School appeals - help offered

GwylimT

It really isn't difficult to get a childminder to do drop offs and collections.

silvercar

GwylimT wrote: »

It really isn't difficult to get a childminder to do drop offs and collections.

Or rota with other parents.

FBaby

Do you see why I say I don't know what is going on. It seems such a mish mash.

From experience, when it comes to such emotional matters, what is said/gossiped is often not always representative of the true situations.

Is there really no childcare available at all? Do all the children attending the school have at least one SAHP?

DS new school didn't have a breakfast/holiday club but there was an council run club outside of the school that catered for the schools in town who didn't offer clubs. They had a minibus to take kids to schools not within walking distance.

tiltal

GwylimT wrote: »

It really isn't difficult to get a childminder to do drop offs and collections.

No it's really easy. But when you have limited about of funds as it is, it perhaps isn't that easy. Of course we have considered all of this already!

tiltal

silvercar wrote: »

Or rota with other parents.

We don;t know any of the parents in the school - as it's a new school, so maybe as time goes on we will get to know them in the new school.
We know a few in the existing school. The friend in the existing school works long hours and has gran collect the children.
The few others have 2 or 3 children to look after already!

tiltal

FBaby wrote: »

From experience, when it comes to such emotional matters, what is said/gossiped is often not always representative of the true situations.

Is there really no childcare available at all? Do all the children attending the school have at least one SAHP?

DS new school didn't have a breakfast/holiday club but there was an council run club outside of the school that catered for the schools in town who didn't offer clubs. They had a minibus to take kids to schools not within walking distance.

It's not gossip, I know the parents I have spoken to , so I know for a fact what is being said is correct. The school have a history of getting things wrong with admissions (not just my year fight to get my eldest in)
I don't know if all the children attending have at least one SAHP.
Right or wrong, I take the view that they are my children, and I don't really like to give that responsibility to anyone other than my close friends and family and if I could afford it a childminder.
I would usually have the luxury of my mum and at times dad to help collect the children, but unfortunately I no longer do as my mum was recently diagnosed with cancer and my dad along with myself and other family members are her carer. Among the many hospital appointments and caring, between them they can no longer commit to this, sadly.

Thanks for the suggestion of outside after school clubs, I will look into this. Again depends on cost, as for us, as for many, things are really tight, and we have limited to nil surplus money.

Thanks

Savvy_Sue

GwylimT wrote: »

It really isn't difficult to get a childminder to do drop offs and collections.

It depends ENTIRELY on the area! The one I was using already had children to take to one school, so when mine were going to a different one I had to make other arrangements - and just changing childminder certainly wasn't going to be an easy option! As far as I could tell, very very few children at the school mine were attending were picked up by anyone other than family - not always parents, but definitely family.

silvercar wrote: »

Or rota with other parents.

This might be possible in time, but I can imagine not easy to set up before the child starts.

tiltal wrote: »

No it's really easy. But when you have limited about of funds as it is, it perhaps isn't that easy. Of course we have considered all of this already!

But please accept that people are trying to be helpful rather than being nasty.

Knight86

Hi im after bit of advice. ive currently moved from birmingham to pelsall and my daughter is currently out off school ive been round my local schools and they are all saying there full so im currently in the process of appealing the descion but not sure how to. I have all the forms i need to fill out for the 3 different schools but not sure what to put in the appeal section this is now the second week my daughter is out of school.

MrsTandCo

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone is still about who can help me as we begin the appeals process?
First, a bit of background.

We have finally bought a house and are soon to move into it following it's renovation. We deliberately chose it because it backs onto the best local school. We could not live any closer unless we were on school grounds! We filled in a mid year application for my son Max (Year 4-aged 8), and indicated that this school was our first preference. As a back up plan, we put down the next closest school to us (25 mins walk away), because I do not drive. I am also a full time Mother to Max's little brother Archer (Aged 19 months). My husband works away quite a lot, often at short notice, so as far as school logistics go, I am pretty much a single parent.

Recently, we got a letter back from the LAdmissions Team, advising we had been declined a place at either of our preferred schools due to oversubscription. Fair enough, although annoying, it was expected given the time of year we had applied) We were offered a school 2.7 miles away instead, as the nearest school with any places available right now.

It would take us 48 minutes to walk to the allocated school. Max is too young to walk unaccompanied. He has zero road savviness and any route I could send him to school by, crosses the A133, which is a pretty busy A road. Especially at school times, with ten other schools between our new home and the allocated school! As he's 8, the LAuth don't cover transport costs unless the school is over three miles away. We cannot afford a taxi to and from school, nor would we be able to afford the buses, (a walk, two buses and another walk, taking around 40 minutes in total).
From a family perspective, if he went to the allocated school, I and my baby son would be walking for a total of 3 hours and 12 minutes every day, which no-one has time for surely?! And in the colder months and when it's dark, I would not be able to take my little one out in his pushchair. He has a congenital heart condition which is asymptomatic at present, but three hours out in the cold is enough to make even the healthiest person unwell in time. I have read through the guidelines for LAuthorities providing school transport, which state that the transport arrangement must be 'sustainable.' The child must arrive at school in a state condusive to learning. Our current walk to school takes 15 minutes and I have already heard from Max's teacher that it takes him a while to get into the groove at the start of each school day. I have asked his teacher if he can write us a few paragraphs stating this amongst other things.
The prohibitive distance of the allocated school would write us out of parents evenings, (unless my husband was not away with work), extra curricular activities, school discos, Christmas events, pretty much everything, again not condusive to helping Max make friends and settle into his new life.

The preferred school is far more suited to Max and his style of learning. They have LearnPads to aid lessons, which he would respond well to, being a bit of a technophile. This school caters for More Able Pupils and he has a natural aptitude for Maths and Sciences. It also offers daily collective worship, (although not a Religious School) and Nativities, Easter celebrations, which, as practicing Christians, would be invaluable for us as a family. These religious aspects are unavailable at the other local schools nor the allocated. Also, Max has trouble forming friendships and as we'll have just moved into the area, I'm mindful that sending him to a school which is miles away, will mean he's excluded from forming any friendships with the local children, thus making it harder for our family as a whole to integrate into our local Community.

I've placed Max on the waiting lists for both of the preferred schools, but they are heavily oversubscribed, and the schools could not tell us where he is on the list.
I have rejected the allocated school place because it is entirely unfeasible for us as a family. I already struggle to take Max in when the weather is bad and his only absences for the year have been when the snow and ice have prevented me from pushing his brother to school, so we all had to stay put. I will homeschool if necessary, but it's not ideal, as I'm still full time looking after Archer and the cash isn't there to place him at nursery. We'll have to wait for the 3 year old funding.

Does it sound like we have a good case for appeal? I can't imagine how anyone could say this decision will not detrimentally affect Max.
The preferred school's PAN is 420 and the current number of children on roll is 426, split between 14 classes of children. How do I get the data on previous and current class sizes, Net capacity etc.?

Thanks so much to anyone who can help a very overwhelmed and stressed out Mama! We need to get our appeal in before the 20/3/2018, but I'd like it in asap, so I'm not stressing over it for an entire month! X

silvercar

MrsTandCo wrote: »

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone is still about who can help me as we begin the appeals process?
First, a bit of background.

We have finally bought a house and are soon to move into it following it's renovation. We deliberately chose it because it backs onto the best local school. We could not live any closer unless we were on school grounds! We filled in a mid year application for my son Max (Year 4-aged 8), and indicated that this school was our first preference. As a back up plan, we put down the next closest school to us (25 mins walk away), because I do not drive. I am also a full time Mother to Max's little brother Archer (Aged 19 months). My husband works away quite a lot, often at short notice, so as far as school logistics go, I am pretty much a single parent.

Recently, we got a letter back from the LAdmissions Team, advising we had been declined a place at either of our preferred schools due to oversubscription. Fair enough, although annoying, it was expected given the time of year we had applied) We were offered a school 2.7 miles away instead, as the nearest school with any places available right now.

It would take us 48 minutes to walk to the allocated school. Max is too young to walk unaccompanied. He has zero road savviness and any route I could send him to school by, crosses the A133, which is a pretty busy A road. Especially at school times, with ten other schools between our new home and the allocated school! As he's 8, the LAuth don't cover transport costs unless the school is over three miles away. We cannot afford a taxi to and from school, nor would we be able to afford the buses, (a walk, two buses and another walk, taking around 40 minutes in total).
From a family perspective, if he went to the allocated school, I and my baby son would be walking for a total of 3 hours and 12 minutes every day, which no-one has time for surely?! And in the colder months and when it's dark, I would not be able to take my little one out in his pushchair. He has a congenital heart condition which is asymptomatic at present, but three hours out in the cold is enough to make even the healthiest person unwell in time. I have read through the guidelines for LAuthorities providing school transport, which state that the transport arrangement must be 'sustainable.' The child must arrive at school in a state condusive to learning. Our current walk to school takes 15 minutes and I have already heard from Max's teacher that it takes him a while to get into the groove at the start of each school day. I have asked his teacher if he can write us a few paragraphs stating this amongst other things.
The prohibitive distance of the allocated school would write us out of parents evenings, (unless my husband was not away with work), extra curricular activities, school discos, Christmas events, pretty much everything, again not condusive to helping Max make friends and settle into his new life.

The preferred school is far more suited to Max and his style of learning. They have LearnPads to aid lessons, which he would respond well to, being a bit of a technophile. This school caters for More Able Pupils and he has a natural aptitude for Maths and Sciences. It also offers daily collective worship, (although not a Religious School) and Nativities, Easter celebrations, which, as practicing Christians, would be invaluable for us as a family. These religious aspects are unavailable at the other local schools nor the allocated. Also, Max has trouble forming friendships and as we'll have just moved into the area, I'm mindful that sending him to a school which is miles away, will mean he's excluded from forming any friendships with the local children, thus making it harder for our family as a whole to integrate into our local Community.

I've placed Max on the waiting lists for both of the preferred schools, but they are heavily oversubscribed, and the schools could not tell us where he is on the list.
I have rejected the allocated school place because it is entirely unfeasible for us as a family. I already struggle to take Max in when the weather is bad and his only absences for the year have been when the snow and ice have prevented me from pushing his brother to school, so we all had to stay put. I will homeschool if necessary, but it's not ideal, as I'm still full time looking after Archer and the cash isn't there to place him at nursery. We'll have to wait for the 3 year old funding.

Does it sound like we have a good case for appeal? I can't imagine how anyone could say this decision will not detrimentally affect Max.
The preferred school's PAN is 420 and the current number of children on roll is 426, split between 14 classes of children. How do I get the data on previous and current class sizes, Net capacity etc.?

Thanks so much to anyone who can help a very overwhelmed and stressed out Mama! We need to get our appeal in before the 20/3/2018, but I'd like it in asap, so I'm not stressing over it for an entire month! X

Sorry you find yourself in this situation.

The bottom line is that popular schools are oversubscribed and if they don't have places they can't offer them.

However hard this is on your family, there is little anyone can do. Mid year places are often difficult to find in oversubscribed schools. Places do however pop up at the beginning of the school year, where inevitably one or two families may move away or change schools.

As for your appeal, really you need to check that the criteria has been followed. But with no places it is going to be hard. The line that the difference to the school in providing a place for your child is less of an impact for them, than the impact on your family bynot having a place.

Some of your arguments are quite weak and I would tend not to emphasise them. How you as a family unit works out how to get your children to school is a matter for you not the school. Learning to drive, budgeting for a bus, setting up a rota with a nearby family are all things to consider.

At the end of the day you chose to move to the house without properly considering how you would manage if you didn't get the school of your choice.