Dacorum parents under pressure as number of days they have to respond over child school places is to be HALVED

THE number of days parents have to respond after being offered a school place for their child is to be HALVED.

Every year, parents express a number of preferences for the for primary or secondary schools they want their children to attend.

And where schools are over-subscribed, those applications are ranked – according to a range of factors that include distance between home and school.

When places are allocated, parents currently have 14 days to decide whether to accept the place they’ve been offered – or not. So places are available to other students.

But from next year (2025/26) Herts Council has agreed to cut the time parents can hold on to a place before deciding – to seven days.

It’s one of number of ‘minor’ amendments to the process, that education officials say will ‘provide greater clarity and effectiveness’.

And they were agreed by a meeting of the county council’s cabinet on Monday (September 18).