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Original poster

Secondary School Appeal

58 replies

RCBOn · 14/05/2021 11:12

Please can someone help with secondary school appeal. We are appealing on the basis of admin error / miscommunication.

-10 October: Contacted the admissions team and asked them if its acceptable to supply only the rental agreement before the deadline as we would not have last 3 months Gas / electricity bills as mandated on the website, response was - That's fine, we will work with you to gather all the remaining documents.

  • Moved on 28th October and submitted rental agreement - 6 months contract
  • 17th Nov: Admission team asked for 3 documents - standard document evidence list from website ( Rental agreement up to March 2022, Disposal of old property / no access and at least other two other documents out of DL GP Registration Usage bills etc.
  • 19th Nov: we responded with what we had - DL, GP Registration, and reason why we can not rent our property - Had survey done and it required extensive building work and was worked upon by builder initiated in early Feb but delayed due to covid and the time the builders take to respond, plus the fact one of us were furloughed , we mentioned of our intent to extend the contract in shorter interval if possible.
  • 14th Dec: Admissions Authority - Individual - She was not satisfied with the address evidence we submitted and asked for usage bills to satisfy address evidence.
  • 15th Dec: we provided usage bills as requested in the same reply to her email
  • 12th Feb: Admission Team generic email id not the Admission Team official who previously asked us the documents in December, responded to 19th November email mentioning acceptance of DL,GP but require Rental document up to Mar 2022.
  • 17th Feb: our response was a big surprise to get it very last minute
  • 17th Feb: Now Admission Authority - The official and not generic email id, responded with an apology that she then accept the evidence we sent through so far, and the admission team was not CCd.
  • 17th Feb to 26thFeb: we didn't think we needed to provide anything more
  • 26th Feb: Admissions team generic id - asked for a contract extension again at 15.30PM
  • 26th Feb: we responded to check if there is a miscommunication and if this was going to affect our offer on Monday. Admission team official's email was on auto response on out-of-office and no response from Generic EMAIL ID in any form till March 9 on that.
  • 1st March: Looking at the offer we assumed that you are waiting for contract extension document.
  • We sent several email explaining all the previous communication and review and offer the place.
  • 9th March kind of Authorative email, having gone through all communication and correspondence, we ask you to provide Disposal of old property document in addition to Extended contract agreement referring to November email which lists all the documents but not considering to mentioning above review in December or their address evidence acceptance email on 17th Feb. and for admissions purpose they will consider us from old address only till we submit further evidence, but they will be happy to review the situation if we provide further evidence in future.
  • taking additional burden having to pay rent and mortgage, we took the risk to extend the contract till April 2022 in one stretch, and since we were in touch with letting agent after last month's email from admission team, we could now get the extended contract in couple of days and submitted but work on Previous property was ongoing, which the authority knew, hence we could not submit this before 15 April deadline.
  • Building work was completed on 12th April and contract document signed with Agent for letting out property and a copy of this submitted to Admissions authority to show our intent and update on progress.
  • We rent out the property on 28th April and submitted the Lease Agreement on May 4th and requested Authority to review the situation and offer the place.
  • Now a standard response we are receiving from Authority saying DS is on Waiting list and that we have lodged an appeal will process that request accordingly.

SO, I am not sure if I fight my case based on the fact that they Confirmed our address evidence document as Acceptable so should have considered for first round allocation, and should been consistent with the review, as we missed out second round and third round as well.

DS is allocated a school place which is near our old property and 7 miles from current property. Whereas our first choice school is 100 feet away in catchment.

Any help and guidance is much appreciated.

OP posts:
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Lougle · 17/05/2021 07:12

Having said that, you could still win on prejudice grounds, so I would throw everything at making a strong argument that your child needs a place at this school. It will need to be strong, though, as they are already 3 over PAN.

Lougle · 17/05/2021 07:11

I read 'happy to review the situation if you provide more evidence' as "We're going to use your old address unless you provide other evidence to support the new address, but if you do provide more evidence, we'll then consider your new address from that point.'

I'm really sorry, but I think you have misunderstood the LA.

I think you are right to appeal because a panel could be sympathetic and decide that you had reason to believe that you had provided enough evidence. However, if it was a panel I sat on (I used to sit on these panels regularly), I would conclude, from the evidence you've posted, that you didn't provide the required evidence at the point of the deadline and that the LA, working with the evidence they had, were right to use your old address.

Original poster
RCBOn · 17/05/2021 02:10

@Lougle,

Content copy pasted below is repeat of what I have already posted

First review they did in December 15 and did not accept the address evidence, and asked for usage bill as an additional document and they confirmed the address evidence acceptance very late on Feb 17.
Second review done after allocation day on March 9 asked for Extended contract.
Third review done after allocation day on April 12, they asked for Extended contract and No Access to Previous property.

Extended lease agreement document that we provided in March and No access to property document that we provided in May is not a late submission, not a missing document, not even the late move after October deadline but it was only a document that LA wanted from us, as they said that they were happy to review the situation and this was only asked by LA after offer day

Its quite complicated to explain in bits and pieces !!

OP posts:
Lougle · 16/05/2021 21:56

[quote RCBOn]@Nonamenoclue,
The waiting list was drawn on 30th April, final piece of document I submitted was on 2nd May. I will have to contact them again to check the current Waiting list number.
Appeals team have sent the paperwork which shows how the allocations were made. Which shows LA made 3 more allocations after 1st round of allocations. 2 for admin errors within catchment and 1 for looked after child.[/quote]
This is your problem. If you were still sending information in May, then the LA didn't have that information to decide whether to treat your new address as your home address until that point, which means they had to decide based on the information you did provide.

Egghead81 · 16/05/2021 20:23

It’s not about getting help.

I rang the school admissions to get clarity

And I was provided with that clarity

Original poster
RCBOn · 16/05/2021 19:56

@Nonamenoclue,
The waiting list was drawn on 30th April, final piece of document I submitted was on 2nd May. I will have to contact them again to check the current Waiting list number.
Appeals team have sent the paperwork which shows how the allocations were made. Which shows LA made 3 more allocations after 1st round of allocations. 2 for admin errors within catchment and 1 for looked after child.

OP posts:
Nonamenoclue · 16/05/2021 19:22

In Bucks it is the local authority who deal with admissions, phoning the school will not help.
I thought they sent out a new waiting list in April? I can't remember all your timings, but was that after you submitted the final documents?
You said the school had admitted more pupils. Where did you get that information from?

prh47bridge · 16/05/2021 19:22

It is the LA that deals with admissions. They run the co-ordinated admissions scheme that covers all schools in Buckinghamshire. Whether the school can admit your child without the LA's approval depends on which type of school it is. Most Buckinghamshire secondary schools are academies, which means they could admit your child without the LA's approval if they accept that a mistake has been made. However, even if there was a mistake, it definitely wasn't made by the school so I would be surprised if they were willing to step in.

Mumdiva99 · 16/05/2021 19:21

Is this to AGS? Or SHF? or Royal Latin? If the first stay on the waitlist as there is usually some movement - I don't know about the latter 2. (I assume that they will now use your Aylesbury address as you have provided all the documents required.)

For those wondering why they moved - lots of people in Milton Keynes mistakenly believe they will get a place at a Bucks grammar when they won't. The distance required to gain a place has reduced dramatically over the last few years but still jumps around the last mile...so a tense wait for some people!

Original poster
RCBOn · 16/05/2021 19:02

@Egghead81,

Ohhh dear !! We thought its LA that deals with admissions

OP posts:
barofsoap · 16/05/2021 19:01

[quote RCBOn]@nonamenoclue,
That's correct.
Don't have or had any issue with LA doing any type of scrutiny before or after allocation or through the term time, I had explained to them my situation and they always had the option of taking back the allocation.
I do not know how appeal works even if it comes out as LA's mistake? The paperwork that appeal team have sent shows LA had few admin errors and have allocated places after 1st March but strangely they haven't published the same data on Website!
The waiting list was 14, but that was from old address, do not know what is the current number.[/quote]
Perhaps it would be a good idea to ask them what the current position is? Have they now definitely accepted your new address?

Egghead81 · 16/05/2021 17:17

You ring the school directly and ask to speak with admissions

It’s that simple

I did the same myself because like you - my situation was not clear cut

Original poster
RCBOn · 16/05/2021 17:16

@Egghead81,

They don't have phone number for Admissions Team, we can only contact them using contact us form or by email, must have sent numerous emails asking them to reply or call me on the number. They didn't.

OP posts:
Egghead81 · 16/05/2021 17:11

@nonamenoclue

You can't call Bucks admissions department, only email.
The school admissions.

Very easy to do

nonamenoclue · 16/05/2021 17:08

You can't call Bucks admissions department, only email.

Egghead81 · 16/05/2021 16:50

Given the importance
Given the slight complexity of your situation

I am surprised you didn’t ever pick up the phone at any point in proceedings and call the schools admission department

prh47bridge · 16/05/2021 16:49

The information on the LA's website is clear as to what documentation you must provide. As far as I can see you did not supply the required documentation until after national offer day. The LA has therefore not made an error in using the address of the house you own. Under their published admission information, they had no choice.

Having said that, the unclear communications from the LA have muddied the water somewhat so you may be able to win on the basis of a mistake, but it is by no means a clear cut case.

Original poster
RCBOn · 16/05/2021 16:43

@prh47bridge,
The OP can certainly strengthen her appeal by making that argument but, if she can convince the appeal panel that there has been an error which cost her child a place, arguments about prejudice will be irrelevant. I'm not convinced she can win on this ground but, given the poor and muddled communication from the LA, it is worth a try.

Just trying to understand from your point of view, how you are not seeing that there was an error from LA - what is it that I am missing here.

LA clearly states - If you are not able to provide this evidence please contact us immediately - for the documents we could not send, we provided explanation expecting LA to guide us or ask for more documents that could convince them of address. Which I presume they did / they should have - and asked for one more document , usage bills, which I submitted?? if anything more was expected or they could have been clearly stated as they did after 1st march , that until I submit other two documents they will consider old address for admissions purposes'

I didn't kind of understand when they said, we are happy to review the situation if you provide further evidence in future, was it, review the document and offer or review and put us on waiting list, which anyways they would have done. Reading their sentence it felt as if yes they see some miss communication and they are willing to consider.

Sorry, I didn't intend to take lot of your time, but if you can elaborate on your statement please.

OP posts:
Original poster
RCBOn · 16/05/2021 16:18

@nonamenoclue,
That's correct.
Don't have or had any issue with LA doing any type of scrutiny before or after allocation or through the term time, I had explained to them my situation and they always had the option of taking back the allocation.
I do not know how appeal works even if it comes out as LA's mistake? The paperwork that appeal team have sent shows LA had few admin errors and have allocated places after 1st March but strangely they haven't published the same data on Website!
The waiting list was 14, but that was from old address, do not know what is the current number.

OP posts:
prh47bridge · 16/05/2021 15:12

If places have already been allocated then they're going to need a lot of persuading to go over their numbers to admit your child.

All it needs is a successful appeal. If the OP wins her appeal the school must admit her child. All appeals are in a situation where the school is already full, so the appeal panel won't need any more persuading in this case than in any other.

I would have thought an appeal will hinge on the usual argument - whether the advantage to your son of the school accepting him will outweigh any disadvantage to the school

The OP can certainly strengthen her appeal by making that argument but, if she can convince the appeal panel that there has been an error which cost her child a place, arguments about prejudice will be irrelevant. I'm not convinced she can win on this ground but, given the poor and muddled communication from the LA, it is worth a try.

nonamenoclue · 16/05/2021 14:48

I would have thought an appeal will hinge on the usual argument - whether the advantage to your son of the school accepting him will outweigh any disadvantage to the school,. I presume you are trying to argue that he should have been given a place on March 1st? I think the whole story is very confusing and when you present your arguments you need to be clear. Reardless of what was said by the LA (& it does sound a little muddled), they will need to be convinced that you are not moving just to obtain the place. I think you could expect a fair bit of delving & scrutiny for the first 6 months of the next school year if he does get a place.
Where is he currently on the waiting list?

CroydianSlip · 16/05/2021 11:46

Gosh, this all sounds incredibly intense. Is it really worth the stress and angst? If places have already been allocated then they're going to need a lot of persuading to go over their numbers to admit your child.

My dd has received all her transition information, booked her transition taster days, is excited about getting uniform for her new school etc. Wouldn't it be better to get involved in planning for the school your child has been allocated and move on?

I can't make head nor tail of the detailed info you're posting but it sounds like a v dodgy deal tbh. I'd leave it be.

Original poster
RCBOn · 16/05/2021 11:33

@Cookerhood
LA have published list of standard docs for add evidence. If for any reason we can't provide any/some of them we need to contact them.They then review and advice corrective action, which in my case we did exactly that in November and they came back and asked for usage bills in December and confirmed address evidence as accepted in mid of February.
But came back again and asked for contract extension hours before close of the play on Friday before offer Monday.Which I couldn't have provided in two hours for the reasons I mentioned in very first email in November.

OP posts:
Cookerhood · 15/05/2021 18:19

In exceptional cases, with situation made aware of, could the LA have allowed Pupil to be included in First round of allocation from current address
No they have to follow their rules

Cookerhood · 15/05/2021 18:18

Is it fair on Pupil to ask for further document hours before close of business before allocation day?
Yes if you haven't provided everything requested before the original deadline (I will confess I'm a bit confused)
Does the LA have rights to withdraw offer after knowing the pupil moved back to old address after offer was made
Yes

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