acer100

I really do not understand the logic of the UK school system. I live abroad, but I am planning to go back to the UK to our house. The house is not rented out and we pay the council tax, bills etc.

Since we are planning to move in the summer, at the end of the school year, we want to put an application for our kids now. Good planning, eh?

Well, the address for the application is our address abroad so we end up at the bottom of the list for our preferred and closest school, although we actually have an house there.

Is the system wrong or am I missing something?

cheers
A.

Jerseygirl

I suspect the mistake you made was probably revealing you were not UK residents.

Bermudashorts

Last year I knew a number of people that had applied for schools for the first time, mainly colleagues. Not a single one got first or second choice school, most got third or fourth. I was shocked, obviously something not right with the system at moment.

teejaydee

From what I hear, the problem is simply that the demand for places at the "desirable" schools is greater than the supply.

Giantaxe

Why would you expect them to give priority to someone who has acknowledged that they are not a resident over people who presumably currently are?

MrMuffin

I don't know the specifics about your situation but we found it useful to take a trip back before our big move back just to tour the schools and start building a relationship. I contacted the schools via phone and email ahead and then made appointments to to the school tours in the normal time... September/October. We were supposed to move the following July so I would have needed to do a normal application when I got back.

We ended up moving our move forward to the following January due to a job situation and that meant we needed to do a mid-year transfer for our eldest as the child was already in school in the USA. We did a mid year transfer request into our preferred school in December but we were told by the school that no places were available. They told us to do the paperwork with the council anyway.

We were lucky because a family moved away a few weeks later and because we were poised and had done our paperwork, we were assigned the spot and our eldest joined year 1 in January after our move. We then did our application with the council for our youngest who was due to start reception the following September. Because he was a sibling of our eldest, that bumped him up the list and we found out in April we were successful.

I don't think any of that would have happened if we'd not laid the groundwork and met with the schools ahead of time. Knowing who to contact with questions and then having the school know you helps. We might be dealing with a smaller set of schools than you, I don't know, but who knows? (We have four schools in the area.) Good luck!

teejaydee

May I ask how long ago this all happened? If the newspaper reports are to be believed, shortage of school places is a problem that has become more severe in recent years. I am sure it is more acute in certain areas of the country, but it all adds to the stress involved in the move.

mikelincs

They would be unlikely to accept your request because you were NOT living in the UK, and they have no PROOF that you would be here at the start of the term, so with pressure on places at schools, they would give the places to people who were living in the area, and not risk having empty places because you could decide to stay where you are.

moneypenny20

13 years ago we had to apply for eldest daughter to move to High School. I was born and bred in our home town, the husband had lived there since he was five. We put down our three choices along with a few thousand others. Yes we got our first choice but a huge amount of people didn't and we considered ourselves very lucky. It's shit, it's a pain in the arse but if you want a good school, you have a fight on your hands. If you admit you don't live in the area at the time of application and if I were the person sorting the kids I happily admit I would not give your kid a place.

What really pisses me off is people who rent in a good area for long enough to be able to apply for a good school then once they have a place move out of the area but keep the school place. They then, by virtue of having a kid at the school, can get siblings in and real local kids have to go to a poorer school a lot further away. (Irrelevant to your case obviously).

Anyway in short it's not a new problem and until every school is excellent, it's a problem that will never go away.

MrMuffin

I visited schools in September 2014. And we moved January 2015. Hope this helps.

petitefrancaise

I don't know why anyone would be surprised at the OP being turned away at this point. In the USA they want to see a signed document showing your address before they will even look at your application for a place.