secondry school admissions

[Thaigal]

My local secondry schools are all hell-holes, therefore I will not allow my children to go to them.

So...what happens at the time if that is all they will offer me? Basically I will be making 3 choices, my first will be a small but excellent all boys school with no catchment area (voluntary aided city centre school). My second choice will be a nice school in the village just outside of the city (not in our catchment area but close enough to be realistic) and the 3rd is a decent enough school a few miles away, again not in the catchment area but close enough to be realistic.

So what happens if, at the time they offer my son a place at one of the 2 local chav hell-holes? Obviously I will refuse it but how much choice do I really have? Has anyone experienced this?

You can appeal (if you have grounds); you can get on the waiting lists of any other schools (just in case); you can apply to any undersubscribed schools.

But ultimately you have an obligation to ensure that your child is educated, and the LEA will have ensured that you are able to fulfil this obligation at one of their schools. Ultimately you would be faced with Home-eding, paying for a private school, or face prosecution.

No actual experience but if you don't realistically have much chance of getting into those three schools and they are the only ones you put on the form, if you don't get a place in one of those you will be offered a place at the nearest school with places (that's what happens around here anyway.) You can go on a continuing interest list for the schools you want and hope a place comes up or try to find another school with places left.

Parental choice ....pah! It doesn't exist. In reality if you don't get your first choice you will get offered a place at an undersubscribed school towards the bottom of your LEA league table.

You can appeal but there are pretty strict guidelines and you'd need to have good grounds - not liking the chav hell hole won't be good enough.

It depends where you are, and on how many parents 'exercise their choice' to look outside catchment, and how many are prepared to go to appeal if necessary.

There is no choice in effect if you live in an area with only a few decent schools and a whole load of failing schools.

We have just undergone the process. We live in the catchment area of a decent school (not good IMO, but OK) but I preferred another school outisde our catchment area (but only 2 miles away so not unreasonable). We did not dare apply to the other school as we were not guaranteed a place and, had we failed to get in, we could have been sent to one of the hell-holes. Our second choice of the local school would notm have been regarded as it is always oversubscribed. So, we applied to the catchment school and are hoping our place there is guaranteed. It is not my first choice but it is better than all the others.

Ladymuck's three options of private, home ed or prosecution is about all there is to it.

The system stinks.

Does anybody know anything about the government's latest pronouncement that they are going to abolish sibling priority in school admissions policy? If you have more than one child, you could end up with a different secondary school for each one - nightmare.