School Admissions

essexhoney

Not sure if this is the right place to put this or not Apologies for the long post.

Im having major problems getting my son (6yrs) into another school. The original school that he was at he was severly bullied to the extent that he was coming home covered in bite marks. The last time he was at school i found him walking out of school next to a main road on his own and the school hadnt even noticed that he had gone :mad:
I took him back into school and got told by the teacher 'I have 7 other children to watch i cant watch them all' :eek: 'If you have a problem take it up with the office'.
To which i did and they agreed with me it never should have happened, and arranged an appointment with me to see the headmistress the following morning. On my way out of the door my sons teacher then grabbed hold of my arm and refused to let go of me, bruising my arm (someone told me to report it when it happened but i didnt think much more of it at the time).

The following morning i went in to see the headmistress who basically laughed in my face :mad: told me that the only thing they could do to assure me that my son would be safe was to tell me that it wouldnt happen again :eek: to me that wasnt good enough and i told them unless they could give me some more reassurance then my son wouldnt be going back.

They made absolutly no contact with me what so ever. I was advised by the local education department to write a letter to the board of governors and hand it in personally to the school (this i think was my biggest mistake) i never got a reply and i dont actually think they ever recieved the letter and that it may have been intercepted before it got anywhere near them.

After a week of no contact from the school, i went and spoke to someone at the local education department about changing my sons school. They were fine about it filled in all the forms and said i should hear something regarding a place within a week.

A week passed i hadnt heard anything so i gave them a call and basically got fobbed off, same thing happened the second week. On the third week i went back down to speak to somebody else where they gave me a letter confirming that my son had been offered a place at the new school. I signed the acceptance letter while i was there and gave it back to them.

I phoned the school that same day and was told there was nobody there to talk to me and somebody would ring me back friday or monday. Again i heard nothing on Tuesday morning i had the school attendance officer knock on my door. With his admission forms list of school uniform that my son needed and arranged a start date there and then for the following monday.
I went out on the thursday bought all of the schol uniform that my son needed (which i couldnt afford to do). To come home to a message on the answer phone from the new school saying that they were having to postpone my sons start date indefinatly, and could i call them to confirm that i had recieved the message.
I called the school and when i asked what the reason was for it, the woman that i spoke to gave me all sorts of reasons everything from not knowing what class he was going in to we dont have confirmation of the place from the local authority.
In the end the last comment i had from them was until we have heard from the head of pupil services we have nothing more to say to you and put the phone down on me :mad:

I then phoned the attendance officer who originally arranged the placement and asked him to find out what was going on. He called me back and said he couldnt get much more sense than i did and that he would send me a letter confirming what we spoke about and come out and see me the following week to discuss what other options there might be. This was 4 weeks ago im still waiting and he doesnt return any of my calls. :mad:

I have been down to the education department approx 3 times a week since then, and have pretty much got nowhere, promises of phone calls to keep me updated which never come.

Last time i went down there was last Thursday again i was promised a phone call whether they knew anything or not to keep me informed. I have heard nothing until this morning when i recieve a letter through stating:

'I am writing with reference to your application for your child to be admitted to the above named school.
As I am sure you will appreciate, all the local primary schools have a limited number of places available and i regret that following a careful check on numbers at your preffered school, it is not possible to agree your request.'
It was then followed by a list of criteria used to allocate places at infant and primary schools.

I now dont know what to do my son has been out of school for nearly 7 weeks, there are no other schools locally apart from this one and the one that he was bullied at, and looking further out isnt an option really.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what i can try now? Can they offer a place and then take it away?

Again sorry for the long post but any help would be really appreciated

Rachie_B

OMG thats awful !!!

im sure that the local ed authority have a duty to find your son somewhere to go to school !! even if it means having to get a bus / taxi to a school further out

7 weeks out of school,now if that was YOU keeping him off for that length of time they would be down on you like a tonne of bricks !

also make a complaint about the school one for allowing the bullying to get so bad your child was being BITTEN on a daily basis ! also for the abuse YOU encountered from the teathers and head !

im totally shocked and disgusted by their behaviour !

does your son have any special needs or anything ? im just wondering why he was only in a class of 8 ??

in the meantime have you thought about home educating him ?

there are lots of websites on this subject

essexhoney

From what i have found out it is actually against the law for them to offer him the place and then take it away.

I have been advised by the Childrens Legal Centre to take my son to my gp and get him signed off of school until it is sorted for his own mental health otherwise they can still take me to court for non attendance even though it is there fault, which im guessing is why they havent done so as yet because it is there fault he isnt in school.

When i first went down to request the change of schools i also requested to make a complaint about the original school and was told someone would ring me the next day because the owman i needed to speak to was in a meeting again i never heard anything.

No my son doesnt have any special needs or anything though they do suspect he has ADHD and is under a specialist at the local hospital for it pending tests. He wasnt in a class of 8 it was a class of approx 25 but they have 3 teachers in the class room which is why i cant understand why none of them saw him.

I asked the local education board about home educating him in the meantime and again didnt get a lot of sense from them. In the meantime i have been trying to do what i can with him at home including finding worksheets from the internet for him to do, though i have run out of new ones now (if anyone has any ideas of sites to try they would be much appreciated).

Rachie_B

OMG i so hope you get things sorted out soon for both your sakes

try http://www.atschool.co.uk/
http://www.home-ed.co.uk/

Rachie_B

also http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=204659

jockettuk

get onto your local MP and your local papers.. get some publicity for your cause

Jays

I would suggest you start to write a journal of every event you can remember with dates and any witnesses, such as people who saw the bites and the event in school with teacher, etc.

From now on write any conversations (telephone, meetings, appointments) down with peoples' names, dates etc., keep any letters, documents etc, write down any advice you get eg, from the Childrens' Legal Centre. If you can take a witness with you to any meetings, it would help, but not someone who will get cross and loose their temper.

This will help whenever you need to refer back to events, such as when complaining.

Whenever you are talking to anyone about this problem, education authorities, teachers, headteachers, attendance officers, doctors helping to investigate his ADHD etc; keep a level head, and tone, try and keep calm, acknowledge what they maybe saying but emphasise everyone need to consider your son and comes to the best conclusion for him. Keeping calm and collected will say more for you in long run, as soon as you loose your temper, you loose your argument.

You may be doing all this already, but these are just some tips I have picked up from chatting to someone else, who incidently was also a teacher, having a similar problem with their own child.

Anyway, best wishes, hope you get this sorted for your son.
Jays

Mrs_Optimist

In your position I would write to the old school setting out your complaints in the concise way you have here and then copy it to the local paper, radio, national papers, MP, LEA, City Council, County Council and basically kick up such a fuss that they have to sit up and take notice. You have been through an awful ordeal and my heart goes out to you and your son x

pink_phantom

Mrs_Optimist wrote:

In your position I would write to the old school setting out your complaints in the concise way you have here and then copy it to the local paper, radio, national papers, MP, LEA, City Council, County Council and basically kick up such a fuss that they have to sit up and take notice. You have been through an awful ordeal and my heart goes out to you and your son x

Excellent advice (maybe not national newspapers, I don't trust them. They look for bad things to say about you).

Penny-Pincher!!

Sounds like the old school has been in contact with the new school and have given them false information..maybe

This is ilegal and immoral! I would go to your local MP, failing that...kick up such a stink that people will have to listen to you. Get in contact or as far as you can with the MP Education Secretary. I would also explain what your intentions are to the school attendance officer and the local council.

Hope everything works out for you. Good luck.

PP
xx

toonfan

I used to clerk school admission appeals but I must say my knowledge is out of date by about 6 years. Then the maximum admission limit at the scjhool was the key issue. if the school you want your child to go to is not "full" - a legal term based on numbers calculated by a capacity formula (which must be published) then my understanding is you are entitled to a place even if it is mid year transfer. If it is full, exceptional circumstances notwithstanding, you will be refused a place. In most circumstances, though perhaps not all as its a primary school, you shoulds have a right of appeal. The LEA must advise you of this right.