Question about waiting lists in London

[NorwoodMum2010]

I am really confused about how waiting lists work in London.

We have accepted our allocation, which is our fifth preference. School seems fine.

In the original offer email it says: " Please note it is your responsibility to inform the local authority if you do not want your child to be on the waiting for a higher preference school. In the event that a place becomes available at one of your higher preference schools, the place offered at your lower preference school will automatically be withdrawn."

I asked about it on another thread here, and was told that yes, it seems to say that even after we have accepted an offer, it could be withdrawn automatically if a place at a higher preference school becomes available. This worries me a lot, because I would rather be able to make the decision if and when a place becomes available. For example, we now might just stick with our 5th preference school, even if offered a place at our 2nd, 3rd, or 4th preference. But if we were offered a place at our 1st preference, we would consider accepting it. I just don't like the idea of our current place being withdrawn without our say-so!

However, I phoned Lambeth, which is where our highest preference school is, and they seem to think this wouldn't happen, and that our current place is ours unless we actively accept a place at a higher preference school.

I'm not sure who to believe, because we are in Croydon, so is it possible this is a Croydon policy? We have applied for schools in several boroughs.

Any help from anyone who knows this stuff would be greatly appreciated.

WAITING LISTS: Your child’s name has been placed on the waiting list for all schools listed higher on your application form than the school offered. Your child will remain on these waiting lists until 31 December 2021. Any schools that you placed lower on your application form were automatically withdrawn.

Is this the wording? I copied this from our offer email and I think this makes sense. The wording you have is confusing....
We're a different borough and offered 3rd choice. What this means is DD isn't on the waiting lists for our 4th, 5th and 6th choices.

As far as the Admission Code is concerned, they cannot withdraw the offer you've already got just because they've made an offer for one of your higher preferences. That applies regardless of where you live in England. However, some councils ignore this and will automatically withdraw your current offer if they come up with a place at one of your higher preferences. If this happens to you, you will be able to appeal and should have no trouble getting the offer reinstated.

@NorwoodMum2010 so long as you've accepted school 5, they won't withdraw it until you've accepted a different offer. It's a pan-London scheme so works the same in any borough. The wording in their letter is bad though ... they should say it will be withdrawn when you accept the higher offer, not when you are offered it. They will give you a couple of weeks to accept the higher offer and the offer letter should have instructions about what happens if they don't hear from you.

But if you want to be certain, phone the Croydon admissions dept.

Last year we got offered our 2nd choice and accepted. A couple of months later got offered 1st choice and were given about 10 days to decide whether to accept new offer. We declined and kept 2nd choice which by then had become our preference. We're in London...as others have said, check with borough if you are nervous. Seems unlikely they would just withdraw the original offer.

@Vinorosso74 yes, your wording seems to make a lot more sense, but ours was exactly as in my OP (copied and pasted), which is what concerns me.

Neither our current offer (5th preference) or our 1st preference are in Croydon, but choices 2 to 4 are. Not sure if that makes a difference.

@prh47bridge I think you also responded to my question on the other thread, which was really helpful. Just wondering whether you know of councils that have done this (withdrawn places) and if so whether any of them were in London? Great to know we would have a strong case at appeal but obviously I would rather not have to go down that route!

@ScrabbleOriginal and @MintyIguana I think I definitely need to phone Croydon to get clarification, thank you. Not sure whether the fact that neither current school offered (5th preference) or 1st choice are actually in Croydon makes a difference though! One is in Lambeth, one in Southwark!

We are in a fortunate position in that all six of our preferences are good schools, and we were lucky to get our 5th choice, but I'm not sure I can live with the uncertainty of that being taken away without us being able to discuss it and think about it.

Yes, I know councils that have done this, both in London and elsewhere. From their perspective it is administratively convenient and most parents won't object, but they shouldn't do it.

I had a quick look in Croydon's admissions brochure and they use the same wording there, so the letter wording wasn't an accident. There is also very specific emphasis on it being the parent's responsibility to make sure you still want to be on the waiting lists for the higher pref schools. Sounds dodgy OP, and you're right to check.

Do any one know anything about St. Michael's grammar Catholic school? How far down the ranking did they get to on the 1st March? My friend's daughter was ranked 150th and didn't get a place. My daughter got in but she was within the 128. She called the council and apparently they don't know and I was just wondering if anyone ranked 129-149 got in. TIA

@Maura45 - You are more likely to get answers if you start your own thread instead of hijacking this one.

I thought this was a general thread (waiting list in London) and my question is related to this.

@Maura45, the point is that if you put your school name in a new thread title you're more likely to catch the eye of people who can answer your question. They're unlikely to be looking here. It may have a general title but the OP's opening question was very specific.

@Maura45

Do any one know anything about St. Michael's grammar Catholic school? How far down the ranking did they get to on the 1st March? My friend's daughter was ranked 150th and didn't get a place. My daughter got in but she was within the 128. She called the council and apparently they don't know and I was just wondering if anyone ranked 129-149 got in. TIA

Try googling www.gov.uk/government/publications/selective-schools-expansion-fund-successful-applications-2018-to-2019/st-michaels-catholic-grammar-school-barnet-urn101361

If you've accepted the place at the 5th school, you still stay on the waiting list for all those above. To be honest, that's pretty fair. Think of it from the school's perspective.

Can you ask to be removed from the waiting lists of schools you are no longer interested in and stay on the list for your 1st choice? It does sound odd though that they could just suddenly change it for you without asking! Hope you get some clarity from Croydon.

Based on all the advice here, we have decided to explicitly ask to be removed from the waiting lists of schools 2 to 4, and just to stay on waiting list of school 1.

I did actually phone Croydon in the end and they said that we wouldn't automatically be withdrawn from school 5, and we would have time to say yes or no to another offer, but the letter says otherwise...

Thanks all for the help here.