School appeals - help offered

silvercar

Does anyone on here send their children to seperate schools? How does it work if you "have" to be late on drop offs and collections because they are too young to travel themselves? Will the LEA tell the school they have to accept this situation (lateness)?

For your child sake as well as your own you would need to sort out an arrangement. Even if the school accepted that you would be late (the LEA won't do anything), your child is going to have to walk into classroom having missed playground line-up and possibly feel uncomfortable. In fact it is probably better to leave the elder child in the playground before the official start time than have one walk in late.

The easiest is to find someone in a similar situation and do rotas (So you bring their child along with your own on one day and they bring your child on another day).

I don't know if it applies, but if the LEA can't provide a school place within 2 miles of your home (3 miles for over 8s), they are obliged to provide transport.

Bubby

I can see what you are saying and i'm sure that if it comes to it I will be able to drop one off early (if I can get agreement with another parent or teacher to watch them) but I just cannot move my eldest as it would cause more problems than the hassle of me juggling. Unfortunately as we chose the out of catchment school when there was a vacancy closer to home then the lea will not provide transport.
I understand that it is important to be able to get into your local school but I think splitting siblings is far worse so I can't understand the priority list
The closest school to us didn't have any spaces (0.2m) for my eldest yet children from outside catchment got spaces, I was fine with this as I drive and was happy with the other school but maybe now I know the priority list I should have fought a space!:mad:

Spendless

Bubby wrote: »

I can see what you are saying and i'm sure that if it comes to it I will be able to drop one off early (if I can get agreement with another parent or teacher to watch them) but I just cannot move my eldest as it would cause more problems than the hassle of me juggling. Unfortunately as we chose the out of catchment school when there was a vacancy closer to home then the lea will not provide transport.
I understand that it is important to be able to get into your local school but I think splitting siblings is far worse so I can't understand the priority list
The closest school to us didn't have any spaces (0.2m) for my eldest yet children from outside catchment got spaces, I was fine with this as I drive and was happy with the other school but maybe now I know the priority list I should have fought a space!:mad:

Are you in catchemnt though? You can be close to a school and not in their catchment area, depends where their 'boundary' lies. Also if it's a faith school it will have it's own criteria for admissions which aren't ness the same as the rules you've posted.
If none of this applies though and people from further down the list got in above you, then yes I'd have appealed at the time.

bonty44

Also the people from further away might have applied under Categories 1 / 2 / 3

If it is a faith school then this would have appeared in the Admissions Criteria

Bubby

Yes it is a faith school but about 3/4 of the schools children are not catholic. Yes we are in the catchment area but we did move here part way through the year so our application would have been late. I am not really worried about the space at that school as we were happy with the school out of catchment. Obviously if I had known then what I know now I may have felt differently at the time;)
At least we are in catchment for the secondary school we like;)

Savvy_Sue

I have done the 'dropping children off at different schools' lark, because I chose to move DS1 at the end of Year 2, when DS2 was about to start in Reception. I can't remember if starting times were staggered, I know that DS2 could be left in the playground a bit early, although I didn't do that to begin with.

It was all a bit of a nightmare, and it got worse when DS3 joined DS2 and didn't like getting dressed - the head said the EWO would be round to see me and I said fine, let them come at 8.30 am and see what I was up against! :rotfl:

But we got better at it, especially as DS1 got older and could take himself (from the end of Year 5 and all through Year 6). I think too that DS2 was taking himself in Year 4 - it wasn't far, there were no busy roads to cross, and half the street was going that way!

So one thing to consider is how long it's going to be a problem for if you do end up at different schools. If your eldest is only a year or two above the younger one, then obviously you're looking at 4 or 5 years, but if there's only a year or two before DS1 moves on then a) it's not so long to have the problem and b) you may be able to let DS1 go on his own?

BTW, it's not necessarily the best thing for siblings to be in the same school, I'd say it depends on the sibling relationship and whether the school is 'right' for each child. I really struggled when my little sister joined me at secondary school - I was known as 'her sister' within weeks, rather than the other way round! DS1 was very glad NOT to be at the same school as DS3 when he was younger, and found it hard enough when DS3 started in Year 7 as he moved into the separate but related 6th form.

I think too that DS3 suffered from being DS2's brother with some teachers: they were expecting another DS2 - extremely bright, cheerful, compliant. Well, they got 2 out of 3 of those qualities ...

Spendless

bonty44 wrote: »

Also the people from further away might have applied under Categories 1 / 2 / 3

If it is a faith school then this would have appeared in the Admissions Criteria

I was talking about the school Bubby says she's closest to, not the one she currently attends which is the one the admissions criteria has been posted for. Bubby it might not have made any difference our faith schools all have their own individual criteria and even if you aren't of the particular faith of the school being of another faith and having that supported by the 'minister/leader' that you regularly attend would put you in a further up category than catchment, which here often comes low down the list. You'd have to know what the criteria was for the faith school to be able to work out where you fell iyswim. When my eldest started reception I had a place for him at a nearby CofE school, several kids didn't get in and took it to appeal. They won as the school admitted it hadn't stuck to its own admission criteria. I gave up the place in favour of a nearer non faith school that my son was already at the nursery at as I wasn't keen on a school that couldn't stick to its own rules.

Going back to the school your eldest currently attends. Have you any way of (roughly) knowing how many are in catchment for your youngest''s particular school year? eg I knew my son's year was going to be a big one as there are 2 sets of triplets living in catchment. I also knew the year above my daughter was likely to be small as the local playgroups had a lack of children (one even closed down).

Bubby

Yes the faith school has a different criteria for admissions but as we moved part way through the year it wouldn't have mattered that we were further up the list as all the spaces had been allocated iyswim?

There are at least 11 children including my youngest that I know of and they only have space for 15:eek:
I am going to look at some other local schools, the trouble is our existing school is at least 6 miles from any other so drop offs are going to be absolute mayhem!!

Hubby says "don't worry until you get rejected" but I want to prepare myself for the worst so that anything else is a bonus;)

Savvy_Sue

In that case, I would think about choosing 2nd and 3rd choices which offered breakfast and after school clubs, if that's possible ...

How many years would this be for?

Bubby

Thats the problem none of the local schools offer them (apparently due to funding and finding an outside company to do them??)

My eldest is only in the 2nd year of school so 6 more years at least!!

I really feel so awful, we already moved my eldest part way through the year.....bad mother choosing the wrong b#oo#y school:o