It appears the County Council concerned have backed down from the 'requirement' to present the child's passport prior to allocating a place, after the parent concerned provided them a particularly foreign birth certificate with lots of stamps and seals on it.
Also, the CC admissions people were caught out telling porkies about the 'Home Office' Regulation - it isn't! I am in a similar situation and the nice lady (and she is nice, friendly and helpful) who takes Department For Education helpline calls listened to the case and referred to the School Admissions Code of Conduct which demonstrated that the CC concerned were being a bit naughty.
I'm waiting to hear about my own child's application for our return to the UK in August and I've got the relevant paragraphs of the CoC ready...just in case. Nonetheless, it's a moot point - because irrespective of nationality, there is a statutory requirement to provide education!
I've also got CEAS in the back pocket, however my own experience of using them when serving in unusual locations abroad was that they were not particularly helpful. When we sought advice about schools suitability their response was 'Oh, just find a school and send us the bill'. Similarly I had the issue of lack of suitable senior schooling (in English language) for my older child so I was obliged to go down the golden shackles of boarding school in the UK, whereas another SP posted in a couple of months later got his daughter into the local, expensive and rather good, international school (which had been denied to me on cost grounds!). BS has worked well for our son, but it would have been nice to have had the option...
Last edited by Whenurhappy; 5th Jun 2013 at 09:14.