ONLINE ADMISSIONS - MY SCHOOL CHOICES DO NOT EXIST - ADVICE?

[wandacatvenus]

DD will be moving from a primary to a secondary Special School in September 2014.

We are going down the statement amendment route, but need to make our school choices via the official route as well. Our LA now only allows the admissions to be done Online. Our first two choices of Special Schools are in neighbouring LEAs but the Online admissions system does not have the special schools listed in those LEAS (All the other mainstream schools in the neighbouring LEAS are listed)

As such we are unable to make our choice of school. We need to apply officially for these schools as we know the LEA will refuse our school choices but at least then it has been done officially and an appeals process can be started.

has anyone else had this problem and if Yes, how did you resolve it? Is the omissions of certain schools lawful?

Not sure if it's the same but when we had to do school admissions for ds who we wanted to go to a SN school we had to fill in the forms online with mainstream schools as his school wasn't an option but when you get the statement there is a pg at the back that asks which school you want them to attend and this is where you put your choice in. Hope that makes sence. It seems a totally waste of everyone's time IMO. Give your dd's ed psych a call tomorrow as they should know

Just to add - All the schools including Specials in our own LEA are listed, so it is not just a case of every Special Needs School being unlisted.

You can't choose a special school in the main admissions round. They are closed admissions, I.e. The L.A. has to select the school for your child.

Schools/ lea admission prefer for children with statement to apply through the admissions process if their transition statement is ongoing so they are incorporated in the pan of admission instead of having to increase pupils on roll number, they would rather reallocate the place when the child is accepted in the preferred specialist placement. You as a parent need to decide do you want your choice of mainstream as a backup then fill the admissions online, if however the option of mainstream is not viable then ignore.

Ring up the admissions admin people (who are likely to be more helpful than the SEN people) and ask.

It must be possible to apply on a paper form as not everyone has internet access. I would tell them about the problem with the online system but also insist they let you fill out a paper version so you have a copy of what you put (and I would send it signed for or hand deliver and get a receipt so there is no question your form wasn't received)

UPDATE - I phoned our LEA's admission department today. They were very helpful, unlike their Special Need colleagues. They arranged for the two special schools we want to name as preferences to be added to the admissions system. I went back in the system later on in the day and they have been added. Interesting though is that when we log in to the site, we now seem to be allocated to a slightly different webpages which have less graphics and more free formats than the pages we saw last night.

You also have to apply On line in our LEA. IF you do not have On line access, you are being asked to goto a library and get the library staff to ask you.

It was important that we named our school choices formally, as the LEA have already advised us verbally that our choices will be refused as they intend to name their school choice on the amended statement. Our concern is that if we do not also go down the official admissions route the LEA will simply say that we have never informed them officially/formally of our preferences (Although they have been verbally informed)