What Happens If Your Child Doesn’t Get Their Preferred School?*

In September Little Miss will be starting school full time. For any parent this is a stressful time, the thought of their baby heading off to school, all dressed in a uniform for over 6 hours a day, I know I’m dreading it already. Last Friday, parents of children about to start school found out whether or not they’d been accepted into their first choice school. I received my email around 6am so it was there waiting for me when I awoke, and thankfully my little girl got into ours. But this wasn’t the case for everyone and I can’t imagine how much heart ache that brought to some families on Friday morning.

The decision of what school will be offering your child a place is actually down to County and not the schools themselves (unless you are sending your child to a private school where you will be paying tuition), which of course frustrates a lot of families who have strong connections to a particular school. One of the main criteria for schools, especially primary education is whether or not you live in the catchment area. This is second to whether or not you have children already in the school. If you do not fall into either of these criteria there is a chance your child will miss out on a place due to limited numbers of spaces available. There are many reasons why a parent might want their children to go to a school out of their catchment, such as wanting their child to go to a high ranking school in the country wide league tables, or perhaps they have plans to move into the catchment area in the future and do not wish to uproot their child. Whatever the reason, all is not lost, there are still ways where you may still get your child into your first choice school.

Parents of children who have not been allocated a space have a chance to appeal. The parents are given 20 school days to lodge an appeal against the decision. On the form they must clearly state their reasons for the appeal and reasons as to why they wished their child to go to their first choice school. It’s best to cover everything as the panel making the decision will be considering the reason why your child wasn’t allocated a place and this can vary child to child. It’s recommended during this time between the hearing and making your appeal to seek advice on what the panel will need to consider.

Being someone who has dealt with hearings for various things in the past, the very word is quite terrifying, especially to a mother who is already confused as to what to do in this situation and stressed about their child’s educational future but solicitor companies such as Simpson Millar can make the whole ordeal easier. They’re able to guide them through the daunting process and make the appeal hearing as stress free as possible.

None of us want our precious children to grow up and go into education full time. I can tell I’m going to have many sleepless nights over the next few months as we start preparing for the big move. But if we can make it as stress free as possible when it comes to school allocation, that’s a huge help in the grand scheme of things.