Local school - Not enough places for area

[GrantA]

My daughter is 4 and will be starting school in sept this year. The School had 47 applications for 30 places. Is anyone aware of getting a school to create an additional class as it has so many applications. I know the legally limit for 30 places until they are 7 per classroom.

Sadly for me, my daughter didnt get into this school which is only 0.3 miles from the school and I will now have to driver her to the school that has places as this is nearly 2 miles from our home. I have appeal so hopefully this will work.

Any advice would help me a great deal.

[cazzz1975]

schools are woefully underfunded especially when it comes to expansion, I think you are in the lap of the gods unfortunately, the only thing that will go in your favour is your distance to the school and a lack of places in neighbouring schools.

[GrantA]

I should say that the school already has at least two empty class room all year round. There is another class room free most of the time but the local pre-school uses this in the few months prior to the children starting the school.

So technically it would just be funding for salaries etc and they wont need add to the building.

[annie0000]

we recently had the exact same scenario and numbers - do you live in Scotland? Our situation is temporarily resolved as the community lobbied local councilors and managed to get funding for a temporary classroom to enable all children to start at the school - we were lucky as the local elections are coming up and they were falling over themselves to be the one to sort it out!! The longer term strategy for the school is now under debate as they expect similar numbers of children coming through for the next few years and it only has 8 classrooms at the moment and they cant just add a portacabin every year!

I'd get the rest of your community involved - what about the parent council? There must be some people with kids at the school who now cant get a younger sibling in. Contact your local press, write to your MP, go to your councilors surgery etc

[annie0000]

sorry, details about the spare capacity weren't there when I answered
we had enough staff to teach an extra class, just no space to do it.

[EDDIE51]

The school you have been offered is less than 2 miles from your home, sorry but I do not think you hve much, if any, chance of getting a better offer.
Very many children will have to travel a lot further than that. We have villages near here where the only school has closed and children travel 10 miles each way and even more this is for 5 to 8 year olds, for older children the situation is worse, some have to travel 15 or 20 miles each way. Even the school bus has been withdrawn so it's up to the parents to organise transport.

[annie0000]

Eddie, for me it's not about the distance, all kids from the same community should be able to be educated together. The way they were doing it in our school, they weren't even talking account of who already had siblings there, basically the first 30 kids on the list got in the rest would have to go elsewhere.

[cazzz1975]

this is the problem with oversubscribed schools, they have to draw a line with allocations at some point otherwise they would be overcrowded which brings its own problems

[EDDIE51]

The school she has been offered is less than 2 miles away , few children live that close to a school in the first place. If it was a case of just one or two children more than the number of places they may have 'squeezed' them but there are over than 50% more children than places available. If all the 17 'extra' children all go to the other school they will make friends among the others in the group.

[GrantA]

Sadly not in Scotland. The school that is nearly 2 miles away, is on a local RAF base, as this is the school which the school admissions think will have places, but they cant confirm this until end of May, therefore we have been offer a place as long as there are no RAF children requiring a place.

I have appealed to the school, but this also ends in may, it is just a shame, as she is already going to the pre-school that is linked to the lower school and has already started to go to the lower school as part of the transfer. Which does not help, plus her friends have got in as they have siblings there. I just dont want an upset child come Sept as she is shy girl and it has taken her awhile to make some friends.

[sherrardk]

Our local school was over-subscribed this year and they then had to decide based on siblings already at the school. I was lucky and thing 1 and thing 2 got a place but there are still three children on the waiting list. If they hadn't got in, I would have kept them home until a place became available for them (they don't have to legally go to school until they are five years old). There is a lot of movement at our school as the school catchment covers a army camp. Is this an option for you?

[GrantA]

I live in a village and they are expanding the village houses, we don't have spaces at the doctors or dentist, even thou they have just moved to bigger places with more staff. They have already build 100 new houses and plan to build more.

Currently there are 3 schools, all schools have more applications than places. These 3 schools cover around 20 villages. Hence why they are now looking at the RAF school.