Help with appeal

[jojo28]

I was wondering if anyone had advice for me and my appeal. My son did not get into his local school even though it is about a 2 minute walk from our house. Having spoken to other Mum's in the area I have reason to believe that children who in my oppinion live further away from the school have been given places. The appeal form states that you can only appeal if you believe the admissions criteria have not been applied properly. Since that is my position I wrang the admissions office and asked for the adresses of the children who were given places so I could verify my hunch. The appeals office will not give me that information stating it is confidential. This seems crazy to me - how can the admissions office be held to account if they are not totally transparent about who are given places and who are not. They demand that you make an appeal on the grounds that criteria were not applied properly but refuse to give you the pertinent information to prove it. What can I do now? Snoop around and try to find out who has got in and who has not? And who or what type of professional can I get to measure accurately the distance of my house to the school? Please any ideas would be gratefully received.

[catrin]

Get the education department to send you a copy of their admissions procedures. Are you definitely in catchment? (not the wrong side of the road or anything equally random?) It has been that places go to a)catchment with siblings b)catchment c) out of catchment with siblings d)out of catchment, but obviously may be different in your area. (Catchment rules are changing soon anyway so may be diff already elsewhere) Re appeal, other than proximity to school, also think about why other place unsuitable, as schools tend to have a gazillion appeals at this time of year.
Good luck!

[Hallgerda]

Is distance the only criterion? Is is possible that the children who live further away were siblings or had special needs/social or medical reasons, say? I can see why the school might wish to respect confidentiality in the latter case.

I realise this post may not help you much, but should bump the thread.

[LIZS]

Don't think you can expect to get specific details but perhaps they could tell you how many who live further away have got places, but as others have said they may meet other, higher priority, criteria ahead of your ds - SEN, religion, siblings etc. You can still state that you believe the distance criteria has not been properly taken into consideration for your ds'application and let them investigate.

[sunnydelight]

I really feel for you, and I think the whole school admissions system is a nightmare, but TBH I'm horrified that you expected to be given other people's addresses by the LEA. That would be a total breach of their responsibilities under the Data Protection Act. As others have said "distance from school" is usually third of fourth on the list of admissions criteria. At a local school last year only 6 places out of 30 were up for grabs on the distance from school criteria - all other 24 places were legitimately filled by people meeting the other criteria. There was uproar, and a huge amount of bad feeling, but nobody got in on appeal. I'm not positive, but I would have thought that the LEA would have to tell you which categories the allotted places fell into which might help you in an appeal. I have also heard (unofficially) that it is always worth going through the appeals procedure rather than just putting your name on the waiting list as it keeps your profile raised! No matter how upset you are though, you do need to stay calm and polite. The year DS1 went to secondary school 5/6 people I knew won their appeal for their local school - the only child who didn't get a place was the one whose father got sarcastic in the appeal meeting and started a "my taxes pay your salary" type argument. Co-incidence - maybe! Best of luck

[sunnydelight]

Sorry, should have read "third or fourth".

[MrsWobble]

I think you ought to be able to find out the distance from school of the child who lives furthest away and got in on distance criteria. I know my children's school provides this info. You would then be in a position to know whether you have a good case to appeal or not.

[jojo28]

For others who might be thinking of appealing some encouraging news! We have just won our appeal with Camden LEA. My son will now be going to our first choice school - I am over the moon. So many people told us we had no chance but some times being persistant pays off. So if any of you are considering it, my advice would be to go for it - miracles do happen!

[sunnydelight]

Fantastic news - well done

[UnquietDad]

Just coming in here (bit late, sorry) to say it's always worth doing - we won an appeal for a primary place last year after losing first time round. Here's a (brief) summary of our story.

We were in the rather complicated situation of having moved house in July - after place-allocation but before school started. We'd accepted a school place in the old area because we had to do so in March, at which time we had seen the house but had no guarantee of even putting an offer in, let alone having it accepted. Of the school in the new area - one key reason why we moved - Primary Admissions told us, "oh, you're first on the waiting-list, don't worry, someone always leaves." And we waited . And we waited. And nobody left. And we realised this is why it's called a waiting-list. (I think some LEAs have now abandoned them as they "create an expectation" for parents.)

And the day came closer when DD had to start school, at the one she'd been given a place at, the unsuitable one 2 miles away in the suburb where we used to live and which we'd moved house to escape. We realised we were going to have to appeal if she was going to go to the LOCAL school, the CATCHMENT school, the one 0.1 of a mile from our front door.

A depressing three months followed in which we built up and presented what we thought was a watertight appeal case, even having it looked over by a solicitor. The appeal panel was all middle-aged/retired men. It didn't augur well. Ten days before Christmas we were told that we had lost.

Five months of early-rising, shoddy bus-travel and hanging around in breakfast-club followed (great fun for a 4-year-old, as I'm sure you can imagine). We had to wait until the next appeal round, and then we went again, this time going in hard, firing question after question at the head and the LEA. Learning from our mistakes. I came in armed with tons of stuff from the DfES website and so on, and good old DW turned on the tears. Two of the panel were women. Whatever we did, it worked. We won the appeal, and DD now goes to the local primary school.

Two bits of advice:

• Be prepared. Look at the DfES website, know the figures, ask for exact figures from the school about not just your child's own year group but the WHOLE school. Talk to the Advisory Centre for Education , who were great. They are an independent charity offering advice to parents. They can't know all the answers but they will tell you which are the best questions to be asking - questions of a "the school should damn well have an answer to this, and if they don't, they're in trouble" variety.
  
  
• If you can, go in with two of you and let one play the cool, calm, professional one and the other play the one who plays the "my-poor-DS/DD-I-only-want-what's-best-for-them" card. (Well, it worked for us!)
  
  Yes, parental choice is a joke. Yes, the system is a nightmare. But know your stuff, play the system for all it's worth and you may - just may - be able to do the best for your own kids.