uk schooling question

[DT55]

Hi

 

I have a relative moving to the UK with their son who is 4 in April. My understanding is that the child should start school in September, however my relative has been told by several schools that he will not be able to start in September as they didnt register him by the end of January? Odd. Is there any reasoning behind this or does it sound like a fob off??

 

Many thanks in advance

[dmjg]

Fob off. What would happen to all the kids of families that move around the country during the year? Are these kids unschooled? Not likely.

 

The parents can ring the LEA and say they are going to be immigrating in April, are going to be in x schools area and want to start him in the new academic year.

[Sammy1]

Hi

 

I have a relative moving to the UK with their son who is 4 in April. My understanding is that the child should start school in September, however my relative has been told by several schools that he will not be able to start in September as they didnt register him by the end of January? Odd. Is there any reasoning behind this or does it sound like a fob off??

 

Many thanks in advance

 

The only thing I can think of is that the chosen schools are over subscribed and this means the child will need to go to another nearby school. It's changed so much in the last few years.

 

Here in Australia a school has to take a child if they are in the catchment area, that is no longer the case in the UK.

[DT55]

Thanks for your reponse folks

One thing I forgot to mention was the kid has minimal english at this stage. I was wondering if anyone had brought over kids in similar circumstances and what were their experiences? Id imagine it may be a struggle for him for a few months

[Guest]

Thanks for your reponse folks

One thing I forgot to mention was the kid has minimal english at this stage. I was wondering if anyone had brought over kids in similar circumstances and what were their experiences? Id imagine it may be a struggle for him for a few months

 

Not personally but about 18 months ago a boy join my sons class with minimal English and he has done absolutely fine, as has his younger sibling. His parents both spoke English though so I expect that helped. I believe they are now off to Norway and he will have to learn another language! In areas where there are significant numbers of non-English migrants there may be specialist units to support but that is not the case where we live.

 

Children in the catchment area that apply for a place before the cut-off are given priority, then 'out of area' placements where the school can select from other applicants are given remaining places. If your friend is applying for schools that are now full they do not have to give them a place. The LEA do have to find a place for all children, just not necessarily at the school parents would prefer (even if they are living in the catchment area) and not surprisingly the schools with places left after the application deadline tend to be those that parents wouldn't have as first choice (the expectation is in rural areas where many schools are under-subscribed).

 

We decided on a private school as we were not going to be living in the catchment area to apply for a place at the local school and we knew it was over-subscribed - even living there a year prior to applying didn't guarantee a place. The private school we could apply to from Australia and it made a big difference to our son knowing what school he was going to and he even exchanged letters with his class to be.

[DT55]

Thanks very much that was really helpful. They are moving to the west midlands so they may have some support for non English speaking migrants there

[caramac]

If they're moving to an area where there is a high population of non native English speakers, they're likely to find the schools are well set up for integrating children from those families. Despite the reduction in classroom assistants across the country, there are still resources available to those schools.

Four year olds are generally very adaptable. I remember a Japanese girl of that age joining our daughter's class. She didn't have a word of English when she started, but after the first term she was pretty much fluent, both speaking and reading.