Secondary Schools Appeals - Typical Questions To/From Panel

Sham80 - I'm not meaning to get at you - but your posts here are almost incoherent. I would imagine that a panel is going to have more opportunity to grant your appeal if they can understand it. If your posts here are representative of the way you normally communicate then maybe you need to take someone with you to put the case across.

What would be

Of course they take your appeal statement (and the LEA's) and all supporting documents into account. What would've the point of them otherwise?

Will the panel make their decision based on what we say at the appeal only, or will they also take into account what we wrote in our original letter? I'm concerned that I will be nervous and get flappy and forget to say something important.

Everything I need to say was in the original letter so if they take that into account as well then that's fine but if not I'm really worried!

Admission. I think you are right to advise parents to say why it is the best school for their child. This is what I meant by an educational reason. How a child gets to the school is not educational and could, and I stress could, be less significant to a panel. In my area there are differences between schools and parents can argue successfully that a child would be better suited to school A than school B. I agree this is hard to do if there are no discernible differences, although I would have thought most parents can tell the differences between schools and know which one is best for their child. The different specialisms of schools is a good starting point and panel members would be aware of those. Bringing out the child's aptitudes, style of learning, facilities and clubs the child would benefit from all help. A good musician might benefit from a school orchestra, a keen footballer wants a good sports school, a bi-lingual family might appreciate a language college, some children might desperately need computer science which is not available elsewhere and so on. All schools cannot possibly be the same! I also found panels did not like other schools to be rubbished. It is best to keep to why you want School A and not why you cannot stand the thought of School B.

I usually say that we have read the appeal form and know something about their circumstances. I live in an authority where many parents are not as clued up about the process as many people on this forum, and are not really accustomed to expressing themselves on paper.We very often find that some really important points come out during the appeal hearing itself during questioning by the panel.

Usually they will ask you to say what ever you want to say. I would always say go through the reasons again why you think this is the right school for your child because it is amazing how many times something that the parent says triggers off another line of questioning which might be to your advantage. Like the one who mentioned there was a half-brother living at the same address, who just happened to be a pupil at the school, which the school and LA had not picked up on and the parent did not believe was relevant because somebody at the admission office had said on an email did not matter when it came to giving priority.

Can I hijack this thread and ask about the parents putting their case forward. We put everything in our notice of appeal - will the panel still ask us to present our reasons or would they go straight to questions?

THANKS much appreciated am noting every bit of advice you all giving me on the hand a think a should be ok on day 3 of my best mates who would have gone with me are on holiday no1 to take with me and just the word burglary etc sets me of because been dealing with other things related to it and dh is to quiet reserved lol am worried wont get anything across

I agree with all of that, HPparent.

Sham - I have been following your other thread and I appreciate the difficult situation you are in. I understand that you are looking for support, but for all the reasons HPparent mentions, I think one way in which we can support you is by encouraging you to think positively about the appeal and how you can present the case for your son. You don't need to be the world's most articulate person - the panel will make allowances for that - but you need to back up your arguments with evidence.

sham80 - I don't think anyone is having a go at you. We are all trying to help.

I volunteered for the panel after experiencing the stress of not getting a good school for either child though I didn't appeal. I give up some of my annual leave for my job to sit on the panel (we are unpaid volunteers). I get the papers about a week before and go through them eagerly looking for appeals that have a reasonable case. If none are allowed it is a real downer and infant appeals are horrible for that reason. I have come home and cried with frustration. Panellists in my area are considering what to do about them as the present situation is ridiculous.

Personally though we are meant to be objective I give the admissions authority a bloody hard time - I take no prisoners and have a sharp tongue- and do my best to get the parent to put their argument across.

If you want to win you have to have a valid argument. You don't have to be articulate, we can read out a written statement if you want, but you have to have grounds for appeal and for many situations like Sham's provide documentary evidence.

Don't worry about crying or being upset, just try to breathe and get the words out. Panellists like cases they can allow. Sadly the majority are pretty hopeless with weak grounds. I sit in an area with a shortage of places where people appeal without grounds out of desperation .

I can see how stressful it is for parents. But be assured that the majority of panellists are on your side even if they font show it , but you have to help them by providing evidence on which they can base their decision.

sorry a spoke gosh

sorry for posting and wanting support

Sham - I agree. At the risk of sounding patronising (sorry) you need to stop telling yourself how stressful the appeal will be and start telling yourself that you can do it. Listen to ToFollowJulie for practical tips.

Sham80, I have given you advice as have others on other threads and this one. The panel know you are stressed and want you to be able to give your case. t doesn't really matter how you present it as long as you get the argument across. The best advice I can give you is to provide evidence, without it, you make the panel's job impossible.

sham it is a really stressful procedure but it's there to help you. We went through an appeal and won. I still think of it as one of the hardest things I've been through - the knowledge that you have this one chance to put everything right.

If it helps, I would encourage you to practise a bit before your appeal. I made lists of things to help us to remember to state all the aspects of our case. Something which proved invaluable was a list we had of "three things we cannot leave without saying" which were our 3 strongest points. You do get a chance to state your case and unless you've prepared it can be hard to make the most of it.

I would also say that although the procedure is official and feels very formal - ours was held in a medieval hall and we sat at a table which was bigger than my whole house! - the panel and indeed the school went out of their way to ensure that we felt comfortable. There were 40 appeals but we were never hurried or pushed. It was made very clear that this was our time and our chance to change the decision.

Best of luck with your appeal. It sounds as if you've had a really difficult time.

hpparent a personnaly find this all procedure stressful there are genuine parents who appeal for very good reasons not because 1 school better than other am appealing the school we got is good just as the 1 we appealing for after we sumbited the school applications in oct we got burgled second time in november which affected my boy badly and he to scared to go on bus etc so the other school a can drop him of if this incident didnt happen he was confident took him 3 years to get over it last time an my child broke down wen he heard he have to go on bus etc SORRY RANT OVER JUST BIT STRESSED AT MOMENT DONT MEAN TO UPSET ANYONE

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phrbridge, I am sorry you have misunderstood me. I did not mean that at all. I was expressing surprise that a panel could find EDUCATIONAL reasons to allow 4 or 5 appeals for a school with PAN of say 30 per class. In my area the schools are so similar that it is difficult to differentiate between them to have any grounds to allow the appeals on educational grounds.

Of course there are reasons for admission which the parent cannot express during the initial application, but I think regarding it as a second round is wrong and misleading to parents, which is why I regard it as a safety net rather than a second go. We have had the parents with letters from MPs or bringing local politicians with them etc which they think is the magic ticket but again it is misleading to allow them to think that.

I personally bend over backwards to find a reason to allow an appeal and give parents every chance to give their reasons, there are occasions when I have talked both my fellow panellists round. Perhaps it is the nature of the area I sit for, but the problem is that most parents do not have a clear reason other than a view that one school is better than another or school A has a reputation for bullying or their child is academic and needs to go to school B rather than school A because they get better results. For one school I think the majority of appeals are because the application criteria are so complex that the parents do not understand why the child in Band 1 got a place but not their child in Band 2 because all their friends are going there. Which we have told the school again and again.

I would agree about the specialism reason, but personally have never heard it argued successfully. We have one school with a specialism of that kind but the appellants have not been able to show their child needs to go there. For example a child might play recorder at primary school but not have applied via the 10% intake specialist route or have any other evidence such as attendance at music clubs or doing grade exams and as a panel we felt it was not the real reason they wanted the school. In that case as every other I would try and help the parent by trying to get the evidence out of them, but unfortunately if there is none there is not a lot I can do.

I am always happy if we can allow an appeal, I don't care if we force the school over PAN and annoy the admissions authority, but at the same time it is a balancing act and we can't allow everyone in who desperately wants to go there.

Prh47bridge has just said what I was going to say about panels looking more widely, beyond whether the admissions criteria have been correctly applied. If they don't, they are not fulfilling their statutory role.

I agree too that an appeal normally shouldn't be just a second attempt at the admissions process. It is evident to the panel that parents would prefer a school they placed higher on their preference list than the one they've been allocated, but appeals that don't amount to much more than really, really wanting the place or the school being 'better' than the allocated school stand very little chance of success. The arguments need to be about the prejudice to the child.

The one scenario that might be classed as a second attempt, though, is where the school/LEA has no admissions priority for social and medical need and the appeal is the parents' first opportunity to flag up relevant issues and needs.

I agree that an argument that the child is clever is unlikely to win an appeal. The parent needs to show that the child will be disadvantaged by not attending the appeal school. To use an example I've used before, if the child is musically talented and the appeal school has a stronger emphasis on music than the allocated school (e.g. the appeal school has a school orchestra and an after school music club but the allocated school does not) that can be the basis of a successful appeal.

In my experience (which encompasses a lot of LAs) most secondary appeals are won on prejudice. If you think appeals are only to correct mistakes you are mistaken (and I hope I never have to face an appeal panel on which you are serving). Appeals are also intended to admit children who have a real need for this school even though they don't qualify under the admission criteria.

In essence you seem to be saying that stage 2 of the decision process is redundant as there is always prejudice to the school which always outweighs prejudice to the child. I hope I have misunderstood you as that is a clear breach of the Appeals Code.

In the area I live the schools are all comps and very similar (except for location or faith) that it is difficult to see what educational argument could overcome prejudice. Of course we get people arguing that their child is clever or wants to do a second language which is fine, but if all the schools are non selective and offer potential to do two MFL's, how can that overcome the prejudice argument?