Devastated but Determined

[Geordie2010]

I have just found out that my daughter did not attain a place at any of the chosen schools, having just received the second round selection results.

Instead she has been placed in an unsuitable school which is nearest to my house.

I am devastated. So the system that was meant to be about choice and specifically what is best for my child is clearly a farce and rather, distance that my house is from a school is the critical factor?!

I will be appealing and any guidance from you is much appreciated. What should I do?

Thank you in advance.

[cory]

Well, first of all you have to remember that it can never be about what is best for your child, without equally taking into consideration what is best for everybody else's child too. There is a limited number of places in every school, and if a particular school has a good reputation then naturally every parent is going to want their child at that school- this doesn't mean that more places will magically appear. It is a choice but only in the limited sense that an icecream van may offer a choice betwen chocolate and vanilla icecream: if everyone wants the chocolate, then they will run out and somebody will have to have the vanilla.

So the question is more how do they decide who gets the chocolate. The LEA has to assume that every child matters equally and then allocate places according to predefined criteria (should be published).

So, if you want to appeal, you need to prove either that the admissions authority made a mistake when applying their own criteria or that there are special reasons why your child needs a place. These would have to be very special reasons, that do not apply to all the other children that also want to get into that school. For instance, disability/social or emotional problems- you would need to provide evidence not only that your child had these special needs but also show why your favoured school is the only one who can cater for her.

Never tell an appeals committee that they should give your child a place at the school because it is the better school, or because the other one is awful: that doesn't prove why your dd should get a place rather than somebody else's child.

I would start by reading through their criteria very carefully and think about whether there could be a case of your dd fitting the criteria more than other children who were admitted. Remember that if the school is full not even all the children who do fit the criteria may get a place. You can only prove a mistake if children who shouldn't have been admitted were admitted ahead of children who should.

[Panelmember]

Cory has explained it very well. Unless the school is under-subscribed, you do not get to choose your child's school. You express a preference. So do all the other parents and then the LEA applies its oversubscription criteria to decide which of those children get the places.

Do you have solid grounds for describing the allocated school as 'unsuitable'? Does your child have defined needs (educational, medical or social) which your preferred schools can meet and this one cannot? Or do you simply mean that you don't like it?

Read all the other threads about primary appeals. Read the admissions code and appeal code on the DCSF website. As they will explain, if this is an infant class size appeal (ie school admits in multiples of 30 and has 30 in a class in key stage 1) then you are only likely to win an appeal if you can demonstrate that there has been a serious error in applying the oversubscription criteria and handling the admissions which has deprived your child of a place.

Because very few infant class size appeals succeed, you need to have a contingency plan. Are there any other schools which you would accept? Can you join their waiting lists?