A DESPERATE mother is pleading with the council to find her seven-year-old son a school place after delays in processing their application has resulted in him missing more than six weeks of schooling.

Blu Cantrell moved from South East London to Eastcott eight weeks ago for a career change and, before she made the life-changing move, she personally handed the school transfer application for her son Loki into the Civic Offices.

But, after hearing that her three school choices were full, including Robert Le Kyng, the mother-of-two has rung the council weekly to hear only that the status of her application was ‘pending’, despite her son missing vital teaching time.

“Every Friday I have rung up and each and every time all I hear is that someone is dealing with it but nothing is happening,” she said.

“My 21-year-old daughter and my near 80-year-old dad are having to look after Loki while I go to work.

“This delay has created a massive problem for him because he’s at home with my daughter who has had to put on hold finding a job to look after him.

“It has been a real nightmare and I’m so worried about my son’s education.

“At his age, it is key that he keeps learning and so to go back after missing a whole term, he will get so behind that he might say he doesn’t want to go back from where he is struggling or getting picked on.

“He loves going to school and every day, he asks me ‘mummy can I go to school today?’ and it breaks my heart that he can’t.”

Blu, 41, who works in dentistry in Bath, said despite buying her son work books to do at home, all Loki wants is to go to school and make new friends.

Now Blu just wants a place at any school so that the family can move forward with this new chapter in their lives.

“He’s got no friends here and he gets upset by it,” she said.

“It is not just his general education that is suffering but his emotional health as well.

“The week before we moved, we suddenly lost my mum and so he has been through quite a lot already.

“It is pretty horrible for him because there is no support and I feel like no one is taking responsibility.

“To get him into school would be so lovely and it is the last piece of the puzzle of the move because at the moment, we haven’t been able to get into a routine or feel settled.”

A Swindon Borough Council spokesman said: “Following our standard admissions procedure when a parent applies for a school place, we have approached three schools in order to place the child concerned but, unfortunately, all three schools have turned out to be full.

“Each school has to be approached in turn in order to avoid confusion and duplication of effort by the schools, and in the case of the two academy schools we approached, the selection process is slightly lengthier.

“However we are now confident a school place has now been identified, and we hope to receive confirmation of this in the next few days.”