22 Foxhole East

apple_muncher

Tis a tad early for a school to publish details as they have to be gone over with a fine nit-picking comb before being released into the wild.


Was just wondering if you'd heard owt on the grapevine...

f0xh0les

They have told the kids in detail what was said about their (the kids') behaviour, what was good, and what could be improved on. but nothing about the teaching or facilities or management.

Will be there at an options evening tomorrow so might find out more.

f0xh0les

Today was a busy day,
I changed all 3 top floor beds, laundered and returned
Hoovered the whole house.
Cleaned and disinfected the banisters, door handles and fingerplates.
Put on a nice new, heavy, shiny, white loo seat. So glad to be rid of the other nasty one, but broke 2 fingernails undoing the bolts and screws, it all looks much better in there now.
Turfed out my chest of drawers ready for Autumn - all summer stuff is packed up and out the way. All the stuff which is a size 10 is out of the way until I lose my size 16'd ness. I will get back there.

So much for the cold going away, woke up at 3am with a raging sore throat, but could not be bothered with it and went back to sleep, woke up at 6am without it, carried on fine until 6pm when it came back and hit me with a vengeance. Ouch. Not impressed. Don't want to get a stupid cough. Back on to the lemon-flavoured-disgusting-paracetamol-based-drink (TM) yuk!

Tomorrow will be laundering the middle floor beds (2), harvest celebration at primary school (kill me now), options evening for DS2 and rounding it all off with football and beer-free-beer, after a YS raid on the way home.

DS4 is singing ' I want to grow beans' to the tune of Queen's 'I want to break free', so I showed him the video of Freddie in his pvc miniskirt doing the hoovering, and he was quite disturbed about the whole moustache, padded bra, stockings scenario.
What can I say, I was a child of the 70's and transvestism and moustaches went hand in hand with cowboys and middle aged men sharing a bed on primetime tv. It's a wonder any of us turned out alright!!!!!! Besides, it was all done in the best possible taste.

the_cross_rabbit

I used to love kenny evert, sometimes DH sit like the female character (can't remember name) and it starts me laughing imagining him doing best possible taste legs:rotfl:

f0xh0les

Kenny was Cupid Stunt and i think he had a friend called Betty Swallocks.


All good clean filth.:rotfl: and full frontal female nudity, if I remember (The Sweeney) correctly - the lag's wife was always naked when the coppers came round. Wouldn't get away with it now.
Mary Whitehouse would be quite happy with what we have now.

f0xh0les

Ooooooooh just did something really dangerous!!

I have applied for DS3s school placement, we are (just) outside the school catchment area, but the 2 older siblings rule is currently in force. I have only requested the one school. No backup.

The reasons?
1. 2 older children at that school
2. He is in a feeder school for that school
3. All the City schools, and most of the County schools have different term dates to the Academy I need him to go to. If he is allocated a place elsewhere, then half term holidays/ Easter holidays are all off, and we are already stopped from going away due to Exams/ dissertation marking / essay marking schedules from the University.
4. Stability after he has had to attend 3 different primary schools due to our odd lifestyle choices
and
5. The backup - and the way I bypassed the admissions process last time when I moved here and the 2 eldest missed 3 whole days of education,- it is an Academy and so it has its own admissions policy and technically can admit who the hell it likes. i was interviewed on the Thursday morning and they were there in full kit on Monday morning. I used the magic words ' children missing from education' and then as soon as they saw their school reports, they practically bit my arm off to get them.

So ... a risky strategy indeed. But it is going to be the only way I can work it, and guarantee everyone is at school on time. Besides, it is an enormous school and it appears unpopular with most parents who went there 15 years ago. Everyone wants the smaller schools, not the two merged schools with a bigger campus now.

What do you think? All you teacher types? It would dramatically effect our family life if he did not get in....

PurpleFairy26

Having had personal experience with the exact people of who you talk making decisions about our small people's and families positions with theses things. I'm a bit laid back about it all. I wasn't when we went through the total mayhem that was no school for small due to their bureaucratic processes which it seems they make up the answers too depending on the day of the week it is, or which way the wind is blowing. But it gave us a year of massive difficulty but we came out the other side and all is good.

I would do whatever you need to do for your family to make it work. I would however, always recommend a number 2 school. As, whilst it might seem like Hobson's choice with only 1. They literally will not allocate you a school and then when pushed offer you one 15 miles away or something stupid. At least get a school, even if it's not the one you want. You can then fight tooth and nail to get in the one you do want if needs be after the affect.

f0xh0les

It is surrounded by smaller schools, which are the ones everyone wants.

Having wrangled Salford, Sheffield, and Leicestershire admissions before, each one being absolutely dire, and managed to bypass them completely with DS1 & 2 here, I actually think he would be in a stronger position to have no place entirely and be classed as 'missing' rather than having a place elsewhere and waiting for an in-term transition. Thus having to deal with admissions again

Salford did not give us a place at all, denied ever having received the application and asked where I sent it - when I replied I had handed it into their reception by hand so they could not claim not to have received it, and I offered to email them a copy of the receipt, surprisingly I received the letter confirming my place at my school of choice the very next day.

Sheffield took 8 weeks to allocate a place I had found and applied for and agreed with the head teacher, in the schools I asked for, for no reason other than they did it alphabetically by application date, and you could only accept the place by return of post. Bizarre.

Leicestershire only action certain schools on certain days of the week! and only work in application date order. So if you ask for schools 1.2 and 3 and don't get a place in any, they will not deal with someone requesting a place in schools 8, 9 or 12, in a totally different area, as they will not deal with anyone else until they have contacted person number 1 to tell them to resubmit. Then you have to apply again, and go to the back of the queue as you are submitting a new application. It is utterly crazy, if anyone with a modicum of intelligence and common sense worked in one of these offices, they would implode. In the end Le'Shire had so many kids without a place,and it made the national news, they made the first choice of school take them and raised the class size allocation. Problem solved.


Options evening last night was odd, pretty unhelpful really, and we escaped as soon as possible. They are having taster sessions in the less traditional GCSE subjects in December, so after that he can make his decision. Not going to pressure him, After all, we might not even be here.

Need to do some baking and cleaning, so I am off to do that instead now....

greent

I've only ever gone for 1 school for all 3 of mine which have gone to secondary schools (youngest is in Y5 so still at primary) - and all 3 went/ go to different schools (makes for some organisational challenges!) At several times I have had all 4 at different educational establishments (they currently are - but as 2 are living away at uni they don't really count now - except they make my challenges with the remaining 2 harder as they're not here to 'sit' one whilst I run around after the other)

I've only ever gone for 1 school on primary application too - actually, I may possibly have gone for 2 with eldest (so long ago I can't remember) but then sibling rule has applied to the others following after, so it didn't matter. Am pretty sure that here it's LACs, Forces children and then siblings and then distance for the primaries.

Secondary application here sounds more organised, even though we also have 7 grammars which have slightly different rules to the rest (and possibly each other) - if you don't get your first choice then your second becomes your effective first choice and so on and so on. And it's all advised for the county on the same day

Personally I'd stick with one - the sibling rule is a high factor here

f0xh0les

Ooh Greent that sounds really difficult all 4 in different schools. Did you have the same half term/holiday dates or were they different?