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Original poster

School offer withdrawn

54 replies

Khushi12 · 10/03/2018 23:28

My daughter got admission in a faith school for year 7. We accepted the offer on March 5 by calling the school directly (kept a snap-shot) in my mobile. The school said everything is fine, and they will inform us about all the procedures by month of May. Friday, 9th March, we got an email attachment stating that offer has been withdrawn due to administrative error. My daughter is devastated and so do we.

OP posts:
OpalTree · 11/03/2018 08:54

I think it's a dreadful thing to do and they should be forced to take the kids they wrongly offered to

Original poster
Khushi12 · 11/03/2018 08:23

LA in the letter had made another offer which was our second preference. But our daughter was all set to go the school where the first offer was made (our preferred one). From their primary school, 21 students out of 30 going to the same school and they all got their first offer. In our case, we also got it but later LA has withdrawn it. The second preferred school record is very poor.

OP posts:
prh47bridge · 11/03/2018 00:27

It used to be the case that an offer made in error had to be withdrawn within 3 days or it was too late. However, the Admissions Code changed a few years ago and many local authorities and schools now think that deadline no longer applies. Unfortunately this has not been tested in court so we don't know for sure. My view is that offers can only be withdrawn for a few days after being made but I may be wrong.

You should go to the LA and ask them to reinstate the place on the grounds that they were too late to withdraw it. Quote LGO case 99C01876 - this is the case that set the 3 day limit for withdrawing an offer. If they refuse you should appeal, again quoting this case.

Has the LA made another offer? If not, I would also tell them that, if they refuse to reinstate the original offer, you trust they will offer the place that would have been offered if they had not made a mistake.

Arkestra · 11/03/2018 00:05

Hopefully one of the posters who work in admissions will respond tomorrow. But from other threads you may have grounds to keep the offer? For instance see www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/923176-Just-had-our-first-choice-place-withdrawn

Good luck.