Appeal for secondary school

[Bellkat]

Hi
Just wondered if anyone could give any advice regarding my daughters high school appeal which is coming up in may?
We applied for a place at a Church of England school and we ticked the top box which goes off attendance at church. However she was declined a place and we later learnt that the school took her out of the top box and placed her further down the criteria because they say our church wasn't c of e. It gets very technical here so I won't go into the Church background but we are an independent Church of England. However the school have been accepting our children since 2009 with no problems at all. It's just when it came to my daughters turn someone has decided to have issue. We still don't know whether this is just an error that they will be willing to put right or they are now going to argue against. our argument is that there was a precedent set back in 2009 and they are unfair to just change their mind without giving us warning. Sorry this probably sounds like a ramble but just wondered if anyone has been through anything similar? We are considering legal action to see if there would be any legal point to argue as this not only affects my daughter but will impact on the other children trying to gain places at her school in future. Just to add that children from our church have been successful in gaining a place at the church since 2009 even when they only accepted c of e applicants some years.

Thanks k

[admission]

Normally the CoE schools are clear about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in terms of which church's fit into which admission criteria category. It is however not unknown that schools change the emphasis of what is acceptable but they should be doing that formally through a consultation process. It is also not unknown at appeal that they do sometimes get this kind of issue wrong.
So it could be that the school have made a mistake or they could have changed the criterias. You are also very clear about what is and has in the past been acceptable but do you have any clear written evidence that has been the case since 2009. Could it be that the school has the one right and it was the others that they got wrong?

I would suggest that this is not going to be resolved easily on this public forum. Post me on the PM network. If you can give the name of the school, LA involved and what your church is then I can look up the admission criteria and also what the Diocese is saying about your church and see if this helps towards improving your chance of success at appeal.