General Appeal questions

There would normally be a deadline around 1 week before the appeal for final documents. I would check with the clerk if they haven't said explicitly. My documents pack sent out 2 weeks in advance has a date 8 days before the appeal as the deadline.

If the report is a whole report with context, I'd copy the whole thing but clearly highlight the relevant paragraph.

Don't assume the panel will check anything, or ask for anything more. They are not allowed to. However, Ofsted is very unlikely to be relevant.

On the final question, remember that the panel have to read every single appeal case in full. They won't thank you if they have to plough through War and Peace.

Perfect thanks - if there is follow up attachments should we flag they are on their way in the initial pack?

You can, but it doesn't really matter, as long as they arrive by the deadline. After that then the panel don't have to admit them.

secondly - what’s the opinion on examples?
for instance if you are saying child x struggles in a particular enviromment - is it worth giving an example such as “in June last year this happened and this was the outcome” or is that something to save for the face to face?

If it's strictly relevant and you have evidence, ideally, yes. If it's just a general observation that "if this happens, this could happen..." it's not very helpful. One relevant example may be useful, more would be labouring the point in most cases.

finally, is an appeal letter ever too long? On the assumption that everything is relevant and not repeating itself should you just put it all down?

Well - if you find yourself writing pages and pages, then honestly it's unlikely to all be relevant and suggests you could summarise. As a guide, most appeals get a slot of an hour, which includes the schools' case and all the questioning. Some do take longer but that's normally because something comes up that requires more indepth questioning or further examination. I would say it's rare that a case genuinely needs more than 3 sides of A4 (excluding documents of evidence).

We would normally get the bundle a couple of weeks in advance, then later evidence is sent seperately if within the correct timescales. I'm sitting this week and I got this bundle 2 weeks ago with one piece of followup.

You should get the bundle about the same time, and it should have the names of the panelists. Quite possibly just surnames, ours does.

I’m interested in this too!

I think that would (as you say) be overkill. A letter is enough. Bringing the headteacher to the appeal might feel to the panel like an attempt to browbeat them, which you don’t want.

The current primary school, I can't see the Head of appeal school supporting us at all!

You mean the head from your current school or the school you are appealing for? The latter won't be allowed - see clause 2.14 of the Admission Appeals Code.

Is it worth taking someone from the school with us to the appeal? Both the Head and Deputy have offered but they have already stated that they believe DS to be academically capable in supportive letters so would bringing them be sensible or over kill?

Agree with PRH & PanelChair; it's all back to the point we keep making about evidence. You need to show why these things are important; why you child needs, for example, the choir, the language club, the dance studio etc.

All of these points without some evidence of existing talent/aptitude/engagement are useless. "He's always fancied trying German" isn't evidence; "He has German relatives, he has been going to afterschool lessons that he won't be able to access once he has to get the bus to secondary, we try to speak it as much as we can at home but the allocated school doesn't offer it at all" is more compelling.

I agree and there’s something here too (I think) about plausibility. If you are arguing (say) that your child will be disadvantaged if they’re not admitted to this school because it’s the only one with an orchestra, the panel is likely to ask about their current involvement or interest in music. Your argument becomes much more plausible if your child is already taking part in music in some way than if their last musical experience was bashing a xylophone in preschool.

One does occasionally get the impression that the child has no real interest in whatever it is that the parent is mentioning, but the parent has noticed it in the school prospectus and decided to add it to the list.

It depends. I've read cases where the parents have put a number of points which, on their own, are relatively weak together to make a decent case. On the other hand, I've read cases where it has just felt like the parents are trying to throw the kitchen sink at it, and it doesn't come across well.

Of course, they help to add to the overall picture. Often a case is built of many smaller bricks rather than just one large one.

Unlikely, unless the school's case is very weak, or there is something very unique about the activity.

Clubs/societies are often things that can be supported by activities outside of school, so they are unlikely on their own to be enough to show enough detriment in not having.

It doesn't necessarily have any repercussions on the school at all, so they may not have even thought about tightening up. That could be an every year one, or it could be a one off.

One local school to us rarely had any appeals won, until one year when the head walked in and said "yes we can take all the appeals" so they accepted them all, and I know that most of them had no argument at all other than they wanted the school. Let's just say he had a personal reason why he wanted one of the appeals to success. A family reason maybe... That took the classes all to 33/34 with the appeals. However the school after that year reverted back to fighting the appeals and winning, so it's not made any change to any other appeal.
However I know another that would love to increase their PAN but has been refused, and standardly puts up very weak or no argument and most win.

Thanks @PanelChair I think my son would rather not go to either school, but he has to go somewhere! So we really want the school where he stands the best chance of settling and engaging with the curriculum. It’s difficult because preferred school is perceived as the better school and offered school is not considered (unfairly I believe) to be as good. But preferred school use some specific teaching techniques that will really engage our son and I believe could be the difference between him realising his academic potential versus out right school refusal.