Hello all, I'm new here (waves).
I've come to ask for some advice that might help me get through the minefield that is the Infant Class Size Appeal. I have a 5 year old daughter who should be in year 1.
I'll give you a background of how my family and I have got to this point. We've moved about 15 miles from one house to another, still within the same Local Authority, but enough to be far away from the dump we used to live in. We were victims of prolonged anti social behaviour and harassment there, and felt we had no choice but to move. The move took much longer to come about than it should have, as our former Housing Authority landlord put up lots of unnecessary roadblocks (we've now gone private). Unfortunately our move happened in the last week of school term, so, worried about my daughter's school place, I tried to put in an application for schools local to our new home before we moved.
Our move day arrived, and so did a letter from the Local Authority, my daughter had been refused a place at all three of the schools we had chosen. Naturally we were very disappointed about this, but given the timing of the application, it was understandable. More frustratingly, however, the school place offered was that in a village two miles away, which on further research is not actually passable as a pedestrian, if you were to travel the quickest route given on Google Maps, trying to avoid the impassable route would mean walking for about 6.5 miles. Public transport there is a little dire also, we would have to catch two buses and even then, because of the timetable, you can either arrive 40 minutes early or 15 minutes late. I don't drive.
The school offered has a pretty bad rep at the moment, the last couple of Ofsted inspections deem it as requiring improvement, that status still applies up to now.
I have decided to appeal, I know it's a difficult subject, and I really don't want to be the parent that upsets the apple cart, but I feel I have at least a solid argument to put across. I have decided to home educate dd whilst this is ongoing, and if the appeal is lost I plan to continue up until she is eligible to apply for juniors, since the closest schools are just infant ones.
I'll give a background about my dd as this will help people understand my reasoning. She's a lovely happy girl, as many 5 year olds are, but she requires extra help at the moment. She has a language delay, her articulation is fine, it's the processing and expression of language she struggles with. She has been attending speech therapy, but the centre dealing with us has been absolutely appalling as they keep letting her go longer than 6 weeks without an appointment. Most recently she had no appointments between December-July as the therapist had left and no cover was arranged. This I feel has really hindered her progress. She is also on the waiting list to be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, this came about following an assessment myself and oh requested due to her behaviour. She has echolalia within her language issues, she has meltdowns, attention problems, and there are certain loud noises that she just cannot tolerate, hand dryers in public toilets being the worst offenders at the moment. She's also very set in her ways and does not like being moved on from her favourite activities.
The above means that dd has also been assessed by an Educational Psychologist as her previous school brought up their concerns. She is slightly behind for her age in all areas of education.
To clarify, she's not statemented or under an EHCP as yet, I have spoken to my LA to understand how they class her situation since it was they who sent the psychologist. DD has 'acknowledged' special needs and I was given permission to share their report with any prospective school.
So, being completely realistic, I know I have a very slim to none chance of winning the appeal. I have appealed against refusal at all three schools, though the first choice school has only been named in the documents the LA has sent to me.
My arguments are that I would prefer a closer school due to DD's difficulties, busy traffic and lots of people can be very distracting for her, and I would have safety concerns. Getting ready for school on a morning can be hard, I still have to help dress her as she does not understand instructions well, and she can have a meltdown over things like not finishing her breakfast if we're in a hurry (again linked to understanding as she does not understand concepts like time, and 'why' we have to do things).
I know that despite DD having SEN, without statement/EHCP we are stuffed, though I have submitted psychologist and paediatric reports as evidence. Any potential diagnosis will not be given to us until 2018 at the earliest, due to the absurdly long waiting list for these things, so I'm not sure about applying for EHCP without one.
I am quite flabbergasted at the sheer amount of schools that have been overlooked when the LA arrived at their decision, there must be at least 10 other primaries nearer that are apparently all full.
Lesser reasons for arguing that I know will probably make no difference to the appeal are having a 14 month old (dd's brother) to drag around for the several hours a day travelling, said travelling also affecting the amount of time I can work as I work from home.
As the LA confirmed that the class of the first choice school is already at 30, I know it's definitely a class size appeal. I don't think a mistake has been made, though I should note that the initial refusal was sent to my old address, before any proof of my new address had been seen. If we talk about distances in the 'as the crow flies' way, we are something like 0.018 miles away from the closest school, opposed to the 1.7 miles of the school offered.
I'm curious to know if anyone out there has ever appealed against refusal of all three choices, how does this work? If one school refuses the appeal, can the others step in?
I sorely wish we didn't have to move, dd was in a really good school and got plenty of support, but it was too close to where we lived, going there now would be even worse transport wise, and I would worry about suffering more abuse.
I've done my own head in trying to research legalities and so on, but I've found something that may help me. Apologies if I do not get this word for word, but hopefully it's close enough. The School Admissions Code states that a class size exception can be made if a child has just moved in to an area outside of the normal admissions round, and there is no school place within a 'reasonable' distance. The first two parts of that match our situation, but what is a legally 'reasonable' distance?
I thank anybody in advance who takes the time to read and reply to this, sorry it's long! I'll say again, I know I will probably not be successful, but I feel I should try, even if it results in the LA having a look at other schools they may have missed out, I do wonder how they worked out the distance with the decision going to the wrong address, I have not yet been sent their argument to be put to the appeal panel (the letter I received advised that I should be getting it, but I will ask myself if it doesn't arrive).
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Primary School Infant Class Size Appeal - Don't Know What to Do
9 replies
ChiaraMetal · 13/09/2016 10:55
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