Mulling appeal over, thoughts please

[flowermother]

We have had our appeal and we now have to wait for 10 days for the decision. Our appeal was from an 'education' angle, and fortunately the school representative did back up what we were saying.

The school we are appealing to, (which is our catchment school, in previous years we would have got in, but this year was a bulge), does have much better resources in the area our daughter is most interested in, including a specialist department & teaching staff, (a legacy of their specialism), which our allocated school doesn't have. In our view this would impact her ability to compete later on when applying for college courses if she doesn't have exposure to this.

Do education reasons really stand up with children in this age group? It is a genuine reason, our daughter, whilst a competent all rounder, definitely shows ability in this area and a desire to follow a career in this area, and from that point of view it definitely would be the best school for her. I wonder that it may not be viewed as important as letting a child in who appeals on social grounds?

One of the appeal panel members asked the school rep where we are on the waiting list, (the Chair looked at us and told us that this wasn't relevant to their decision, which we already knew), so why would she ask?

Sorry for all the musings, just struggling to think about anything else right now!

[prh47bridge]

Anything that prejudices the child is relevant.

The appeal panel will initially look at each case in isolation and decide whether or not it should succeed. Then they will look at the number of successful appeals they've got and decide whether or not the school can cope with that many. They will only compare cases if they decide the school can't cope with all the initially successful appeals. At that point it is up to the panel to decide whether your education reasons outweigh another parent's social reasons or another parent's medical reasons. There is no universal set of rules so the outcome of the comparisons will depend on the panel.

so why would she ask

Inexperience I hope. The panel shouldn't ask that question. As the chair said, it is completely irrelevant and they need to avoid giving the impression they are taking such matters into account.

[flowermother]

thank you prh47bridge.

I hate that I have come away feeling so disheartened by this process. Will update when we receive our decision.