Co parenting and secondary school place

UnicornGirl81

Hi there hope you can help?

so my youngest has just had his form through for a secondary school placement. 

His dad and I co parent but live in different council areas, I had to move further afield as it was affordable mortgage wise. 

My son has continued to go to school near his dads house (as that was where i originally lived) which enabled his dad & I to co parent 50/50 as travelling isn’t an issue for me. 

Now with myself living in a completely different catchment area for secondary schools I am in a quandary of what to do, can I use his dads address on the form to try and get a placement at a school nearer to his dad? Again travelling isn’t an issue for me as I take the other children to catch college buses from the same area. 

Thank you  

silvercar

the form do the forms have guidelines? I would suspect that your son has to have one address as his main official address. Which is used by his current school, is it the same as the address registered with GP?

UnicornGirl81

silvercar said:

the form do the forms have guidelines? I would suspect that your son has to have one address as his main official address. Which is used by his current school, is it the same as the address registered with GP?

Thanks for your reply, all the children are registered with the gp at my address but schools and everything else have both parents as main carers and have both addresses on file. 

The letter he brought home to apply for a place has my old address on (I moved in to the current address almost a year ago) and the school has the current address on their files. 

silvercar

In my area, you would need to make sure that the primary school has your ex’s address as the primary address. This needs to be consistent with the application form. Otherwise you risk being considered to be trying to game the system to improve your chances at popular schools. 

sheramber

Why do you prefer the other school as opposed to the one for  your address?

UnicornGirl81

sheramber said:

Why do you prefer the other school as opposed to the one for  your address?

It’s not that I prefer the school away from my address, it just means that my son can continue to see his dad as he could walk to and from school. my other children get their taxi and college bus from the area near to their dad and on my weeks I travel to that area so it wouldn’t be an issue for me to get my son there. I just don’t want to hamper their relationship with their dad as the school closer to me would mean he could only see him every other weekend instead of every other week. 

Savvy_Sue

One thing to check at an early stage is whether the school you've got your eye on is routinely oversubscribed. If it's not, it's less of an issue, although what's happened in previous years isn't always a predictor. 

I think you're going to need to phone the local authority and ask this question directly, you can also ask the school he's at ATM, and also the school you're hoping to get him into. Try to get any answers confirmed by email ... 

UnicornGirl81

Savvy_Sue said:

One thing to check at an early stage is whether the school you've got your eye on is routinely oversubscribed. If it's not, it's less of an issue, although what's happened in previous years isn't always a predictor. 

I think you're going to need to phone the local authority and ask this question directly, you can also ask the school he's at ATM, and also the school you're hoping to get him into. Try to get any answers confirmed by email ... 

thank you for your reply and information it’s really helpful and I appreciate it

RAS

Might be a good idea to talk to your son, does he want to move to a school with his mates locally or with ones he know near dad?

And then ask dad to speak to the school near him, if that's what your son wants? 

UnicornGirl81

RAS said:

Might be a good idea to talk to your son, does he want to move to a school with his mates locally or with ones he know near dad?

And then ask dad to speak to the school near him, if that's what your son wants? 

Hi there, yes my son does want to go to the school closer to his dad’s. 

He currently attends the primary school in his dad’s area and has a lot of friends there. Unfortunately we didn’t have a choice in moving this far away but he has kept his primary school place and I just do all the travelling so he can maintain the relationship with his dad and his school friends. 

This is something I just didn’t think of when moving here until he brought his transfer letter home. 

Thank you for your comment

Savvy_Sue

Out of interest, what's the split on childcare? Is it anything like 50/50, or do you do more?