School Drama

For the last couple of months, I have been researching, calling, emailing, etc. trying to settle the school situation for the kids before arriving in the UK.  In Britain, there a many different options for schooling.  State schools are like our public schools in the US, anyone can attend and they are funded by the federal government.  Then there are two levels of private schools:  private and public.  You can also choose to send you child to an American school or a European school.  So many options.  We decided to send our kids to STATE schools.  This is where my trouble began because it has been so very difficult to admit them..

While we were still living in Oregon, I did my research.  The state schools are given a set curriculum to follow by the government and then every couple of years, they are evaluated.  Once I knew the general area where we would be living, I started to read the reports of all the primary and secondary schools in the area.  Then I looked for houses in the catchment (or boundaries) of those schools.  Luckily for us, there really are so many FANTASTIC schools in this area. I looked online to learn how to apply to the schools that I wanted the kids to attend, and I found that I needed to submit an application through the county council.  This became more and more complicated due to the timing of our move.  I had even called to talk to them, but got nowhere. FRUSTRATING.

Once we settled on our house in CHILTON, I was thrilled to learn that Annika & Arik would be in walking distance to Chilton Primary School and that we were living in the catchment.  It has very high Ofsted marks http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report  So I sent Colby to visit the primary school while he was here since I hadn't had much luck with the council..  They were fantastic and so excited to meet the twins.  Since it was Easter Break, they set up a time for us to come to the school toward the end of the holiday to settle enrolling.  I just applied with them and they took care of it.  Be toured the school, bought uniforms so we would be ready for school the next week.

Things did not go quite so smoothly for Tanner.  There are three secondary schools near our house and all of them have good reports.  I had called & emailed the council - no response.  So I called and emailed the schools and eventually just decided to visit each one so they could all see how AMAZING my son is!  The first school I visited was full, at least Year 7 was full.  They made a few phone calls, but could not add one more student.  Plus, there was a long waiting list and we were about 20 down that list.  The next school wasn't sure if they had any space, but set up an appointment for the next day for Tanner and I to meet with the Head Teacher.  The third school, and our catchment school, couldn't tell me if they had room in Year 7 and told me that I needed to contact the council.... well, if informed them that I had been trying for quite some TIME... sorry, they couldn't help me.  But they wanted me to know that they had never turned anyone away, even though they had just turned us away :)  I was tired of the county council.  The next day we met with the Head Teacher at KING ALFRED'S sports college.  They were full, but would take Tanner anyway.  Fantastic. Problem solved.