Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: HolyCount on 14 September 2008, 19:32:11
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What's the procedure these days for getting a kid into school ? Littl'uns only 2 -- but you have to plan ahead!!!
Should I, at some stage, be canvassing local schools ( if so, when he is how old?). Or will a letter land mysteriously on the doormat one day allocating him a place nearby ???
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usually you will get a letter from your council asking you to make your choices for schools. If you choice is outside your catchment area you might not get the school of your choice.
Best to find out about the schools in your area and if you are happy with them. If not you may have to consider moving.
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I would start looking around, unless you are happy with your local primary. He should be starting Nursery when he is 3, some schools have these, others don.t.
We live in a village, one school, so not much choice, unless we start traveling, you may have choices.
Also talk with other parents. :y
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Contact the admissions dept at your local authority. They will tell you how it works in your area. It is not the same procedure everywhere.
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Secondary school is worse, we are in the catchment area for the worst school in Worcester, we tried the nearest secondary school but didn't get in as even though it is nearest it is over subscribed and we are outside the catchment area - however my daughter did like it.
My wife heard that one of the private schools does bursaries so we visited and liked it, then tried the other out of interest, she passed tests at both and got a decent offer at the one with an Omega shaped dent in the gates :-[
3 ordinary state, 2 religious state, 2 normal private and 1 penguin private.
She now goes here http://www.rgsao.org/ :y
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The two religious schools both require a lot of church going, at least fortnightly at the CofE no idea at the Catholic.
The penguin school is girls only and I assume Catholic only as it is ran by penguins nuns.
The catchment area school is the second bottom for results in the whole of Worcestershire and is named after a former music teacher at my daughters school. The nearest school is middling, the best results in the county are from Worcesters two mixed sex private schools. I think we had the good offer because my daughter is very bright.
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Thanks for the info and input all.
He is already at nursery --- at the local hospital. Might have a few words there to see what they think of the local schools.
The nearest is a church school -- CofE. Churchgoing might be a tad problematic as I am CofE and SWMBO is catholic. Bit further down the road is a state school with a decent reputation I think.
You'd think a church school would love to have a Holy Count in their ranks ::)
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The problems appear when your prefered school is NOT in your catchment area. You put down your prefered school as 1st choice, which, being popular, gets more than enough kids from its own catchment area & so knocks your kid back. Your catchment school take the attitude that, if we're not good enough to be your 1st choice then you can bugger off as we have enough kids in the catchment area to fill the quota. So you're left with the school in the area that nobody in their right mind would put as 1st or 2nd choice. that's where all the appeals start.
The above is exactly what happened to one of my daughter's friends & very nearly happened to my daughter too. We had to fight to get her into the school that her brother was already at, because Bury, in its infinate wisdom had scrapped the 'sibling policy' to try to stop kids form Manchester taking places from some of Bury's schools.
Mrs B succesfully campaigned to restore the sibling policy for the year after. :y
It's a myth that parents have choice when it comes to choice of schools.
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Secondary school is worse, we are in the catchment area for the worst school in Worcester, we tried the nearest secondary school but didn't get in as even though it is nearest it is over subscribed and we are outside the catchment area - however my daughter did like it.
My wife heard that one of the private schools does bursaries so we visited and liked it, then tried the other out of interest, she passed tests at both and got a decent offer at the one with an Omega shaped dent in the gates :-[
3 ordinary state, 2 religious state, 2 normal private and 1 penguin private.
She now goes here http://www.rgsao.org/ :y
Oh, Linux schools. now thats a good idea :y
Ken
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Thanks for the info and input all.
He is already at nursery --- at the local hospital. Might have a few words there to see what they think of the local schools.
The nearest is a church school -- CofE. Churchgoing might be a tad problematic as I am CofE and SWMBO is catholic. Bit further down the road is a state school with a decent reputation I think.
You'd think a church school would love to have a Holy Count in their ranks ::)
That;s not a problem - know a few of that mix - you could get into either no issue
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Secondary school is worse, we are in the catchment area for the worst school in Worcester, we tried the nearest secondary school but didn't get in as even though it is nearest it is over subscribed and we are outside the catchment area - however my daughter did like it.
My wife heard that one of the private schools does bursaries so we visited and liked it, then tried the other out of interest, she passed tests at both and got a decent offer at the one with an Omega shaped dent in the gates :-[
3 ordinary state, 2 religious state, 2 normal private and 1 penguin private.
She now goes here http://www.rgsao.org/ :y
Oh, Linux schools. now thats a good idea :y
Ken
No not that sort - Jake & Elwood type ;D
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as some people have said normally the nursrey acts as a feeder to the infants, that's what happened with Mia.
At 3 she went to pre school,, from there we still had to apply but she was known to the school and because she knew the school she was much more comfortable on her first day of foundation
good luck :y
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Our eldest started school this time..
Nothing you can do till the council write to you asking you to make your selections.
Round here you can choose 4, they do their best to prioritise who goes where, but each school can only take so many.
We were lucky that we got the school we wanted (apparently we were last on the 'list' to get in) which was very good going, as its the one we REALLY wanted, as he has some difficulties, and his peer group all know and accept him and we wanted him to stay with them, the school isnt in our catchment area....
Not just in a different area, different town, different council but also a different country! and still under 1 mile away from home!
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Our eldest started school this time..
Nothing you can do till the council write to you asking you to make your selections.
Round here you can choose 4, they do their best to prioritise who goes where, but each school can only take so many.
We were lucky that we got the school we wanted (apparently we were last on the 'list' to get in) which was very good going, as its the one we REALLY wanted, as he has some difficulties, and his peer group all know and accept him and we wanted him to stay with them, the school isnt in our catchment area....
Not just in a different area, different town, different council but also a different country! and still under 1 mile away from home!
That still makes me smile...... ;D ;D ;D
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Our eldest started school this time..
Nothing you can do till the council write to you asking you to make your selections.
Round here you can choose 4, they do their best to prioritise who goes where, but each school can only take so many.
We were lucky that we got the school we wanted (apparently we were last on the 'list' to get in) which was very good going, as its the one we REALLY wanted, as he has some difficulties, and his peer group all know and accept him and we wanted him to stay with them, the school isnt in our catchment area....
Not just in a different area, different town, different council but also a different country! and still under 1 mile away from home!
That still makes me smile...... ;D ;D ;D
well we are on the Anglo-Welsh Border ;D
Plus this was he doesnt have to learn welsh!
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Good thread to start there HCount, my little one was 2 a couple of months ago and this is something that myself and SWMBO have talked about briefly.
We moved up into the middle of a catchment area between some pretty good schools, purely to increase our chances of getting mini-me into one of them when he reaches school age.
Think I'll give the admissions authority a call sometime soon and enquire what the process is too.