Our Experiences of the Minefield that is the School Application Process!

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We had heard about how tricky the school application process can be and as I worked in a school for 4 years, I had seen first-hand how difficult it can be to get your child into the school you want. However, when we came to apply for Mia’s school place for a few years ago now, I have to say, we were surprised at just how caught up you get in the whole process and how stressful it is waiting for that email or letter to land in your hands!

We moved house partly to get Mia into the school I went to and worked at for so long and partly as we just needed a bigger house in a nicer area! We chose the school because it’s got a great reputation in the area as a good Catholic school (we are Catholic) and because my siblings and I had great experiences there ourselves.

Really there wasn’t any other school we were considering however we did find 3 other good Catholic schools in the area and to be fair, we were spoiled for choice as the schools around here are all really good! We moved in December which meant that we could only apply through Nottingham City Council at the previous house whereas our new house is in Gedling Borough Council, this was our first problem!

We were told to submit the application form for the old house as we hadn’t moved before the application process closed which we did but once we moved, we had to let both councils know so they could pass the information on.

Unfortunately it seems this wasn’t done and after numerous stressful emails and phone calls we kind of had to just trust Mia’s application would go to the right place! The other issue was that the school is extremely popular and always oversubscribed along with the fact that Mia is an only child and so doesn’t have any siblings, the only thing going for us was that we are Catholic.

Once the results day came, Mario and I stayed up to wait for the email to come through as we knew they came through just after midnight however it never arrived and we had to wait anxiously until the next day when I could ring. They can’t tell you over the phone but assured me that they had sent a letter out that day and it would arrive 3 days later!

The wait was horrendous but thankfully I work at the school once a week and was handed Mia’s acceptance letter by the office, who didn’t know we hadn’t found out yet! The things I have learnt about the process is that it is very stressful! Get your application in early, try not to move house during the process and opt for the results email to avoid an extra 3 day wait!

Also even though they tell you not to ring the school, I was told that if we had of rung them directly, they would have told us so sometimes following all of the rules to the letter, isn’t the best thing to do! We are really pleased we got the school for Mia that we wanted and she starts there in September which is really exciting but very scary at the same time!