Primary Late Applications... When do you hear?

[angela84]

Hi,

Last October I logged onto the correct website for Primary applications, input all the details of where I wanted DS to go for this Sept, and felt rather pleased with myself for doing it all so easily...... then a few months later received a letter saying apparently I had done everything I needed to, except then press submit. Oh god.
So now he is a 'Late Application' I am very upset with myself, but too late now.

Just wondering if anyone knows when you will hear if you have a place with late applications?

Our lives on totally on hold waiting for this letter, we need to move, I'm due second DS in late August, we've got 2 houses to sell, and all I need is this letter saying 'Yes, he's in' and we can get going with everything else!

[woodforthetrees]

Angela...sorry that sounds awful and anyone's worst nightmare.

This is a subject close to my heart as on Friday we found out that my DC just failed to get into our catchment school but is now first on the waiting list.

I understand that where we are there is a two week period during which the offer of places are either accepted or rejected. During that period of time anyone on the current waiting list (ie people who applied on time but just failed to get in) are hopefully allocated. After that period is up the list is then opened up and the late applicants are then added. If your criteria is higher than anyone else in the list then you jump further up and they get pushed down(so for eg if you live nearer the school). You can keep going up or down depending on late applicants through the summer. Depends on the situation when the place comes up.

Good luck and sorry again - call the council and ask them to explain - I udnerstand from someone else here that the bit after offers go out is a grey area.

I'm spending many sleepless nights worrying about DC but what will be will be I've fingers crossed.

[admission]

Angela,
You need to look at the timetable which is the primary school admissions booklet, which your Local Authority will have issued. If you have not got a copy it will be on their website, usually under school admissions.

This timetable will tell you when on-time applicants will be told what school has been allocated. There is then usually a period where parents are expected to confirm or reject the school offer, following which all late applicants and anybody who wants to be on a waiting lits for a school will be put into admission criteria order. Places will then be allocated where they can, either where schools are not full or where a place is rejected.

You will be offered a place at a school, but I am afraid as a late applicant that could easily not be at any of the schools that you preferred.

I am slightly intrigued. Did the LA really write and say you had done eveything but not pressed the button or did they just say they have not received an application? If it really was the former, then I would have to say that I would appeal on the basis that the LA were behaving unreasonably. If they truely knew that you had applied but failed to press the button, then they should have written to you immediately, not when it suited them after the cut-off date.

[angela84]

Thank you for your replies.

Yes, on 18th November 2009 I received a letter saying 'I note from our records you have not yet submitted an application for a place in reception.... .... There is a record of your registration on the online application system but the form was not submitted'

When I rang in a panic the woman explained there was always a number of people each year who had registered but not submitted, most were people who had moved during the time and no longer wanted to apply for the places.

I wrote a letter with the late application pleading to be considered with all the normal apps but just received a standard letter back saying I would now be in the late applications.

I suppose looking back I could have taken it further, but I'm so new to this and had noone to give me a push, so just sat back and accepted it.

[Galena]

I guess the point is that they can't see the fact you filled in the application form but didn't press submit, they just know you registered to be able to fill it in online and they never received an application from you. I feel for you, but I don't think they were unreasonable, tbh. Hope you get something soon.

[admission]

Angela,
can you confirm, when did you actually apply (without pressing the button), when was the final date for applications to be received?
what is the date of the LAs record?

[Hippygirl]

We were a late application due to moving and the LEA told us we would be informed by 17th April. They have now said end of April but there is no guarantee. When I questioned there timetable they told me there is no deadline for them to offer a school to late applicants.

[admission]

Hippygirl,
In theory they are right there is no set date for late applicants to be offered a place. You should however be considered for places at the schools you have expressed a preference for from the date specified when late applicants will be considered.

The regs say that when a place becomes available at a school, they have to fill the place from the waiting list, put in admission criteria order.

You obviously have to give the LA a bit of leeway over this, as some LAs have 300+ schools, but the waiting list is a dynamic moving thing and not bothering to allocate available places for say more than a week could materially affect some one being offered a place or not.

I would go back to the LA and ask them where you stand on the waiting lists for your prefered schools. If they say you are not on the waiting lists then I would make an immediate written complaint over this.

[angela84]

Hi, I filled in every part of the form, the schools I wanted, all of my sons details, it was just the last screen I couldn't have pressed.
When I rang them they repeated all the information back to me, pref schools, DOB etc.

The last day for applications was 18th Oct, and I filled it in around 15th Oct. Granted, I should have done it earlier, but don't think that would have helped in my situation.

I have spoken to the local council who said beginning of May, so I'll be waiting by the postbox from then onwards!

[admission]

Angela,
No matter the outcome of waiting for late applications I would appeal over this. In an infant class size case there are two reasons a panel can admit, one is that a mistake was made and the child would have been given a place if the mistake had not been made. The second is where the LA (admission authority) is considered to have not acted reasonably. For reasonably you should read acted perversely and is the reason why very very few parents win on this criteria.

I have some niggles over this particular situation and wonder whether there is a case for alleging the admission authority did act unreasonably. Firstly you are making an assumption (which may well be correct) that you did not press the button, may be you did press the button and it was a failure at their end, who knows?.

However the much more pertinent facts are that the LA presumably knew immediately after you did not press the button that you had failed to register your application. They had a window of opportunity to contact you and say that there was a problem before the 18th deadline but did not do so. They in fact waited nearly a whole month before they contacted you to tell you about the failed application. It is clear from the letter and the telephone conversations that they had the information to contact you.

OK it is easy to argue that they have no requirement to do so but i can see an arguement for saying that the LA were not being reasonable in deliberately not sending you the letter until the middle of November. Why could that not have been before the 18th allowing you to meet the deadline.

It is one of those cases that I like because it is different but what a panel would make of that arguement I have no idea. But it could be your only slim chance of getting a place at the school