“My sympathies to you both, this happened to my son last year - he was offered none of his 3 choices and offered Sandcross. It is disgusting the way SCC treat people with regards to school admissions - and this will keep happening year after year until they Build Another School. My son is now at a private school, against our wishes, and I am working full-time whilst trying to bring up 3 young children as a result. I wish you luck with the appeals process but warn you in advance that it is utterly, utterly futile (and laughable if it wasn't so terrible - wait to you see who conducts your appeal and see what I mean). Unless you have suffered a technical error with distance measurement or suchlike that meant your child should have received a place at one of the schools, in which case they will offer you a place before the appeal, the process is completely rigged in favour of the Admissions Authority (infant class size predjudice) - as it should be really, nobody wants classes bigger than 30 children. They need more classes. This situation is predicted to get worse, would you believe, in the next couple of years when the pressure from children at the new WaterColour development in Redhill kicks in. And still they have no plans for more school places other than to shoehorn in an extra class here and there where they can (last year Wray Common, this year Holmesdale) and try and force people to go to non-local schools like Sandcross. Your only options are to hope a place comes up on the waiting list or, if your child is more than 5 or so places up the list, go private (if you can). SCC rely on this but I am hoping that soon there will be a critical mass of people who can't do this so that they will be forced to do something to address this terrible situation. Good Luck, and sympathies (and ignore all the people whose children already have school places who tell you you are being snobby, or too demanding etc when you just want a good schoolplace, relatively near where you live for your child, like everyone else)”

“My child did not get into her chosen schools, I have also been offered a place which is 5 miles from where we live and 3.5 miles from my other childs school. Both schools finish at the same time therefore making it impossible to pick them up. The council informed me that this is not their problem & if decline the offer and don't find somewhere else for her to go I could be taken to court for failing to get my child educated. It was also suggested that we look into private schools or put her on the school bus to make the 30 minute journey alone (she is seven!!!). SCC have been extremely unhelpful and have left us and our children extremely distressed. We will now have to wait until the middle of April to find out the positions on the waiting lists for the three schools in our area (none of which we have been offered.)”

“SCC has offered my daughter, Chloe, a primary school place at Sandcross. I am OUTRAGED. This was neither 1st, 2nd nor 3rd choice for us and is 5 miles from the family home. Chloe attends Earlswood nursery - therefore this is our preferred school, additionally Chloe's sister, Grace attends Brambletye Junior School (3 miles from Sandcross which makes it an IMPOSSIBLE journey for school runs). More importantly though we have sensitive family circumstances - I have cancer, am disabled and cannot drive. My husband works 8am-6pm and we are heavily reliant on relatives for childcare. I have had no choice but to decline sandcross and am in the process of appeal, therefore no provision has been made for Chloe's education. I find this whole situation utterly disgusting and it has caused me a huge amount of stress.”