School place mix-up woe for teenager

A TEENAGE girl is being home-schooled by her parents after they were told she had a place at a Cardiff school – only to learn she didn’t have one after all.

Seren Clifton, 13, is being homeschooled by her parents Ryan and Bianca after an application for her to study at Cantonian High appears not to have been processed.

The year eight pupil’s parents applied for her to transfer from Radyr Comprehensive to Cantonian High in May.

Her father Ryan, 36, said he filled in the forms and submitted them to Cardiff council in June.

The family live in Fairwater, in catchment for Cantonian, but sent Seren to Radyr in year seven from Peter Lea Primary because it offered the opportunity to learn German, which Cantonian did not.

Seren was keen to learn German because her mother is German, but after a year in Radyr she was missing her friends and wanted to go to school locally.

Her father Ryan said he had not heard anything about the application to transfer schools by July 12, so rang Cardiff council school admissions. He said he was told Seren had been accepted by Cantonian and a letter was due to be sent out to confirm that.

By August, having still not received the letter, motorway recovery driver Ryan and Bianca, who works for Cardiff council in school kitchens, started to worry and Ryan began ringing the school admissions department daily.

“I was told on the phone there were problems with the admissions and we’d have to wait.

“Schools were going back on September 4 and we’d bought the uniform thinking she had a place. I rang the admissions team and they said it was down to the school to give me a date. I then spoke to someone else in admissions and she said the head had sent all applications back to admissions for guidance because there had been so many.”

He said an officer tracked down the letter from July 12 confirming Seren had a place – which the family had not received.

The letter, from Cardiff school admissions team, dated July 12, says: “I am able to confirm that there is a place available for your child at the above school [Cantonian High School] as the admission number for your child’s age group has not yet reached its limit.”

Ryan believes his daughter could return to Radyr, but says she does not want to and was looking forward to starting at Cantonian.

“It’s crazy. We now have a letter dated July 12 saying she has a place.

“I have been phoning school admissions daily. I’ve been told there were 57 in year applications to transfer to the school. We just want our child back in school fulltime. She is missing it and missing her friends.”

In a joint statement, Cardiff Council and the school said: “Families apply in confidence, so in order to respect their privacy we cannot discuss or share the details of individual applications publicly.

“However, we can confirm that an application has been received and this is being considered in accordance with school admissions regulations.”