Grammar School Places

[Red Dog]

Thanks for starting this thread Tubby - I want to remind those sitting on grammar school offers but not accepting them to put their wishes across to the schools concerned ASAP.

This happened to us a few years ago, we were not offered our place until the day before first day of term. That's when the school was informed that the child would not be taken a place and was going Independent. Although we were happy to have the place, it did cause some upset for our DC who was all set to start allocated school. Not only did we have to pay out for two uniforms - which are not cheap!- DC missed out on the open day when all the kids got to meet who will be in their form, which I feel is quite an important start to a new school.
So please, if you are holding on to a place, just think about the impact it has on a child.

Thank you.

[laretta]

Waiting with regards to the redundancy is perfectly understandable. It is the bit of the post that reads ...

If this is the case and the parent decides to 'then' send their child to the independent school, on occasions the parent has not informed the grammar school and on the first day of term there are missing students and the places could have gone to other students.


... that is pretty rubbish behaviour. Once you have decided, however long it takes you, and for whatever personal reasons, at that point there is no good reason to delay further and the school should be told. The fact that there are unused places on the first day of term is shocking!

[Amber]

Well 'for whatever reason', it's pretty rubbish behaviour, isn't it?

In our case we were waiting for a particularly torturous and unnecessarily protracted redundancy process to play out after which we then had to wait for the school to make a decision on a bursary so no, I don't think it was "pretty rubbish behaviour".

Mike

My remark was made in response to the assertion that there are parents whose children do not turn up on the first day of term at a school where they had accepted a place, having failed to inform the school that the child would not be there.

Aside from one or two rare and tragic circumstances, I stand by my opinion that this is rubbish behaviour.

[huntlie]

Apart from those rare instances, it is indeed rubbish behaviour. I have encountered it often, and have never forgotten - and this is nearly four years ago, now, the parent who said to me and others 'We are going to keep hold of Susan's place at **** until after she has started at xxxxxxx - she might change her mind, or we might, and it's our right. She got both places, and she deserved them. Why can't she keep them? It's her right! '

[Sally-Anne]

'We are going to keep hold of Susan's place at **** until after she has started at xxxxxxx - she might change her mind, or we might, and it's our right. She got both places, and she deserved them. Why can't she keep them? It's her right! '

Pretty dumb as well, because the place at the grammar would have been withdrawn in the first couple of days of term. Hardly time to find out if she had settled in.

(huntlie - I have changed the name you used, just in case.)

[mike1880]

My remark was made in response to the assertion that there are parents whose children do not turn up on the first day of term at a school where they had accepted a place, having failed to inform the school that the child would not be there.

Aside from one or two rare and tragic circumstances, I stand by my opinion that this is rubbish behaviour.

Then I agree with you.

If at all possible decisions should be made before the appeals process starts, so the GS can make as many offers from the waiting list as possible before potentially going over PAN in the event of successful appeals (because they can't make any further offers from the waiting list unless they drop below PAN again). In our case we were focussed on trying to get things sorted out before induction day, which we barely managed, but the GS rang us up a couple of weeks before that to say they were about to start hearing appeals and did we still want the place. Unfortunately we weren't in a position to let go of it at that point.

Mike

[ahap]

Thank you to everyone who has freed up places at Grammar schools during the last 2 weeks as the movement in the waiting list of some of the Grammar schools were very fast indeed.

Is anyone releasing places at any of the Southend Grammar schools and Essex Grammar schools still? Those of us waiting for these schools would appreciate it very much and it would really help if you do it immediately. If you know of anyone who has not informed the relevant authorities, please remind them about it. Thank you.

Ahap.

[SqMandes]

I just thought I'd mention that is is worth phoning both the school and the local authority if you are not going to take up the place. We were offered a grammar school place but decided to go for an independent school. We informed our (out of borough) local authority immediately but a month later we got a phone call from the grammar school asking why we still hadn't filled in their registration forms. It turns out that not all information given to the local authority is filtered down to the schools - especially if you are OOB.

[pheasantchick]

We gained a GS place after being on its waiting list. We accepted the place and assumed that KCC would automatically fill our other GS place. However, we later got a phone call from the rejected GS asking fr forms. Only when I explained we had been offered another place, did I realise we had to inform that school off the declined place.

[NotEnoughHours]

Oh my goodness! Is this still the case? I stumbled upon this thread from 2012. I wonder whether there is a better system for tracking school places now or if things are still the same?