School allocation left us in 'no choice' land
2:53pm Wednesday 7th May 2008
Our daughter is four years old and we live at the top end of Hartington Road, Brighton. She has spent time at two of the local nurseries and has lots of friends within the area. We have a limited choice of schools because we have a cemetery and allotments on either side of us. We picked Elm Grove Primary School as our first choice school because it is 600m from our house and has a good Ofsted report.
The distance to travel limit for Elm Grove ended up being 528m so we were refused.
St Luke's Infant School was our second choice but we were also refused a place due to the distance.
We were given our third choice which is three times as far to travel as Elm Grove and leaves us in the ludicrous position of having to travel past our first and second choice schools.
Our daughter will also, as far we know, not have any of her friends at her new school.
We feel angry because this is not what we wanted for our daughter and because we and other parents who live in our area were misled. We never really had a choice because we live in "no choice land" while some families had the luxury of choosing between two schools.
St Luke's Infant and Fairlight Primary both have catchment areas that overlap Elm Grove Primary.
Parents living in between Fairlight Primary - which due to underperforming only filled 22 of its allotted 60 places - and Elm Grove Primary have rightly chosen Elm Grove and consequently denied our daughter a place at our closest school.
Parts of Hanover and other parts of Brighton are in the same position as us and over time the distance to travel limit will reduce as families move closer to their schools of choice. "No choice land" will get bigger and more and more four-year-olds will have to travel to other parts of Brighton away from their friends to start school.
- Kristan Akerman, Hartington Road, Brighton