Message for prh47bridge, Panelmember & Admission

[Edward73]

Hi, We have been reading the posts on here and see that you guys really know what you are talking about and have experience on appeal panels.

I was just wondering if you can give us some advice.

We've applied for the RC Primary school for our Son that our 6 year daughter already currently attends....and have been turned down for him. Our Son even attends the nursery at the school and they've still turned him down.

Even though it is a Roman Catholic school that our daughter is currently attending we are not RC but Anglo Catholic (If you don't know what that is, its a C of E High Church which follows the exact Masses, Confession, Sacriments that the RC Church follows) Which is why we sent our daughter there because a RC school is much closer to our faith than a C of E.

My daughter got into the school no problem 2 years ago when they accepted 40 children, they also took 40 last year. The intake has changed this year to 30. We applied for a place for our son this time round and a few weeks ago got a phone call from the the deputy head saying that she had looked through the admissions forms and seen that we are not RC. We explained that we were AC and she agreed that we followed the same faith and preachings BUT we weren't RC......At that point we thought we might have a problem!

Now our son has been refused.

We have been offered a different school for him by the Area Education Office that is the worst school in the town in a really bad area. So have refused the place in that school.

We are going to appeal the decision because we want our son to go to the same school as our daughter, as we would really struggle to get our two children to two different schools, and as you can imagine it would unsettle our children to go to different schools.

For the last 12 months i've been seeing the Institute of Genetic Medicine to try and diagnose a severe muscle disease that i found out that i have. I have been issued with a wheelchair and leg splints because i can't walk very far because all my lower leg muscles have been destroyed by the disease. Me and my family are trying to come to terms with this disease and not getting our son into our daughters school is stress we can really do without with everything else thats going on. We wouldn't consider pulling our daughter out of the school to go somewhere else because she is really settled and doing very well.

My wife takes the children to the RC school/nursery in the morning before going to work. So if we didn't get a place for our son in that school she would only be able to take our daughter to the RC school then go to work, then it would be up to me to try to get our son to the other school where ever that may be, which would be extremely difficult with my condition.

So our question to you guys is.....Would we stand a chance of winning an appeal to the independent board? I can get letters from my GP, Consultant, Professors of Muscle Disease and Occupational Therapists to support our claim. Is there any advice you could offer us?

[prh47bridge]

The big thing that springs out from your post is the reduction in admission number. Why has that happened? Have there been changes which have reduced the school's capacity? Are they changing the organisation of classes? I'm guessing that they have previously run 4 classes covering Reception, Y1 and Y2 but are now planning to reduce it to a single class for each year but it would be useful to know why they feel the need to do this.

Normally I would expect an appeal with an admission number of 30 to be infant class size which would mean you should only get in if you can show that a mistake has been made. In this case they presumably have 40 already in Y1 and Y2 so they will certainly need 4 infant classes for two more academic years. They could have three of them covering Y1/2 leaving Reception with a single class which would make this an infant class size case, or they could continue to mix Reception with other years in which case this will be an ordinary appeal. So the first thing to do is to find out the planned class organisation from September plus the answers to the questions in my first paragraph.

If this is infant class size your condition would only be relevant if the school prioritises children where there is a special medical or social need. If they do you could argue that your son should have been placed in that admission category. Note that this argument should only work if you provided evidence of your condition with your original application and your son would have been admitted if he had been placed in this category. It would then be up to the appeal panel to decide whether your condition should have qualified your son for this category. I have come across cases where an appeal panel has admitted a child in an infant class size case when the rules say the appeal should have failed so there is always a chance, but if you can't show that a mistake has been made your chances are slim.

If it is not infant class size you will have a better chance. Normally transport problems and the difficulties of getting two children to different schools don't make for a successful appeal. An appeal panel may feel that your wife would be in a similar position to many single mothers who have to get children to different schools. Equally, they may be sympathetic to your condition and decide that it does give reason to admit. I would get as much evidence of your condition as you can and hope you get a sympathetic panel.

[Edward73]

Hi Thank you so much for replying. The infants are spread over four classes at the moment.The class structure for this academic year is; infants - reception, reception/year 1, year 1/year 2, year 2, juniors - year 3, year 3/year 4, year 4/year 5, year 5 and year 6. The infant building is separate from the junior building and there are 4 proper classrooms in the infant building to accomadate the kids. I dont know yet the class structure for the next academic year only that they are taking in 30 for reception but i will find out.

We had no problem getting him into nursery and the nursery teacher told us that the number of children in the nursery this year was low because of a low birth year which doesnt seem to be the case now. The nursery staff and our daughters teacher are aware of my illness but we have never formally approached the head to let him know the problem. Therefore under these circumstances we didnt add details of my illness to the school admission but had we have known that there were going to be these problems we would have done. So we were thinking at this point of writing a formal letter to the headmaster to let him know the full extent of my condition and the implications of having two schools and the effects on us as a family. We have already spoken to my doctors and specialists who are currently writing letters of support. Do you think the head might be able to move us up the reserve list now knowing this information before going to appeal or perhaps us getting a place without it even going to appeal? In the school prospectus (not in admissions section) they say they are sympathetic to special cases. We are gathering as much information and evidence as we can. Thank you again.

[prh47bridge]

The short answer is that it depends what their admission criteria say. If you give evidence that allows them to move you into a higher admission category your son will move up the waiting list. However, as they are full up to the admission number they shouldn't admit without an appeal unless they decide a mistake has been made. Having said that, faith schools don't always follow the rules properly so it may be that this school will admit your son even if the rules say they shouldn't.

[admission]

The first thing to say is that the school as a roman catholic school is their own admission authority. What that means is that whilst the LA do all the admin work, the school is responsible for agreeing the order of admission based on the admission criteria. It should be a committee of the governing body that is carrying out this important action and I am a little concerned that the deputy head was phoning you up about your situation. So if you go to appeal I would definitely ask who did what in deciding the admission order, any suggestion all the decisions were made by the deputy head would be against the admission code. It probably will not get you a place but it does question how well the admission list was drawn up

I was not sure from your post whether the elder daughter is 6 or is in year 6. If they are in year 6 then any sibling priority will probably not apply, but it would if she is aged 6. So the question that immediately springs to mind is what is the admission criteria and what criteria was your child considered under?

When it comes to the issue of AC, you need to check out very carefully what the diocese says, rather than the school. I have done a number of appeals where parents who are AC or some variety of eastern orthodox church were not treated as baptised RC when their dioceses did actually treat them as being baptised RC. So you need to speak to the diocese that this school belongs to and check out the diocese ruling on who is eligible before you do anything else. If the diocese rule that you are eligible then the school is guilty of maladministration as they did not properly check out the situation.

You have a number of other options that you are already exploring and I agree with PRH finding out how they are reducing the admission number whilst still having 4 classrooms seems a priority

[southofthethames]

Hi OP, does the school admission info say anything about whether they treat children whose family attends mass at their affiliated/parish church differently? What I mean really is how they tell whether you are RC or not (without using a lie detector, if you know what I mean)...most RC schools will take it to mean that the child is baptised in an RC church, attends mass at the parish/affiliated church. The child who is both and has a sibling in the school is usually highest priority, but if the child is outside the parish/different Christian denomination then they are lower priority. But different RC schools apply different criteria, so it is worth checking that too as well as what prh, panel and admission have said.

[southofthethames]

P.S. They quite often ask for a letter of support from the priest too. If you are able to get the support of the priest of the affiliated RC church given your condition and if the family attended mass (after all it is very close to A-C apart from very few factors) sometimes, then I expect you'd stand a good chance of winning an appeal. (I know I am not prh/adm/panelm but I looked into applying for our local RC school which we were eligible to do so I understand that it is different and where/why the different rules apply.)

[panelmember]

Can't think of anything to add but do pursue all the points that Admission and Prh47bridge have suggested.

I'm that as a non-RC sibling your daughter is currently in a very low admissions category for the school?

[Edward73]

Hi thank you for all replying. This has got to be one of the most stressful experiences we have ever been through - and its not over yet! Our daughter who is already attending the school is aged 6.
We handed our letter into the school but it doesnt seem to have made any difference, they dont really want to enter into a dialogue with us before the appeal. We have spoken to the diocese who were really helpful and said they would help us form our appeal, which is a huge relief. They recognised that we support the Catholic tradition as AC so hopefully as Admission says this may prove in some way maladministration. If the diocese that the school belongs to is willing to help us out and give advice on how to win the appeal then did the school board check properly how to judge our son's admission grounds?
I have found the real reason for reducing the number on admission, its because they are waiting for approval to have the school rebuilt - it is currently spread into 3 buildings, nursery, infants and juniors. So even though they have the classroom space now, in the new school build they mustn't be planning to accomadate so many.
So now we are gathering as much as we can for the appeal and getting our argument in order. Hopefully it will work out. Thanks so much again for your time.

[Edward73]

Just doing an update. We have sent our appeal form and letter in now with a letter from our priest, a letter from my GP, a letter from my consultant, a medical report from the muscle disease centre and supporting evidence of appointments etc....We have the backing of the diocese who helped us form our appeal and said that they are backing us and have helped us in our appeal letter.

So we just have to wait now for the appeal and see what happens.

I would like to thank everybody who have given us advice, It is very much appreciated.

We refused the place that we were offered by the education office at the worst school in our town.....and put our son's name down on 9 waiting lists for others good schools. The education office rung yesterday to offer us a place in one of these schools :)

We have accepted the place pending the outcome of the appeal. So at least he will now have a good school to go to if we lose the appeal. Though the two schools are about 25 minutes away from each other......So our daughter would be 25 minutes late everyday for the next 5 years should we lose the appeal.....Hope it doesn't come to that.

[PanelMember]

That's good news about the new offer of a place for your son.

I don't want to be a doom-monger, and I appreciate your difficult situation, but no school is likely to accept a child being 25 minutes late every day for 5 years. They will expect you to make some arrangement - a child-minder, a lift from a friend, before-school club for one or other of the children, whatever it may be - that will get both children to school at the correct time.

Good luck with the appeal.

[admission]

I am little surprised that if the diocese are actively helping you with the appeal that it is going to appeal.
However it is good news that you now have a reasonable place at a school, but panelmember is right, no school is going to accept a pupil arriving 25 minutes late everyday.

[teacherwith2kids]

I had presumed Edward was joking about the 25 minutes late.. the schools will rightly expect you to get both children to school on time, using a combination of your own efforts, a childminder, a breakfast club, a nursery who does drop-offs and / or a willing friend, or frankly whatever it takes.

I have a friend who for various reasons has children at 3 primary schools. She drops one at breakfast club, another at a childminder (2nd school has no breakfast club) and takes the youngest herself. At the end of the day, she does the same in reverse, picking up the middle one last as the childminder gives him a snack after school, and sometimes uses friends to take the eldest to after school activities. The schools and admission panel will expect you to be able to make similar arrangements to the rest of us (my own children go to a childminder for breakfast as the school breakfast club opens too late).