Primary schools

[Jaraysmum]

My son has not been given a reception place at the same school his sister attends but at a different school 20mins bus drive away. This is a catholic school his sister has gone there since nursery and is now in year 2 he is currently in the nursery at this school and settled. Problem is I work full time and my husband looks after kids there is no way he can be in two places at one time this is impossible. We have no family here in London to help it is only us.
We went to school to find out what went wrong and told that we have the right to appeal. I asked about our chances of the appeal and the head teacher told us that no one has ever won a appeal!!! as there governors who deal with applications are so good at keeping within the criteria. We meet this criteria last year and also 4 years ago when we applied for our daughter there is no change on our part.
Please advice as we are so worried.

[RebeccaMumsnet]

Hi there,

We have moved this thread over to Primary Education for you - hopefully folks over there will be able to help you with some advice and support.

Best wishes

MNHQ

[AuntieStella]

They are wrong to say that you have no right is appeal.

It's not just a case of whether you meet the criteria; all applicants are ranked in order of how well they meet the criteria, and then the available places will be filled according to that ranking.

What exactly does it say on the rejection letter? Has your DS been placed in the right category (might they have made an error and overlooked that he has a sibling at the school?) Have faith-based criteria been correctly applied? The tie-break criteria is usually distance from the school. Does the distance they have given for your address look right? Is it greater than the greatest distance offered for your category?