Secondary school waiting list criteria

[Zero2]

Hi, we were given our 3rd choice in 2021 and my son started last September. Our first choice keeps a waiting list open for a year - my son is no 9 on the list.

In July, before the start of term, the council told me he was no 2. I held off from buying school uniform as it felt like there was a chance he'd get in.

I wrote to the council again in the middle of August and was told his position had gone back to 8.

The admissions team explained six families had moved into the area and jumped straight onto the list, ahead of son. I know there has to be a system and I know it works for many, but it's gutting when it feels very unfair for you!

Sorry for the longwinded story but essentially I wrote to my MP asking for a fairer system in that you need to have lived in the borough for 12-24 months before you apply instead of 'dive bombing' in after the application process has closed. I can understand if people have moved into the area with difficult circumstances to be considered a priority (divorce/bereavement etc) but to jump to the top of the list JUST because you've moved into a borough a few weeks before the start of term feels very unjust.

The MP's reply was long and genuine and she asked if I knew of any other boroughs that operate in that way.

So my question is, how does your Borough deal with this situation. I've done some research and it seems most operate in the same way as mine which just seems very unfair to local families.

Thank you so much for any replies.

I don't really think it could work in any other way op. Otherwise no one would ever move house with school-aged children - if they had to wait 12-24mo to go on the waiting list.

If no one ever moved, WL places would never open up either so you would still be waiting.

Families who move into the area are local families?

You simply cannot ban children from a school place for 12-18 months

I would think most LAs work like this. It's annoying but all schools have their own criteria. If you don't like it, apply somewhere else or move closer if distance is the criteria you are getting pushed down on.

Also who decides what is a "good enough" reason to allow people to access education? Landlord sold up, new job and relocation after redundancy, needing a larger property?

What criteria would you set?

I can see how it is disappointing, but I'm sure you'd feel differently if you moved into an area.

Lives change and people move in a way that isn't synch Ed to the school terms and application dates and having a waiting list that is ordered as per the entrance criteria of the school is the only fair way to do it.

I think this would contravene the legal admissions code, which says that anyone must be allowed to apply for a school place at any point. And if the admissions criteria include distance, then you're always going to have people 'jumping' the list. In fact, you could argue it the other way round - a family moving into the area could argue that it's unfair if you got a school place ahead of them, given you've already got a local school place.

I'm prepared to be corrected here but I don't believe this is a borough by borough decision. As I understand it, it is in the Admissions Code and so the law across England that waiting lists must be held strict in terms of admissions criteria, with the length of time you have been on the list having no effect at all on your position.

But presumably they haven't been given a place, just are higher up the list because they live nearer? They have still moved on a wing and prayer and are looking for a school?
Not exactly the same but we moved when DD was in year 5. The local authority admission teams used the fair access protocol to place her at the local school. Mainly cos they would have had to pay transport and the next 2 schools were also over subscribed.

Waiting lists have to be held in the same order as admission criteria.

I understand your frustration, however you can't change it as it would leave kids without school places. Also how do you judge what is a good enough reason to move? Anyone who has planned ahead will have moved in advance, so these are more likely to be families that had a pressure to move for whatever reason. Also there may have been kids that leapfrogged you because their sibling got a place (if sibling priority applies).

It's hugely frustrating especially if you are in an area people have relocated to during COVID but there is no alternative really.

So you think children whose families have had to move shouldn't be able to go to a local school?

I get its annoying. But it can be hard enough getting any school place after a move without even more obstacles. My DD missed half a term of school when we moved one time as we tried to find ANY school place.

The admissions code, which has the force of law, states that

"Each admission authority must maintain a clear, fair, and objective waiting list until at least 31 December of each school year of admission, stating in their arrangements that each added child will require the list to be ranked again in line with the published oversubscription criteria. Priority must not be given to children based on the date their application was received, or their name was added to the list."

Waiting lists must be ranked by the same criteria as admission, so it would not be legal to add an additional qualifier concerning residency.

Your plan would discriminate against those moving; I appreciate that you feel the current system is unfair, but the idea is, primarily in most cases, to give precedence to the most local children.

I can understand if people have moved into the area with difficult circumstances to be considered a priority (divorce/bereavement etc)
You would end up with wrangling about what circumstances are 'difficult' enough for the council to consider them a priority. It could cost a lot to administer and dispute that decision. You wouldn't know how someone had got on the list and the subjective decision making process risks being played. The current process deals in facts that are easily observed.

So you were hoping that a last minute space or in year admission became available for your son, the most likely cause of which would surely be a family moving house, but under your system, that family then wouldn't be entitled to school places in their new location for up to 2 years? That doesn't sound very fair to me.
Once someone has moved then they are local.

So effectively under your system families with children can’t move house?

That’s batshit.

The OP's system would allow children to join an undersubscribed school or appeal to a full school. The appeals, might, if they suceed, actually make it harder to get a place. 10 children who live further away could get places while you were top of the waiting list so now 11 children would have to leave before a space opened up.

You cannot have a situation where no one can move house. You can always move nearer yourself. There’s lots of London boroughs though where they are exceptionally strict if you’re renting and you have to have been at the address for a certain length of time, which seems a good halfway half.

You wouldn't like it if you/partner lost your jobs and had a choice between restricting the job hunt to your local area or home-educating your kids because they wouldn't get school places in a new area. People have to be able to get school places for their children if they move - it may not be their choice if a company relocates them. It's already hard enough for those who move, if the local schools are mostly full.

I disagree OP

As others have said, every LA in England operates in this way. It is required by the Admissions Code which has the force of law. I understand why you feel it is unfair. You would feel different if you were the one moving house. And denying children access to education for 12-24 months because their parents have moved is an incredibly bad idea.

I know it is frustrating , I’ve been there! Sliding up & down the list! I remember when I moved a few places due to people who lived in the area changing their minds & then applying for the school. Because they lived closer they went in front of me based on the school’s admission criteria even though they didn’t apply for the school initially!
But there has to be a criteria/list/rules and as long as everyone plays fairly then it is what it is :(

I can see where you are coming from OP and I think an alternative system could be workable, but defining a workable system would require a fundamental policy shift in acknowledging that there's a genuine hierarchy of quality of schools within an area, and then saying that the places at the best schools within the local area should be more accessible to children of long-term residents than they are to children who move into the area.

Those policy changes can't be assumed. Currently the official line is that all schools that haven't actually been closed down by an inspection that deems then to be totally inadequate have to all be considered as equally capable of educating any given child, and that whilst parents can express a preference there's no problem with a child being given a different place if that preference can't be accommodated. All children except those who are "looked after" (in care) or whose EHCP names a specific school - both categories that are prioritised above all others - are considered equal and no more entitled to able to access a place at the "best" school or protected from having to attend the "worst" than any other child.

It would be workable to say that if a family moves into a new area then the children can only join the waiting list for any school if there is no school within a 3 mile radius of their new address that currently has spaces available.

However, if no school within the area has actual spaces and a space comes up at school A (desirable) that a child currently at school B (undesirable) is on the waiting list for, then under the current policy of all schools being basically equivalent it makes total sense for the child that has just moved in and has no school place to be given the space, rather than the child at school B moving schools and the freed-up place at school B being offered to the new resident. That is clearly unnecessarily disruptive if you refuse to acknowledge that school B is crap, which local authorities have to do.

And such a shift wouldn't address the way that people who already live within the region can move within the region to a new home on the doorstep of a desirable school and their waiting list position is immediately affected. There would also be serious issues with definitions in places where two local authorities have boundaries with one another - should someone who only moved by a couple of hundred yards to a larger property to accommodate a growing family size be negatively affected if their move happened to be across an LA boundary line and happened to take place just as one of their kids reaches secondary school age?

I appreciate (most of!) the replies and different viewpoints, thank you. It's been a bit of, for want of a better word, an education! The schools admission process is so complex and as I said in my OP, I agree it works well for many.

Your children's education is an emotive topic for most - everyone would like for their child to go the best school available and yes, when it seems that that is taken from you, because a handful of families 'play the game', then it's difficult to deal with. I can't claim to know the stories of all the families that moved into our area 4-6 weeks before the beginning of term and maybe some were legitimate, but to me, it felt like a handful of families, took advantage of a system and because of that my son isn't at the school I would like him to be at.

I also accept that it feels impossible to stop that from happening without causing the unfairness to develop somewhere else.

Thank you to the replies that were kind, helpful and informative.

I can't claim to know the stories of all the families that moved into our area 4-6 weeks before the beginning of term and maybe some were legitimate, but to me, it felt like a handful of families, took advantage of a system and because of that my son isn't at the school I would like him to be at.

sorry OP but I could not disagree more.
If you are playing the system, you would have moved before the applications went in. To move now, and end up on the waiting list, is pretty dire situation for them too. Waiting lists may not move at all, the top 1 or 2 may be pretty confident of getting in, but not the rest.

These people are not getting any advantage really, they are also waiting stressfully to see if their kids have a school place, on top of the stress of moving house and losing friends etc

I think you are letting your disappointment cloud your vision of these people.
Save your ire for the families that cheat their addresses on the applications forms.

As PatriciaHolm and prh47bridge have said, the way that waiting lists are managed is set out in the Admissions Code. Your suggested change would leave children either commuting back to schools in their former area or not attending school for a year or more. That seems a spectacularly bad idea.