Moving on to Secondary School
The experience of one of our members needs documenting for all separated and non-resident parents who find themselves not consulted when their children are choosing a new school.
Simon has a Shared Parenting arrangement with his two children which has been in operation for a couple of years. It was a hard-fought case with very serious alienating behaviours
from mum which resulted in, at one stage, his 5-year-old trying to stab him with a kitchen knife. Very stressful but with the help of FNF and friends he has successfully countered the alienation and has 50/50 parenting time and a happy healthy relationship with the children, although his relationship with his ex is still very difficult.
One child is now coming up to, what schools call ‘transition’, eg moving from primary to secondary school. He was keen that the new school was equal distance between parents to help with transport. He was disappointed to find mum had completed the transition forms with no consultation with him and chosen the school opposite where she lives despite it having a poor OFSTED report and being even further from Simon’s home than the primary school.
Simon asked his son if he had any preference for secondary schools. To his relief he said he wanted to go to Simon’s first choice. The school equidistant between the parents and with a great OFSTD report, because most of his friends were going there.
Simon tried to reason with his ex but she was adamant she would do the choosing and if he wanted a choose another school, he would have to pay for the £3k a year school transport bus. Simon took this up with the school and asked for the opportunity to submit his own choice of schools but was told this procedure was undertaken by the local authority. He approached them and they told him they only deal with their primary contact for the children.
Not one to give up he approached FNF. Our advice was to write back to the local authority and point out that he had PR and a shared Parenting order from the court and that he should be allowed to submit his choices for his children’s secondary school. In addition, the LA did not have up to date information regarding the parenting arrangements as they should have a record of the shared parenting order.
The LA replied that their software only allows for one parent’s name and address to be recorded so Simon will have to sort this out for himself. Simon of course knew from recent experience that this was not possible. He even considered mediation but his ex. had rejected this numerous times in the past. Simon spoke to FNF again.
We advised him to write to the LA with a copy to their legal department, saying their software and procedures breaches the Equalities Act 2010 and he would be making a formal complaint if they were unable to sort the matter out urgently. He suggested they should consult his son regarding which school he wanted to go to.
The LA replied the next day to inform Simon that they were going to assess his son for Gillick competence and ask his views regarding the school he wished to go to. They also pointed out that they had never delt with this kind of issue before. The following day the social worker rang to say his son had expressed a strong preference for Simon’s chosen schools and they would be writing to his ex to say that would be the submissions they will accept.
A victory for all Dads. It pays to persevere. Well done Simon.
Ian Findlay
14-11-2022
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