All the schools are oversubscribed!

We moved to UK in May and recently settled on moving to St Albans, Herts. We started attempting to contact local primary schools to enroll our daughter but most are on summer holidays and not responding to phone/email.

Of the 11 schools in the area, only 3 responded with "you're on the waiting list".

What can we do to increase our chances of getting her into a school we like?

We'd really prefer to avoid throwing ourselves at the mercy of the Herts LEA and getting stuck somewhere far from us the day before school starts.

Thanks

All schools will be closed until Tues 1 Sept...your best bet is to ring the LEA and speak to someone about it and get some feedbaclk. It comes down to catchment area so there isn't a lot that can be done. If a school is oversubscribed, you can appeal to get your child in, but the appeals usually happen after the school term has started, so unfortunately, your child has to be put into a school until the appeal starts. I've known people who've had to do this and have been successful in their appeals. It helps with appeals if you live as close as possible to the school, which is probably obvious.

Oversubscription is a big issue these days, especially with the recession and people being forced to take their little ones out of private education because they can't afford it and putting them into the best schools they can. I've already been told my son doesn't have a hope in hell of getting into the secondary school near his primary just because we're out of the catchment so it looks as if he'll be making a fresh start in another year's time somewhere else... it's crap!

I don't envy you.  Hopefully, you can at least get in your catchment school.  In our LEA, there is a policy that if you move into catchment, you get a space automatically in the catchment school. 

Otherwise, if they can't place you in the catchment school, they have to provide transport.  That happened to us and DS goes in a private taxi every single day. 

Stephanie is correct, as it's the holidays you do need to contact the LEA about this.

Oversubscription really varies a lot around the country I think. In our borough it does not seem to be a prroblem at all. We chose a school out of our catchment area for our son and it wasn't a problem at all.  I have only heard of people having a problem if they want their kids to go to the one catholic school in our town - they are always oversubscribed. 

  I have only heard of people having a problem if they want their kids to go to the one catholic school in our town - they are always oversubscribed. 

In our area it is just the opposite. The catholic school was the school we had the most success with getting my daughter in (at least out of the better schools that we wanted her to attend). I was going to suggest you check with them, especially if you happen to be catholic (in our case my daughter was baptised catholic, but we weren't practising catholics--- they said since she was catholic she automatically got a place (no proof needed).

I only applied to one school, and luckily got a place there, some of my other friends applied to all of the 8 (ish) schools in the area and did not get places at any of them. May is a bit late to start applying unfortunately, I sent my information in January, and in March had to do all the paperwork. They probably have waiting lists, and you can get on a list, most people I know seem to have gotten in on the waiting list system. I believe if your child is school age they will have to give them a place at some school in the area. Good luck!!

Applications for schools start being accepted in the Autumn before the year they start with the application ending date in October...After that, it's a struggle if you're battling with an oversubscribed school. We have a brand new high school that's just been put in. No one bothered to think that everyone would want their kid to go there and not the other two crappy ones nearby.....They now have a waiting list of 65 that are appealing 

Just wanted to add that I was shocked to see how full the schools here are after they did all of the allocations in May. They sent out a list of all the schools with how many were accepted and the wait list size for each. I just couldn't believe it - only two of the primary schools still had a few places open, and I knew not everyone could have applied in time. I'm glad I knew where we'd be living, otherwise I'd only be applying now, with no luck.

When some friends were new to our area, they were offered two places but one was in a school with a bad reputation and one was quite distant (though on husband's way to work). Their son was in the distant school for half a term and then a place opened up in a closer, nicer school - he was fine with moving again as he knew the school was closer and he was very happy there until now (though now they have moved out of town again!)

Does anyone from Surrey know the oversubscribed situation there?
I'm sure the better schools are oversubscribed.
We'll have to apply for my daughter late, as I just get my Tier 1.
If I don't get into one of my top 3 choices, do they just pick the next closest one that has an opening. If it's very far, are we responsible for transportation?