that you either get it or don't get it that you can use for proof of address. This year I used the letter my son was sent about the flu vaccination - hope that will work!

OP, I thought the same as you about the documents being ok to send later. I am sure it was for primary, though that was 7 years ago admittedly. We were on time but more by luck than judgmemt. Glad the council have confirmed it will be ok

Our (London) council also said that sending documents after the deadline was fine as long as the application itself was submitted on time.

Phew!

I had to apply for secondary schools this year and was so worried about missing the deadline that I did it on the day the system opened. I reckoned if I changed my mind later then I could always resubmit.

Our Borough also need supporting documents