Is your child amongst the displaced, or do you know someone that has been affected, if so please contact us and we will add you to our mailing lists. There are several parents affected by this issue who we are still trying to locate.
Is Your Child Affected?
April 27, 2012 By 15 Comments
Hi, We are currently living in st peters behind the harvester in the catchment area for Cherry Orchard. I applied for Cherry, Red Hill and Whittington and were giving a place at Norton Juxta Kempsey. I do not drive but they expect me to walk my daughter and 15 month old son 3.3 miles each way to school all weather along national speed limit roads down non-continuous paths. There is a bus service but who is to say the timetables will change by september but as everyone knows you cannot rely on the bus service. Norton Juxta is only a first school and my daughter, Paige will have to attend middle school at Drakes Broughton. By this time my son will be in first school and i will not be able to get both children to different schools for the same time. Also because Paige is now going out into Whychavon does that mean she will be sent to Pershore High? All her new friends will be out in Littleworth or further afield she will never have out of school time with her friends due to me not being able to collect or drop her off she will be at a disadvantage because of it. Also when Paige is settled to school i was hoping to return to work/studying and with Paige attending Norton Juxta this would make it impossible! Many thanks, Hayley Jones
Hi Hayley,
Its great to hear from you, thanks so much for replying, one of the reasons we set up this website was to try and connect with other affected parents. We know there are others out there somewhere and are hoping they also get in touch.
We have a meeting tonight which will be attended by a city councillor, which is really positive, I was quite surprised when I heard that news.
We have a couple of suggestions to put forward such as a “Bulge Class” which can be used to increase capacity for a single entry (one year only). There are a couple of other ideas we have. We are really hoping something good comes out of this.
We will post back the results of this meeting, probably tonight.
There are a couple of things you can do to help:
1) Ask around to try and find the other affected parents, tell people about this site where they can get in touch with us.
2) Ask your friends to comment on this website (as you have done) and on the Worcester News articles linked in the sidebar and give their opinion.
Again, thanks for stopping by!
Hayley
That sounds like a complete nightmare. I really feel for you. You should appeal the decision not to give your daughter a place at your chosen schools. Also contact the County Council and get on the waiting list for ANY school that it easier to reach. Contact the Council if you need advice about how to do this.
I wish you well. Poor Paige you both have my complete sympathy.
Hi, it’s unbelievable that you can live in an area surrounded by 3 schools that are within your catchment area, yet the LA think it’s fair to send your children to a school that is 1 hour on foot. Don’t give up the fight. You have my total support.
Hi Tina,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your support
Hi, the whole admissions process needs sorting out! The LA are well aware of projected numbers within the catchment area for each school well before they receive any applications, so they should ensure that there are sufficient LOCAL places for children to attend!! Simply filling other schools with little consideration to travel times and siblings seems very short sighted, and extremely unfair!
There has been no consideration given to the preschool settings atrended and relationships that have been formed within local communities. I was under the misconception that parent choice was important?
Children who have attended a LA school nursery haven’t been given a place in that school, which to me seems very unfair to the children who have settled in, expecting to go to that school to be told they aren’t. How do you tell a child they won’t be going to school with even some of their friends?
I hope your meeting showed signs of them coming up with a more suitable solution than they have given you already. Keep fighting!
To all of you affected, you have my sympathy.
They are all for encouraging us to get our children fit and walk them to school but this is ridiculous. How can any child be expected to walk these distances every day and still perform well during a full day of school.
It is appauling that the Council knew this was going to happen but have done nothing to rectify it. Last years admissions problems should have been a warning but instead they have chosen to bury their heads in the sand even further.
I really hope you all get more appropriate places for your children in time for September.
Wishing you lots of luck with your plight.
My little girl asked me yesterday why our photograph was in the newspaper. I had been putting off telling her the situtation as I wanted to see if would be resolved satisfactorily first but when she asked I told her that there werent any places left at Redhill, Cherry Orchard or Stanley Road and her eyes immediately welled up and she burst out crying saying “well where am i going to go? I want to be with my friends”. I tried to reassure her but her poor little heart is broken!
I am sorry Sunita. It is heartbreaking. My little girl is wondering what is happening too. I have just told her she might have to go to school somewhere Mummy thinks is too far to walk.
She is a worrier and was already anxious about leaving her pre-school. I am concerned this is going to make that worse.
Obviously I am trying to stay positive and reassure her, but I think children do sense when parents are upset however hard we try to hide it.
After having tried out the walk from The Hill Avenue to Pitmaston which took us 1hr 20min my son said “mummy I don’t think I can go to this school, it’s too far away from home”. It took him two days to recover, he was so tired. Pitmaston seem to be a really nice school but we don’t have a car and if we will have to walk there and back everyday he would not cope and his education would suffer.
Added to this the isolation from his local community and friends that he would suffer, not just now but until he was 16 or possibly 18 (as Pitmaston feeds into Christopher Whitehead), I feel that sending him to Pitmaston would not be fair on him.
If a solution can be found to resolve the problem and allow my son not to be displaced from his local community, I urge the council to look into all the possibilities.
All I am asking for is a local school for my son.
Hi..we have a child in year three at cherry orchard primary school and have been refused a place for my other son currently attending London road pre school..we were given gorse hill…(which we have refused)…we live at the bottom of Newtown road and they expect me to drop off both my children at the same time, in different directions, Its not in my eldest best interest if we move his school as he has only just settled at cherry orchard as he has some learning difficulties…we have put our youngest sons name on the waiting list with our fingers crossed…this has caused so much upset and stress…
Many thanks Dawn x
Hi Dawn,
Sorry to hear you have been affected. What we are hoping is that the LA will make more provision at one of the schools in this area, but that (I believe) can only be addressed through the appeals process.
If you look at the documents linked in the sidebar you can see what the LA proposed (all be it they were talking about 2013) and the responses to that proposal at a public meeting.
There is another page on this site with some key points extracted from those documents you may find useful.
It would also be worth witing to the LA, your MP and anyoune else you think will listen.
Bottom line is there are more children than places in this area across every school and the LA saw it coming.
Unfortunately unless the LA make more places available we are stuck. Waiting lists are no solution due to the numbers involved.
Good luck with your appeal
Hello, I see we are not the only ones. I have honestly been sick with stress over this. Here is what we face: We have a son in Red Hill, and we have a daughter who will be going into nursery in September. We lived in catchment, but due to the economy, have now moved in with my husbands parents to enable us to save some money (out of catchment). Having contacted council to explain that this is a temporary situation and we will be back in catchment by the time she goes into reception, we have been told she WILL NOT get into Red Hill. I am absolutely gutted to find that we have no choice but to take our son out of Red Hill. We have one car and it is not possible for us to pick up two children from two diffrent schools at the same time. I have spent the last 2 weeks visiting other schools around Worcester and have learned that this is a city-wide problem. There are no spaces anywhere. We found a school that says as they have a student moving out of the area, and they will have a place for our son, but cannot guarentee a place for our daughter. Even my mother-in-laws catchment schools are full. Is it too much to ask to have both your children placed in the same school? How do they expect us to do this? We are having to apply at schools and just ‘cross our fingers’ that we get a placement. This is unreasonable and unfair. I am severely disappointed in the council and feel that they have really let down the families in our community.
Hi Sherry,
You need to appeal the decision. We are all entering appeals. Whilst these have to be “individual” appeals they will be heard by the same panel, and it is our understanding that common elements / issues can be heard jointly, though I guess it is for the panel themselves to decide how best to organise the appeals.
It is a very frustrating situation for all of us, particularly as it was known numbers were rising and there were opportunities to increase intake at Red Hill and other schools to alleviate the situation.
As a group we are always wary of speaking on each others behalf, however I can say without fear of contradiction that we all feel very badly let down, and as mentioned above are all going to appeal the decision. I would suggest you do likewise.
We have already started to suggest that the intake should be increased for 2012 to alleviate this situation. If this were done it would potentially resolve not only our issue but that of people like yourself, so again, it is important that you lodge an appeal as soon as you are able.
The local authority are pushing to get all appeals in by 8th May, however the statutory date is later than that. I assume the LA are asking appeals to be submitted earlier so they can get an understanding of the scale of the problem.
Hi My son was not offered a place at 3 catchment areas we selected and we were offered Pitmaston. I live on The Hill Ave and this decision may result in my wife losing her job just to make the commute to Pitmaston everyday. If this happens we may have to move out of the area as we will be financially crippled. We only moved to the area in November purley for school catchment from Jundtion 6 side of Worcester.
We have put in an appeal and I was hopeful that being one of the two children not to get offered Cherry Orchard (who are within catchment), that there would be enough movement to solve our issue. But in reality with this whole mess what is the chance of a resolution for us???
The problem I have is I don’t trust the people that make such decsions to make the right ones. Incresing the capacity of our catchment area schools when they had the chance is a typical excample of this.
Worried and Frustrated.