Yes sorry about the OT.

As Vitesse said, contact the schools ASAP.

No worries on the OT, I was just wondering if it concerned my questions because if it did, I could not understand it.

The agency guy assured me that most other Filipinos already in the area would know which schools to recommend to me, but I would like to get as much "background" info if possible rather than just relying on one group of people. I guess I will be doing "tours" of schools later on.

I know that having a home in a catchment would mean (possible) admission, what I'm asking is if I can do it the other way around -- can I get admission FIRST then get a home in the area?

I guess regardless of whether I get my son in the school of my choice, one way or another, the government DOES guarantee that he will have an education, right?

Passed my ONP forms today. The agency guy told me that there is a Postal worker strike in the UK. True?

There was. It's finished now.

They happen every year. Every now and then we get other people going on strike too. I think we had the fire service go on strike a few years back, not for the first time. I wonder if the Army still have those Green Goddesses?

Good luck!

When was the strike over? Coz they're hinting that that strike may be the cause of the delays we were/will be having.

I believe they happened right at the end of October. Usually it just backs up the system, and because of the volume of mail it takes a little while to resolve. Stuff that is time dependent gets delayed by a week or two.

If it happened at the end of October, is it safe to assume that the 1-2 week backlog is over by now?

By now, probably. Still, this IS the UK you're talking about - we got red tape up the wazoo.