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bromleymum wrote: »After feeling very safe for the last couple of years that our eldest, currently year 5, would get into the school of our choice, when the results came out yesterday our neighbours daughter did not get a place!!!
This is the first time my street has failed to get a place. Apparently the catchment area shrank by 500m and that's us wiped out.
It's very upsetting as he's in a little gang of four and the other three all have siblings in the popular school.
There is absolutely no way we can move.
What a horrible system and there will always be winners and losers.
Just because your son would not have got in this year does not mean it will be the same next year, depends on the size of the cohort and where they all live. The catchment area did not shrink in the time between your neighbour applying and yesterday, just the area that successful applicants were living in.0 -
How big is the current yr 6 against your child's yr 5 though? Yr 6 is enormous here, and 1 of my son's classmates hasn't got in. He is on the (3rd) criteria of 'out of catchment but attended feeder school' which is after catchment and siblings here, but last year (ie the current yr 7) children got in on (4th) criteria 'anyone else out of catchment resident in town'. Just depends on how big the school year is. Also if your 1st criteria is siblings, then how many come under that category, you can get 'boom' years of children having siblings too.bromleymum wrote: »After feeling very safe for the last couple of years that our eldest, currently year 5, would get into the school of our choice, when the results came out yesterday our neighbours daughter did not get a place!!!
This is the first time my street has failed to get a place. Apparently the catchment area shrank by 500m and that's us wiped out.
It's very upsetting as he's in a little gang of four and the other three all have siblings in the popular school.
There is absolutely no way we can move.
What a horrible system and there will always be winners and losers.0 -
I second Spendless's comments. Year 6 this year is very heavy due to it being a 2000 birth year, year 5 is till quite big (still some 2000 births just nowhere near as many as this current year).
Don't worry yet, next year could be a very different story.0 -
Hello,
I am another desperate Mum currently preparing an appeal for a secondary school place for my son. I am so stressed and harassed :-( We live in Harrow and we always thought that we would get into my son's preferred school. Last year we'd lived within the boundaries of the school we wanted but this year we missed out by about 0.3 mile....so many more kids applied! My son's primary is one of the 3 feeder schools for the one we want, not sure if that has any relevance?
The one he got allocated was not amongst our choices, it's the worst school in the borough with 31% pass rate at GSCE level...nightmare....My son has been since the start one of the two best performing kids in his primary and can't stand being bored and not challenged - which he has often had to endure at hid middle-of-the-road primary.
The allocated school hasn't had the record of bullying as far as I know, it is just really, really bad academically. Now, I am not sure how to approach this appeal in the best possible way...We do not have any family in this country, not one, and for my son going to a school where almost all of his friends are going is so important - on top of the academic reasons.
I really wanted to know whether enlisting a professional is worthwhile? Just to help out with the statement, I want to attend the hearing myself. I just do not want to miss out on putting an argument forward which can make all the difference! I can't decide and need to act quickly!
I have ordered a book which is good, apparently, but I so desperately need to give this appeal the best possible chance of succeeding!
And also, my son passed 2 entrance exam for independent schools, as we were led to believe that family income would qualify him for a bursary. He was offered a full paying place which we couldn't afford, so we had another major disappointment to contend with :-( Not sure of we can use this fact to our advantage in the appeal?
Any constructive advice would be very very welcome!
Thank you.0 -
RedCabbage:
You won't be able to use the information about private school applications in your appeal, the LA will have no interest in that. What you need to do first of all is to put your son down on the waiting list for the school of your choice, and see if you can find out from the school how far down that list he is. If you live in an area where a lot of children go private, you may find some places open up.
As far as the appeal is concerned, you need to go back over the application process and check that the LA followed the stated procedure at each stage - you need to find a point to appeal on, if you are to have any success.
If your son missed out on distance, I would suggest that your first enquiry would be, what was the farthest distance from the school for a successful application, where there were no additional factors such as a statement or siblings.
As has been said before, your appeal needs to be based on why your son should go to the preferred school, not whay he should not go to the allocated school.0 -
Thank you Lilystar.
Do you have any experiences with getting help from professionals?
We have already put him on the waiting list of the school we are appealing for and another one as well.
The school we are appealing for is a specialist science college and my son is definitely a "science geek", we truly believe that this school would be the best option for him and not any other in the borough, despite the fact that there is another school with better results on paper..
We already got the information about the furthest distance and we lived about 0.3 miles too far...
Thanks0 -
Hi RedCabbage,
Sorry, no I have no experience of appeals with professionals. It may be worth approaching your local councillor or MP first though, as if you live in an area where this situation is common, they may have a lot of experience.
It may also be worth asking the school you wish your son to attend if they can put you in touch with anyone who recently had a successful appeal. I don't know if they would do this, but it may be helpful to speak to someone who's recently been through it in your area, as I am aware that some appeal panels prefer not to hear from hired experts.
On a wider point, I think it is a little daft to have 'speciality' schools if pupils who are inclined to the speciality area cannot attend, we have these in our area, and I wish we didn't.0 -
First thing I would do is check the distance yourself. Ask them to provide a map/directions of which route they followed from your house to school to work out them distance . There may be another way which shortens the distance. If you can find a shorted way which is within the distance they have to accept you. (google earth can help here).
There are certain rules which have to followed such as the route needs to be along proper paths etc ie not over fields and so on. It may be that you are definitly too far away, but this is the easier grounds to argue on and councils do get it wrong. We had this last year with my niece and were able to prove that an alternative route was just within there maximum limit and they offered her a place. I sent them a copy of the route we suggeted taken from google earth with the distance on and they offered her a place straight away. We only emailed them, never went to appeal etc. Obviously this may not help but you definitly should check this before looking at other arguements. I would also ask them whats the nearest distance the next child was away and how many children are in front of your son on thewaiting list.0 -
It would be tremendous if anyone has any advice for us as we are feeling very emotionally drained by the whole process of mounting an appeal - we're in the process of putting it together at the moment.
Our daughter has been bullied at the high school where she started in year seven since about the second week of the autumn term. Despite endless correspondence, phone conversations and meetings with the head and other relevant staff, the school has spectacularly failed to do anything other than make the problem worse. They have refused to confront the girls who are doing the bullying and warn them that there will be sanctions if they continue. They told us they were worried the bullies might start truanting if they are disciplined. They have suggested, instead, that our daughter should "not talk about it at home" and try and ignore it. Difficult when it is happening to her every day.
Not surprisingly she is displaying severe signs of stress and has lost all confidence in the school and the teachers to support her, as well a confidence in herself. We have come to the conclusion that the only good solution would be for her to move schools.
We would like her to go to a school nearby which is a faith school and which is full. The head teacher of that school has been very sympathetic and said he would like to have our daughter but has explained that we will have to go through the appeal process.
We want her to go to this school for three main reasons:
She has several very good friends there
It is renowned for its caring ethos
It has outstanding provision for music.
Part of the reason for her being bullied is that she is very musical - sings in a choir and plays two instruments. This is considered nerdy at the school she currently attends. They have no extra curricular music opportunities and music is not nurtured in any way.
We have statements supporting our case from her instrument teacher and choir leader, saying that she would flourish at this school. The musical opportunities available to her there would be many and varied.
We also have supporting statements from our local priest, our doctor (saying that she exhibiting severe signs of stress as a result of being bullied), and from her primary school head teacher (stating what sort of girl she is and how she would thrive at the school we are aiming for).
Although the school is full we are hoping to be able to find some evidence that it is well equipped to accommodate an extra pupil - based on student numbers, grades etc.
Is there anything more we could do and have we overlooked anything vital? Do we have a reasonable case? It's easy to lose perspective when you're in the middle of the whole mess so any comments very greatly appreciated.
Thanks x
Out of interest, did you put this faith school as a choice when your daughter was due to go to Secondary school?0 -
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