Didn’t get your choice of school: What’s next?

Sarah Ebner blogs for The Times on School Gate, and has also written The Starting School Survival Guide to help parents and children who are starting school. Here she gives her expert advice on what to do in wake of the announcements about primary school places this week:

If you’re the parent of a 4 (or nearly four year old), you may have had something of a stressful week last week. Primary school offers for schools in England are now out, and that means some happy, and unfortunately not so happy, mothers and fathers.

While your little one is probably unaware of all the stress and concern (and best to keep it that way), it’s all a bit different for the parents. I’m afraid that many of you are suffering from “getting into school anxiety.”

I realised this from the numbers of texts, emails and tweets I got on Wednesday afternoon, when the London offers went online. They were a combination of sheer relief (“I think I’m going to cry,” texted one friend who had got her first choice) to utter shock (“They’ve told me that there’s no place for my son. Help!!!”). And although I already seem to spend rather a lot of my life talking about primary schools, that has been truer than ever over the past few days.

If you’ve received good news, then congratulations. You can now relax and then start preparing your child for this next, very exciting phase in their life. But what if it hasn’t gone well?

If you haven’t received an offer anywhere, you need to be proactive in these 4 ways:

1. Your child doesn’t actually have to be in full-time education until the term after he turns five, and I’m afraid that some councils can be rather lax before then. You may need to hassle them, so ring and ask for a list of local schools with free places. Then contact the schools and go and visit them. Try and give each school a fair chance, even if you hadn’t considered it before. And when you are looking around, try to speak to the head and see how much their ideas chime with yours.

2. You should make sure that you put your child’s name on the waiting lists of the schools you missed out on. This is also true if you have got a place at a school you didn’t really want. There is always movement on waiting lists – especially if you keep on waiting (places can be offered right up to the start of the academic year, and beyond).

3. If you think a mistake has been made and that your child should definitely have got a place at the school you hankered after, then you could appeal. However, you must make sure that you have a very strong case. Appeals are often unsuccessful for infant classes, particularly because legislation won’t allow more than 30 children in a class. See the ACE (Advisory Centre for Education) website for more on this.

4. “Getting into school anxiety” can get a bit out of hand. Some parents seem to worry that their child’s education has been destroyed before it has even begun! This is definitely not true. All schools will educate your child and every piece of research shows how important parents are when it comes to their children’s achievements (especially when they are young). So, be positive. The starting school adventure is an exciting one. Don’t write it off before it’s begun.

Sarah Ebner is the author of the Starting School Survival Guide: everything you need to know when your child starts school (published by White Ladder).