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Could this be true?

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 10:06 am
by raceytracey
Have heard through the grapevine that some parents who live on a private gated estate are querying the distance rule for Clement Danes.

Supposedly they are claiming that the distance should be measured once you get out of the estate ie on the main public road and not from their houses.

Do you think this correct??

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:30 am
by Genesis
Crikey! Really? :shock:
Can't imagine they'd get anywhere with that would they?
I think they're having a laugh myself :roll:
Be interesting to find out if they get anywhere though :wink:

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:47 am
by raceytracey
Well supposedly CD have admitted that parents may be right!!! which on my reckoning means that they should have been offered a place right at the beginning as they would have been within the distance criteria.

Wonder what will happen if parents are right. Does that mean CD has to accept them I wonder??

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:59 am
by lion63
This is the first I have heard of anything like this.

It is a perplexing loophole, if it can be considered as one.

What about dead-end roads? A householder chooses to buy the house furthest away from the main road junction for the maximum privacy it affords; can he ask to consider the distance from the main road?

A long farm track from a public road to the front door? Measured from the letter box on the main road?

A cul-de -sac?

A 200 metre drive up from the public road around the fountains and privet hedges to the mansion doors?

Please keep us in the loop, raceytracey...this is one we have to know about for next year.

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:09 pm
by Hendy
Our admissions booklet this year specified that distance was measured to the child's front door including flats. So I suspect the argument has been tried before and they are saying that the even a child in a top floor flat comes behind its neighbour downstairs .

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:16 pm
by hermanmunster
pretty sure the flat issue has come up before - in london I think. kids on higher floors didn't get places whereas those lower down did

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:21 pm
by hermanmunster
Proximity of the child’s home to the school main pedestrian gate being accorded the higher priority. This will be judged by the shortest measured walking distance by public right of way from home to school. A public right of way is one which is determined by the Countryside Act 1968. Where applicants live in the same block of flats, internal walkways will be treated as public rights of way when calculating distance travelled. (Measurements will be taken from the door of each individual dwelling. A child living on a lower floor will take priority over another living higher up in the block.)

above is from plymouth - however others schools in the same area have different policies:
Measurement points will be from an internal point of the building concerned (usually the visual centre of the building). Flats are therefore taken to be the same measurement point regardless of floor of location.

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:06 pm
by WP
All these schools now use the county's computerized measuring system, and the county admissions book (p18) says
We measure from the address point for the child's house (as supplied by the post office) to the nearest public entrance of the school.
Last year there was an objection to the Herts method of calculating distances, but the adjudicator decided that it was "reasonable and reliable", and that the county had properly explained it. The county have since expanded the explanation, to make clear that it measures down the centre of the road. So I don't think these parents have grounds for a claim of maladministration.

Re: Could this be true?

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:43 pm
by PD mum
raceytracey wrote:Have heard through the grapevine that some parents who live on a private gated estate are querying the distance rule for Clement Danes.

Supposedly they are claiming that the distance should be measured once you get out of the estate ie on the main public road and not from their houses.

Do you think this correct??
Would you consider phoning Clement Danes to get confirmation and posting the reply, as I have also 'heard' something similar?

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 2:16 pm
by raceytracey
Would they tell us if we are not the parents concerned?