“Turns out West Sussex, they no longer give a s***"
Romesh Ranganathan has criticised West Sussex County Council for placing his youngest son in a school “on the other side of town”, calling the secondary school admissions process a “shambles.”
The comedian and broadcaster posted a video on Instagram, saying the council did not offer his son any of his preferred choices, including the one his elder son attends.
In the video, Romesh said: “Has anyone else or is anyone else dealing with this absolute secondary school placement shambles?”
He added that he had contacted the council multiple times but received no response.
Speaking in the video, he said: “Turns out West Sussex, they no longer give a s*** if your siblings go to a certain school.
“The school that we put down was the same as his brother’s.
“They’ve said: ‘You’re not having that. Not only not having that, you’re not having any of the schools you put down as a preference. In fact, we’ve placed you in a school on the other side of town’.”
Romesh Ranganathan said he emailed the council six times, pleading for help.
Romesh continued: “One of the emails I was begging, just going: ‘Please, please. We don’t know what we’re going to do about our son’s schooling next year’.”
He then approached his local MP for help.
He explained: “I end up going via my local MP. I said: ‘Can you just help me with this?’ He says: ‘Leave it with me’.
“I wait two weeks. They come back and say: ‘West Sussex looked into it, they can’t do anything. They have conducted an investigation of their placement procedure, and they found it to be satisfactory.’
“I bet they have. Then he said to me: ‘I’m sure it’s disappointing’.
“It’s more than disappointing. It’s not the football, it’s my son’s school placement.”
A spokesperson for West Sussex County Council said: “We don’t comment on individual matters, but we acknowledge the disappointment when students cannot be placed at their first choice.
“We will always work with families to ensure a suitable school placement can be found.”
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Romesh said the family had the right to appeal, and would now have to go on the waiting list for an alternative school place.
The council said 87.1% of pupils had been offered their first preference secondary school and 96.9% of all applicants were offered a place at one of their three preferences.
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