Primary school appeal

[Hillypink]

Hi
I was hoping to get a bit of advice. We recently went to appeal and failed to get our dd into her first choice school. Sadly we failed to get in as the appeal panel were legally bound. Application was for reception at the school my daughter is now in at Nursery. We were out of catchment and the class was over 30. Although she could have got in now a problem would have occured by 2013 as by then the school would have been full. Presuming no movement was made during that time. My first question is, if the appeal panel were legally bound, why did they let us go to appeal? They would have had all the information to read beforehand so surely would have known they were legally bound beforehand? The other problem I have is that when I questioned the LEA whether they check addresses of applicants he said 'no', and nothing further was said (it was very stressful and I feel that I remained too polite through the whole process) but I have read a seperate thread on here which said that the appeal was adjourned whilst checks were made when this question was raised by parent. Is this something that I should take to the ombudsman? The final thing that has been bugging me is that before the appeal, I spoke to a lady from the LEA who was very friendly and helpful. I asked her if she had received all the replies accepting school places, after the closing date had passed, and she said she was still waiting for a couple but that these had siblings in school so she felt they would be accepted but they had just forgotten. I accepted this at the time but now the more I am thinking about it ( I want to be sure that I did everything possible) the more I feel that they were wrong to do this as it states in the letter that a place may be lost if a reply is not received. Could somebody please help me to understand whether all correct procedures have been followed. Sorry to go on but putting it all down quickly before I forget anything.