Schools or My Lack of Schools

I had high hopes of returning home and getting the girls into the local school, I tried to apply 4 months ago when I first found out we were coming home, but told I could not, so I waited until the week before coming home to apply.

I completed the form added a covering letter explaining we were returning back to the UK and would really love to know what school the girls were going to before the end of term so I could show them their school.

I heard nothing from them, and after calling every day I managed to get through to someone who said they were waiting for the schools to come back to them and I would hear something before the end of the term.. It got to Thursday and still nothing so
called again, where I was told, they had still not processed the application and would get to it on Friday, so they lied to me.!

I felt awful that I was calling every day, but I wanted to know the schools we had been allocated, so I called again yesterday (Friday) where I was told that I had not got any of my 3 choices of schools even though the 3^rd school is new and not full, but as I don’t live in the area the girls can’t   I was though given a school out of area, when I asked if this was a “good” school I was met with silence,  then followed up with, “we don’t hold the Ofsted reports here”, so in the middle of Gulliver's, yes we are making use of the annual pass..! I checked the Ofsted report and now understand the silence..!

Some quotes from the Ofsted Report..
“The school serves an area of largely housing association homes, with some of it providing temporary accommodation for families. The proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is above the national average. Many of these pupils have emotional or behavioural difficulties.” NICE..!

I don’t expect any special treatment, but my 3^rd choice of school which is not full is only 2miles away and did not grant us a place on the grounds that we do not live in the area, but we can be given a school 5 miles away and we are certainly not in the catchment area.??

The girls have never lived in the UK and I wanted them to have a “nice” school where they can meet friends in the local area, and we could become part of the community. The girls are “3^rd  culture kids” they may look the same as their peers but they say and do things that are different, so there will be some adjustment for them, luckily they are young enough to adapt, they are even losing their American accents hooray (a symptom of an International school education!)

So what now.. well you can imagine yesterday I was working on over-drive, I had been told some of the school in the villages are not full and are nice schools. So I managed to talk to two lovely people, who were still working after the school had broken up for
the summer.

Even though they could not give me an answer they both took my telephone number and promised to speak to the admission department at the council. I even got a phone call back after 20 mins saying she had called them and she will be back to me early next week, and did I mind the girls being in the same class, as they teach Year 1 and 2 together, I don’t mind, but they may..!

It restored my belief in UK schools and people, and there are great schools who work well in spite of the system.

So what do I do if I don’t get the next two schools on my list.? I am not the type of person who can home school, and I have a business that needs me full-time to get it off the ground, so maybe I have no option other than to send them to a private school until I can get them into a “good” school, and hope that it doesn’t take that long as we don’t have the money.

So let’s keep everything crossed that next week we have a school, and I am not looking to get a loan to pay for a private school.