Being forced to take choice 1 school

[Richo]

Hello,

I have a dilemma as follows:

At the first round of allocations my daughter was not given any grammar schools of her choice as we were out of the catchment area
She had selected Burnham as choice 1 and Beaconsfield High as choice 2.
At second round she was given Beaconsfield High, which we gladly accepted. we were all pleased with this and its actually what my daughter preferred as its a girls only school.

about a week later we then received a letter stating we had been offered Burnham (choice 1), which we declined and the local authority have said you are required to take choice 1 school if this is made available to you at any point of the allocation process.
I told the authority that we are happy with the Beaconsfield offer and they have accepted my daughter and have started the onboarding process but we have been told that we can no longer retain this school as higher choice is now available.

What can I do to ensure we retain Beaconsfield and are no longer considered for first choice school?

any advise will be greatly appreciated as I now have a distraught daughter:(

Kind Regards

Richo

[southbucks3]

Did you write and say you wished to be removed from the waiting list for burnham after accepting Becky high?

The problem, if you did not, is that the allocation process will have given someone else the opportunity for the Becky high place, after your first option of Burnham came up. Mind you Becky high had added a whole extra class, so there should have been plenty of spare places.

Saying that a week is not a long time to send a letter to remove your child from a waiting list, also the normal process is to allocate in rounds, not a week after round two.

I sounds like they may have made a bit of an administrative error? I would make sure there is a letter in the system, removing your daughter from the waiting list and saying you have accepted Becky high. Then stand firm, saying they did not give you time to send the letter before the unexpected follow up letter, which was issued prior to round three allocations.

Just a final thought, maybe consider why you put Burnham in the first place, if your life will be much easier without the extra 5 mile treck into beaconsfield, or if there are other strong reasons, you could perhaps work on your daughters voice of reason. After all she has pulled the woman's prerogative of changing her mind...

[ToadMum]

Our LA offers out available places ad hoc rather than in separate rounds, so we have to pass on changes to our preferences as soon as we make them. However, looking at the Bucks Moving On booklet online, although they specifically warn applicants that if a place at one of their waiting list schools comes up, they will allocate that and withdraw the previously offered school place, it also says that you have until May 6th to tell them of any changes you want to apply for the third round, with one of the examples given being removing your DC's name from a waiting list. So you should be able to argue that although you accepted Beaconsfield High - because otherwise you wouldn't have a place at all - there was reason to think that you had until the coming Tuesday to make the decision as to whether you would really want a place at Burnham instead,, should it be offered in the next round.

[Sally-Anne]

All the points that sb3 and Toadmum make are valid, especially the timescales for the third round.

This is just wild speculation on my part, but in your first post (over on Appeals) you mentioned that you are 10 miles from Burnham. In the second round Burnham offered places up to 10.456 miles. It could therefore be that you were mistakenly overlooked for a place at Burnham in the second round. That has been picked up on, and the second letter aimed to correct that error by offering you what the Admissions team believed was still your first choice school.

The apparent insistence on you accepting the first choice school at this point in time could just be some over-zealous application of the rules. That would certainly apply after the 6th May deadline, but not before then.

I suggest that you call again on Tuesday and ask to speak to the Head of Admissions. Seek clarification of the position, and if you are still not being allowed to accept BHS, ask for confirmation of the reasons in an email.

As sb3 says, BHS has added an extra class, so there really should be a place going spare. The school was "All Offered" in the second round.

I am sending you a PM (Private Message).

[Richo]

Thank you all so much for your help and advise. I will speak to head of admissions on Tuesday to seek clarification and hopefully to rectify this problem.
I clearly recall speaking to a gentleman to get my daughter removed from the Burnham waiting list so I am a little shocked to now have been offered Burnham.

I will revert back with an update following the call on Tuesday.

Kind Regards

Richo

[southbucks3]

Speak to them, but whatever they say, send the letter ot the e mail too confirming you do my want to be on the waiting list and have accepted Becky high. Councils depend very heavily on paper trails or audit trails, I promise you I speak from the experience of working for one.

[Richo]

As an update....spoke to head of admissions and was told that the computer will automatically select choice 1 if it becomes available even though you may have informed the admissions team that you no longer wish to remain on the waiting list for higher priority schools........the computer will look at the last priority choice settings as of March.....so even though you may change your order of preference thereafter the computer system cannot take the update.

SO.......now we have been told to accept first choice and change the order priority so that should choice 2 (now choice 1) becomes available in round May 23rd or June allocation this will be offered at that point.

Fact is that we always felt choice 2 (Becky High) was the better school for our daughter but as we lived so far out of catchment we selected that as choice 2 and Burnham as choice 1 as more likely to get choice 1.....but as becky introduced an additional class this was offered to us and we were ecstatic.... and now due to the computer system we have been removed and added to Burnham...

This is a shocking scenario.....I now keep fingers crossed for round in May and June...

is there any grounds for an appeal here?

[Guest55]

You should ALWAYS put schools in your true order of preference as if they can't offer number 1 you then get the next one they can offer.

It does say 'all offered' for Beaconsfield High so hopefully there are spare places in the next round.

[Etienne]

is there any grounds for an appeal here?

In so far as you didn't list schools in your true order of preference, then no.

G55 is absolutely right.
Schools should never be listed on the basis of guessing what the chances might be!
I'm afraid there are problems every year when parents don't list schools in their true order of preference.

We explain the system here:

The golden rule for completing the CAF is that you should always put the schools in your real order of preference.

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/school ... n-form-caf

The BCC secondary guide is also very clear:

We can only offer a child one school place at any one time. When we are allocating places, if we can offer your child more than one school, we will always offer your child a place at the school you have put higher on your application. This is why the order you put the schools in is so important and why you should always put them in the order you really want them.

If you fail to get your preferred school, you can appeal - but it would have to be on the basis of reasons why you want a place there.

Suggest you read this:
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/appeal ... ed-school/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
- if you then have any questions, please post in our Appeals section and we'll try to help.
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... m.php?f=35" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Richo]

All,

As an update after we were permitted to change our school preference order my daughter has now been offered Becky High in May`s allocation round so we are now very pleased.

Thank you all so much for your guidance and support.

Kind Regards

Richo