waiting list for an academy. Is it worth chasing?

If the year is already over PAN because of previously won appeals, or other acceptances via EHCP or FAP (who have space created for them, even if the year was full, and have nothing to do with the waiting list), one student leaving may not mean a place is offered from the waiting list. They may want to go back down under PAN before offering a place.

Fair Access Protocol

@Whereisthesunny As it's a private school, it will break up early for summer, and I doubt the family will want to start paying fees until September. If they've already left the current school they may just be taking an extended holiday or moving house.

Hi @Whereisthesunny . See my post above at 25/01/2024 17:32 for the process. The departing student may not yet be registered at their new school (and, at this time of year, may not register until September). They can't re-offer the place until that happens.

Also, if the year group is over PAN, e.g. due to EHCP or Fair Access Protocol admissions, or managed moves, then the place may not be re-offered.

OP is talking about a state school. If someone leaves the place has, legally, to go to the person at the top of wait list, regardless of when they last rang or how proactive they are. Pushy elbows won't get a place above others if there is a waiting list - it's not like private schools where repeated expressions of interest might tip the balance.

Presumably you'd never vote as it would cost time to count, you don't report petty crime because it creates work for a police officer, and you'd never report possible neglect because again it would create work for a social worker.

No, those aren't analogous.

I would only appeal if I thought I had a solid, defensible, evidenced reason to need a school place more than the people above me on the waiting list (which may not be a requirement of the appeal code, but would be a requirement of my conscience), and enough to justify the school increasing its class sizes to add my child to their role even though they're full.

True - apologies. It sounded like trimmed would only deregister once they'd been registered elsewhere.

That’s not what @trimmed said though.
Didn’t say they had to be registered elsewhere, said:
“The school can't de-register them until they know where they have gone and that they're not coming back, either because they're registered elsewhere or confirmed to be home schooling”
Which is exactly the case at the school where I worked. Otherwise all these persistently absent children that the government are making crappy posters about currently would all have been de-registered without their knowledge ages ago!

I'm not sure why trimmed thinks they can't be deregisyeted until they have a school place elsewhere. If a parent says they are deregistering from x date then that's all there is to it. Plenty of kids leave school and are not registered at another state school. I'm guessing trimmed keeps such leavers on roll in perpetuity...

Yes, if their democratic right to appeal is just a waste of everyone's time (including theirs) because it has no chance of succeeding.

You can't possibly know an appeal would be a waste of time though - unless you know OP's dc and the school?

Presumably you'd never vote as it would cost time to count, you don't report petty crime because it creates work for a police officer, and you'd never report possible neglect because again it would create work for a social worker.

The school can't de-register them until they know where they have gone and that they're not coming back, either because they're registered elsewhere or confirmed to be home schooling. Otherwise they may just be "absent". It's not unknown for families to say they're moving away, find they can't get into another school, and so they stay on role and commute until a place comes up nearer their new home.

Yes, if their democratic right to appeal is just a waste of everyone's time (including theirs) because it has no chance of succeeding.

Obviously if the school has a poor track record of defending appeals its "worth a punt" but that is easy enough to check by asking them how many appeals have succeeded in recent years. (For our school the answer would be zero).

If you knew or cared how much time schools have to put in to defending appeals without a snowball in hell's chance of succeeding, you might think twice.

Are you seriously suggesting that people don't exercise their democratic right to something because it will create work for someone?

On what grounds? If you knew or cared how much time schools have to put in to defending appeals without a snowball in hell's chance of succeeding, you might think twice.

Have you appealed to the school? You can do that as well as waiting on the waiting list.

I don’t know what the exact process is

That's why I just tried to explain it.

... sometimes the departing student takes a while to be registered at a new school (e.g. if moving abroad), so they will know a place is coming up, but they won't be able to tell you about it until it is confirmed.

the question is how quickly they do it after a student leaves

Immediately. It's not in their interest to have a spare place.

As soon as the departing student is registered at a new school, they have to be de-registered at the original school..They can't be registered at both. The act of de-registeringbthem informs the local authority.