VIII - Impressive Levels of Incompetence in the Most Prestigious University Town

Zipline on the way to school

As you may suspect from the title of this week's blog it will probably not share the same cheery sentiments that my previous posts have had (though I will still include some fun pictures from the week). Apologies in advance but I am most definitely writing this particular edition as a way to vent the frustrations of my day- otherwise I would just be staring off into space, unable to concentrate on the lovely commission that sits unfinished on my desk.
 In a previous post I described the school admissions process here in Cambridgeshire and its central Admissions Team which doles out placements to students. We went through the standard school admissions process and were allocated spots at Abbey Meadows school by said Admissions Team. Enclosed in the placement letter were instructions for acceptance which simply stated that parents must call the school or email it when it is school holiday time. Since it was the summer break when we received our placements I followed the email course of action. I did not hear back from the school but this did not strike me as a problem as we had the official placement letter.

Splashpad on the
way to school

  Last week I decided that I should call the school to try to arrange a school tour. No one was in the office at the time I called and so I left a message as instructed. Monday this week I still had not heard from the school and so I called again. This time reaching a human I was able to reiterate our placement acceptance and ask for a tour. The very kind administrative assistant said that she could not find our placement letters but would call me back. No one called me back and so on Tuesday, the day before school was scheduled to start, I called again. Again a very nice person handled my call and said that the boys would not be able to start Wednesday (today) but that we could come in for a tour that afternoon.
  Just hours before the boys and I set out for our tour I received a call from the school saying that the Admissions Team had made a mistake and that there were in fact no places at the school for my kids. This kind Abbey Meadows employee said that the Admissions Team had owned up to the mistake and were working on correcting it and that we could still come for the tour but she doubted that the boys would be going to school there. I agreed to come for the tour just because we had no other plans today and the kids are just itching to go to school, any school at this point.
 Even though I was assured that the Admissions team was "working on the problem" I decided to give them a call anyway. The kind person at Admissions seemed to not know anything about this problem and after conferring with a colleague said that it was a "computer glitch" that would be updated in the afternoon and the school would see that there actually were spots. Feeling reassured though somewhat worried about the competence in the school, we set out over the bridge and through no less than three cattle grates to Abbey Meadows.
 

The Historic Round Church
of Cambridge

The school is nothing special as I had known from its online presence but it and its overgrown landscaping seem good enough for our short-term needs. Ready to relay my information to the school about the apparent "computer glitch" we lined up with the handful of other parents and new students who were there for the tour. We were the only native English speakers in the bunch and I was gleeful to imagine that it was going to feel like an international school.
  Enter nervous-looking school employee. This poor soul had to break it to three out of the four families on the tour (including us) that there was physically no space for their kids in the classrooms and that we would have to contact Admissions. Feeling ahead of the game I informed everyone about the results of my phone conversation. The woman almost rolled her eyes and said "Oh is that what they told you"  (obviously some tension here).  She went on to reiterate that they had informed the Admissions council of the space issue and that we would need to take our complaint to them. One woman and her son left immediately, a German family put up a fight and were taken to a private meeting room to talk with the headmaster, and we stood there awkwardly, Leif nearly in tears, until the nervous employee offered to give us a tour anyway.
 On our bike home we stopped at a nearby playground so the day would not be a total loss and so that I could get on the horn to the Admissions team. Once again a kind Admissions employee told me that the school is definitely in the wrong on this one. When I started to complain that I was getting no where with the school, she offered to have her colleague call the school and assured me that if I called the school in thirty minutes that it would be all sorted. Warily I agreed to this plan and called the school thirty minutes later, this time from the grocery.
 No one answered the phone at Abbey Meadows. I freaked out, feeling the solution to this problem slipping through my hands with the quickly approaching end of the work-day. I called the Admissions Team for the third time and gave them the results of their failed plan. Yet again the woman assured me that the problem had been solved and the fact that I did not reach the school did not mean that I could not bring the kids to the school in the morning. At this point I was loosing my cool and basically told her that I did not believe her, stating that I think the school, who can physically count their students, probably had a better idea about what was actually going on here. She trumped me by reminding me that I was not able to reach the school.
  I hung up and called the school again. This time our friendly tour guide answered, could obviously tell that I was distressed and offered to take my number although it was clear she was still under the impression that things had not changed. She said she would call back. She did not.
 

When Kurt got home I spewed this all out in one breath expecting his immediate sympathy. He seemed a bit annoyed with my lack of effectiveness (I do have a bit of a reputation for being a softy on customer service representatives) and took it upon himself to call the Admissions Board which was surprisingly still open. After about twenty minuted of him walking through the same arguments that I had and also getting no where, he hung up, gave me the sympathy I deserved, and made some cocktails.
  The only step we were given to take was to call the school at 8:00 tomorrow and demand that they take our children when I drop them off at 8:30.

 Blech. Ok England you are losing your charm.