hernehilly

Hi - needing to find a rental property whilst extensive building work ongoing from early April (ish) Mature, professional couple with occasional visits from university student children. Do feel free to drop me a message. Happy to supply references

Just to add additional recommendation for Niko the plumber who helped to sort blocked / slow running pipes last week and gave us lots of advice as well as checking in afterwards to make sure all was well. He also responds really quickly when you reach out to him to let you know his availability.

Another recommendation for Mickey who did a job for us this week. He is very reliable and prompt and very good at communication and explaining what the issues are. Easily one of the best tradesman I have dealt with in 15 years and wish I had found him earlier ...

Another recommendation for Billy - had nightmare scenario right before Christmas. Billy gave up his day off to take a look and ended up having to replace boiler which took all day and half the evening, just so we would not be stuck over Christmas without heating and hot water. He could not be nicer to deal with!

I am a working mum of 2 - who are now 8 and 6. I've worked 4 days a week since number one and now do 4 days plus 5th from home during term time. I work in HR for a big professional services co, so have similar chats with many facing these issues. I always say, it's tough and don't make any long term decisions till you've been back at least 3 months; you feel guilty ,conflicted, tired etc but (and here I so agree with midivydales post), it is actually nice to be at work sometimes, having adult conversations, being listened to, not feeling like a drudge - the list goes on! I met a wise lady once at a work function, where for some reason I was apologetically describing myself as a working mum, and she said - 'you're setting a wonderful example to your daughters and you are obviously very good at your job, so there is nothing to apologise for or feel guilty about'! It suddenly made a huge difference to how I felt about things.

Can't recall exact number but I'm sure it was more than 20 to start with, and school had already started by time offer came so had obviously made alternative arrangements (as Renata says it may be a difficult decision to switch at that stage, I had to give it a lot of thought before doing so). But it was also the last year I think of the separate borough applications so some people were sitting on 2 offers from different boroughs - so that's different now. However subsequent to that year, friends were in the teens on the waiting list and got in before end of summer term. It's a difficult one to call. I empathise!

I'm going back a couple of years but we got in after a few months on waiting list. Can't remember what number we were but quite low. There has generally been a fair amount of movement during the summer and sometimes into the autumn term Also, in the past they've had less faith applicants than places, so 'spare' places became open ones. I don't know if that's the case this year but just to flag there might be more than 45 open places. Also you're assuming that the late offers will be accepted, they might not. You never know!

It's great, my two were very happy there and the mum's community was good too. Not perfect, but then again I doubt anywhere is.

Can i just agree with sew's post, as far as I am aware the private schools in the area are full too, we are on a waiting list for two of them and have been for several months. In fact we were verbally offered by one private school in Dec last year then got a letter in Feb saying that actually they were subsequently very over subscribed and we were now a long way down the waiting list. This had been our backup option if we didn't get into our nearest state school, which we didn't. Southwark could only offer us something 3 miles away. If Southwark are depending on private schools to make a difference, they will be making an error. We are having to go to a Lambeth school a mile away - despite my child having SEN issues and the Lambeth budget for treatment being about half that of Southwark.

Thanks batgirl that's very interesting, I should have pointed out that at this meeting I went to the Southwark Admissions person did get given quite a hard time as it was obvious to all that they could have predicted the problem. The Lambeth Councillor got given a hard time too for that matter. At the very least Southwark Admissions must have realised at the end of Jan when they had the applications that they had a problem, but yet they did nothing and then seemed surprised that parents were upset in May when the letters went out. It's unbelievable.

I recently went to a meeting where both Southwark and Lambeth were represented. Southwark Admissions rep said that they'd always had capacity in recent years so this year was a surprise to them. Their aim was to get children into a school within 2 miles of their home which they'd achieved (that obviously excludes people like us offered Southwark school 2.6 miles away, who turned it down and went to Lambeth instead even though we live in Southwark). They didn't talk about the long term. Lambeth, in contrast, had acknowledged some ago that there would be a problem and have a long term plan to increase places by 2012 I think. They have earmarked community schools for expansion (though not church schools because apparently they don't have to!) - their long term aim is for child to have a primary school within 500m. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have the funding to achieve this!

Your employers should give adequate notice of a change to your terms and conditions, given that you are nearly at the end of the holiday year and that most people with children have to organise them in advance, the notice is rather inadequate. I agree with the post re not being adversarial, however there is nothing to stop you from pitching "reasonable" suggestions - eg i have same issue of my child starting a school this Sept where we don't know anyone, and I am going to work some half days at home so that I can drop off and pick up - i've sold this to my employer as essential in terms of building a network with other mums in case of future emergencies etc and half a day of holiday at a time is not particularly unreasonable. I work in HR so would be happy to talk further with you if needs be. Best of luck

We lost our infant class size appeal too. Clear maladministration on the part of the school in conduct of appeal, but now having to go through tortuous wait of a LGO complaint which apparently takes months. Would be delighted to hear of anyone who actually won their appeal.

Would agree about being careful where you move to! We moved from ED to nearer Herne Hill a few years back thinking we were still near ok schools and we've had a complete nightmare this year, we are in a black hole too. We were offered John Donne, 3 miles away. Please be aware of the change in measuring system for 2010 admissions, which is "as the crow flies".