Hi all, don't forget the deadline for submitting comments to the council on the proposals is this Friday (31st October). Link in above post, it only takes 5 mins to complete - unless of course you have a lot of comments to make!

for anyone that couldn't find the link (I had to get it from another thread), here it is

http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/admissionsconsultation

Firstly, thanks again to Doubledaddy and JG75 for bringing this to my attention.

FWIW, I think the general principle of the proposal is sensible - ie allow for families to move to a larger/cheaper house as their family grows, but ensure that children go to their local - ie walking distance - school, and reduce the options for abusing the system.

But I do think 2 points of detail should be looked at. Firstly, 800m seems very tight. 1200m would seem more sensible to me. That's a 15 minute (adult) walk which an older sibling could certainly manage on a scooter. Local kids should be walking to local schools - it's healthier, less traffic, safer for all etc.

Also I agree with other posters who say that if the family moves away, but the original school is STILL their closest school, by walking distance, they should be able to appeal.

And also that if they haven't actually moved house (ie the catchment was wider than 800m - or my suggested 1200m - when they accepted a place for Child 1, they should be allowed to send Child 2 regardless).

But yes, will fill out the form, as this affects us all. Everyone wants a fair solution and for exceptions to be looked at, i think!

because you might want to move from 200m to 300m away and I don't think you should lose sibling priority for that. 800m seems like a reasonable cut off.

I agree with that suggestion timefortea, except for the last bit "and that new home is also >800m away" - not sure that bit is needed.

Why not just say that if you move further away than where you lived when your first child got in, you lose sibling priority?

I think you could say that the current sibling rules continue to apply, unless you move further away from the school than when your first child got in, and that new home is also >800m away. that solves the "gaming" issue, but doesn't penalise those who don't move further away.

We moved twice in the borough as a kid and you know what.. we moved schools three times too. Always to the most local school primary. As for secondary, it was just under 3 miles away, bus, walked or roller skated.
All this nonsense facinates me. I must be getting old

The article made it into yesterday's Evening Standard

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/educatio ... rnalSearch

Will this rule apply to secondary schools too?

Remember these proposals will not affect Honeywell or Belleville as they control their own admissions policies

I also agree that there should be change, I just really don't like the current proposals.

Flowermummy, I agree that this isn't an argument that there should be no change. However I just think that this needs to be worked into the proposals - so this category of people won't be affected. Easy to do and easy to monitor.

AbbevilleMummy - i don't see the issue of Alderbrook the same way at all.
IMO the fact that BTC families have to take Alderbrook is because there are problems with getting into the local schools (HW and BV). Once these problems are sorted (by 1. changing rule on renters 2. changing rule on siblings policy and 3. the opening of a new school that Belleville are looking into), then the Grandison family should not need to go all the way to Alderbrook.
Alderbrook should be for the local people, as things are going (more children, improving school) it will be probably oversubscribed in a few years time, so it will no longer be available to BTC families at some point anyways.
I agree the changing of the rules may mess up some families who didn't try to game the system and who have the elder sibling in school and the youngest due to start in the next 2 years . But this is not an argument that the changes shouldn't be done. Perhaps the council can consider these cases individually, and if they decide there is a genuine claim they could put the younger sibling on a priority waiting list.

Flowermummy, agreed that multiple drop offs are a nightmare for anyone (whether working or not) but there were comments made on the thread that it shouldn't be so difficult to manage. You might be able to spend a little more time on pick ups and drop offs if you are not coming straight from work, that's all I was thinking. Maybe I'm wrong. Certainly no offence intended, I just don't think it would be easy to manage.

AbbevilleMummy - I don't think it's that relevant how many people living outside the 800m that haven't moved would be affected - it is just simply unfair and shouldn't be part of the proposal. Also, the figures the council are quoting don't take into account faith schools or schools with different admissions rules but they do suggest that these other schools should consider adopting the new rules. I don't want to start a new debate about faith schools, but I'm pretty sure that most of them have larger catchments because of the additional rules (regarding church/mosque/synagogue attendance, etc).

Flowermummy, you are missing the point re Alderbrook. Many btc families are given Alderbrook as they don't live within 200 odd meters of BV or HW. Therefore a lot of families potentially wont get in to HW, BV or Alderbrook so where will their children then have to go? Who knows!

This is my main problem with the proposals. It assumes that people are taking school places, then moving to a big house on the doorstep of a different school that they could easily have gone to if they wanted and I'm just not sure this is the case.

Let's say someone lives on Grandison Road, btc. I'm not definite, but I'm pretty sure that if you applied from Grandison Road this year you would not have gotten into HW or BV. You may have been offered Alderbrook despite being quite a distance away. You then apply in 2016 for your second child. Under the new proposals, you don't get sibling priority for Alderbrook, in all likelihood you still cant get into BV or HW, so what would you do? It's not like there's a closer school you can get into.

The same goes for if you got a child into a school and then moved to Grandison Road.

(I pick Grandison Road as an example as it is surrounded by excellent schools, yet under the new proposals would be a tricky place to apply for a school place from.)