HELP - urgent help needed with primary appeal!

[EddieIzzardismyhero]

Hi, I'm wondering if any of you could help a friend of mine with a primary place appeal. She has asked me to help her cos I used to be a teacher and I now work in SEN but I really don'tknow anything about primary appeals . My two are pre-school and I was a Y6 teacher so really didn't get involved.

Anyway, her DS was 4 in May so starts school in January.

He has been offered a place at their local over-subscribed school but they are having to move out of the area (still in the same town) due to divorce. Her dh left home when her DS was 21mths and he has been badly affected by the split. He is very upset about having to move home and leave the only house he has ever known.

She has been told that she will lose her place in this school when she moves.

She put down the school nearest to her new house as No 1 choice, but because she had not moved by the time places were allocated she was not offered a place.

She is now worried that she will lose both the current allocated place and won't get into the school nearest her new house and will end up at a school much further away which is not v good .

I would emphasise the following:

son very traumatised by divorce
needs to be at local school as is only child and needs company of local children
has nursery friends locally who are going to this school so will have some continuity where has had precious little

Is this any good? Am I right in thinking she shouldn't criticise the other schools but should focus on the positive?

Any help hugely appreciated!

Thanks .

[EddieIzzardismyhero]

bump

[EddieIzzardismyhero]

Anyone?

[HappyMummyOfOne]

Unfortunately none of those three reasons will make a difference at appeal. She will only be succesful if she can prove they made a mistake on not allocating her a place - ie they got the distance wrong etc.

She can ask to go on the waiting list though and move him if need be later on.

If the split was over 2 years ago, why only move now when she knows it will affect his school place.

[DastardlyandSmugly]

Hi Eddie - you'll get some good advice on here from people like Admission and prh47bridge when they are around. They answer all threads when they're here so keep an eye out and you'll get a response as soon as one of them is on-line.

Wishing your friend good luck.

[EddieIzzardismyhero]

Happymummy, she initially contested him kicking her out of the house but lost that in the divorce settlement. The house went on the market last Autum but because of the recession it has taken a long time to sell .

Thanks dastardly .

[admission]

If there has been an offer of a place made and accepted prior to the family moving then there is no reason unless there is some wierd bit in the admission criteria of the LA, to lose the school place. Who is giving this advice that they will lose the place?

I would accept that it might be difficult transport and logistical wise to get the son to the school offered. If that is the case there is no reason in the interim why she cannot apply for a place at the school nearest the new home, get on the waiting list and then assuming it is full go to appeal. The chances are that it will however be an infant class size case and the chances of appealing successfully are then nil as a late applicant. So it is vital that they hang onto the current school place until they have something else properly organised. She actually has till January to get something organised as the son is not scheduled to start till January. If she is near the potential new school then she may well get a place of the waiting list before January.

[EddieIzzardismyhero]

Hi admission and thank you for your reply at this late hour .

She was informed by the LA that she would lose her place - if she's moving out of area then wouldn't it be standard practise to lose the place? i.e. she might be moving 200 miles away (she isn't) so then the LA would remove the place wouldn't they?

I'm playing devil's advocate here cos I really know nothing about it .

If you're right and her LA contact is wrong she will be v relieved because this would be a much better outcome than her DS being sent to option 3.

Thanks.

[Panelmember]

As Admission says, a lot depends (or could depend) on what the LEA's admissions criteria say about changes of address between accepting the place and starting school.

Am I right in thinking that your friend made an in-time application for the school nearest her new address? If so, things may not be entirely bleak. Is she already on the waiting list there? Once she has confirmation of her new address, that should move her up the waiting list.

But, as has been said already, none of the things you mention will cut any ice at appeal. Assuming this is an infant class size appeal, your friend would need to demonstrate that the admissions criteria had not been properly applied and so her son had lost out on a place.

There's no evidence yet that the LEA has made a mistake but the LEA can't (in my view) have it both ways - if the admissions criteria really do say that she'll lose the place at the first school (and this isn't just nursery gossip) then presumably the LEA has some mechanism in place to ensure that children who have recently moved house still have a school to go to. This might be under the Fair Access Protocol. If the LEA really do intend to take away the school place without making any alternative offer, then it might be worth appealing on the grounds that the admissions process is perverse and unreasonable.

Has your friend spoken to the admissions team at the LEA? Or to the Choice Adviser, if they have one?

[admission]

Which LA are we talking about here and is it a maintained school or a faith school of some sort.

It is certainly not standard practice to loose the place and in fact there is absolutely nothing to stop you applying for a place at a school 200 miles away. If they have a space then the school must admit if you request the place - but the commute everyday might be a killer!

[prh47bridge]

As Admission and Panelmember have said, unless the admissions criteria say something about children changing address between accepting the place and starting school they cannot take the place away. If I want to commute from Carlisle to Penzance every day to take my child to school that is my choice. It is not the LA's place to say I can't. And I agree with Panelmember that if the admission criteria allow them to take a place away when you move within the area they should also have something in place to ensure that children moving within the area still have a place to go to.

I'm afraid enquiries to LAs sometimes result in spectacularly bad advice being given by people employed to answer the phone who have no idea what they are talking about. I hope that is what has happened here.

As Admission says, it would be useful to know which LA we are talking about.

[prh47bridge]

Also, do you know the admission number for the school nearest her new house? Her chances of success at appeal are significantly better if it isn't an infant class size appeal.

[EddieIzzardismyhero]

Hi guys, thank you for all your replies - I've been out all day and need to put my boys to bed now, but will be back later to read and reply.

[rohana]

hi
i asked question before about the faith school before.i am still worried about my son school.actually her is another problem aries my son dont want to change his school his behaviour is changed he come to me again and again and said that i dont want to go a new school this all situation make me more deppresed.i know its very rare chance that i win that appeal my son is second on the waiting list.there is any chance that my son got place this september now i really want to get my son place back.please give me advice

[panelmember]

Rohana

I remember your earlier posts. There is not much advice we can give. If you turned down the place when it was offered to you, then it has now been given to another child and the panel is extremely unlikely to give it back to you. In infant class size appeals (which I assume this is and there are many threads about) all the panel can do is put right the local authority's (or school's) mistakes. I am sorry to say this, but the panel is likely to decide that you made a mistake in turning down the place and it has no power to overturn that.

Being 2nd on the waiting list is pretty good. What is the school's intake? Is it likely that two children will drop out before September? If the intake is 60 or 90 that seems quite likely and it could happen even if the intake is only 30.

Are there other schools nearby with places?

[BetsyBoop]

Rohana

I replied to you on an earlier thread don't know if you saw it?

I agree with panelmember that it would be highly unlikely that the appeal panel will give you another place at the school you initially rejected the place from, so you need to look at what other options are available if you don't like the school you've now accepted.