Daughter not happy with choice

Perhaps ask those who keep asking me questions to stop derailing?

Well that wasn’t very clear.

TotoroElla you are not adding anything more to the thread. Please stop derailing.

At the open evening they said they were oversubscribed.

The more people are querying it the more I don't understand it myself! Perhaps they do take not rejecting as accepting. But the fact I specifically hadn't accepted the school helped my appeal. But maybe officially the place was accepted. The LA advised me not to accept the school place but I don't think this was specific to the school so I don't think it was to do with being under subscribed.

I am aware of that and I know what the set advice is. I was just pointing out in my case I was advised not to accept the place and it would still be there if I wanted it. The advice is to argue how the school you want will meet your DC's needs not how the school offered won't, but for me I was asked specifically how the school offered wouldn't meet her needs. So the official advice is not always correct in all LAs. In my case I'm glad I sought local advice as well as the very informative advice on here. That's all I'm trying (obviously badly) to say.

The school place was definitely still there as they continued contacting me! The advice was given by the LA not to accept the place but the offer would still be there. It is clearly different elsewhere.

As I said it backed up a specific point which not everyone would be able to make so no it couldn't be used in that way. However, as for retraining the whole thing showed up many areas where retraining was probably needed! I was quite shocked by how it was carried out, tbh.

Was the offered school undersubscribed, so still had places spare and therefore if you (or anyone else) had asked you could have been given a place without question? That’s the only scenario I can think of where you would still ‘have’ your place having not accepted the offer (but even then if the school filled its places with others who wanted them then they couldn’t ‘hold’ a place for you).

Unless this was the case I just don’t understand how the scenario you describe could work in practice, as they can’t hold a place for you that you haven’t accepted if there are people on the waiting list.

For someone who chose a school a drive away I really regretted it. We had a decent enough school in walking distance and I really wished we'd gone for that! The daily school runs were such a pain!!

I think it appears different LAs do things differently (evidenced by poster saying not rejecting us the same as accepting.) You have to accept an offer. But you have time to do so. No it doesn't affect appeals or waiting lists. You go automatically onto the waiting lists of any schools you weren't offered. I was advised not to accept the school I was offered and glad I did that. However, as I've clearly said that offer was still there and I could accept it further down the line. I'm obviously not suggesting OP doesn't check this out for herself. I'm just giving advice in good faith based on my real life experience (which can be different to the theory!)

@TotoroElla what isn't clear on these threads is that some posters are actually the qualified legal bods who represent the applicant appealing or sit on the panel for the school, they do this year in year out in real life. They are therefore the experts in these matters. I recognise the names as this comes up year after year and have personally thanked @prh47bridge who gave me some advice years ago. So thank you again.

The advice is always to accept the school place you have been offered even if you never intend to place your child in that school. If anyone rejects a place then the LA has no responsibility to find you a school place because they found you one; they fulfilled their duty. They can therefore wash their hands of you. If you lose an appeal you have no school place for your child and then you need to find one. Schools local to you may all be full and potentially your child may end up only finding a school with places absolutely miles away. That is why you always accept the school place offered. There are waiting lists and appeals that go on from now so some movement in school places.

@mumoftwogirls2017 if your DD is still unhappy go on the waiting list for the first choice and get an appeal ready. Lots of advice on MN on how to do it, mainly coming down to what the first choice school can offer your child which is beneficial to them.

Disagree with @PuttingDownRoots. Not accepting a place usually means the offer will be taken away, so it is the same as rejecting it. In England, it is highly unlikely that an offer will still be open when you get to appeal unless the school offered is undersubscribed.

If you are right that the panel saw it as backing up your argument, they were in serious need of retraining. If panels universally saw it this way, everyone could strengthen their appeal by not accepting the offered place, which would lead to chaos.

No YOU are clearly misunderstanding how appeals and school acceptance work, and are therefore giving the OP and others who are seeking advice on appeals wrong and dangerous advice that could lead to them having no school at all.

You either accept or reject your offer. By telling the OP not to accept their offer you are telling them to reject it. I think your confusion may be because in some LAs you don’t have to do anything when made an offer, and acceptance is automatically assumed. Was this the case for you? As you are saying that you still had your back up place then it sounds like you had accepted your offer. Are you thinking that “acceptance” is something else that means you come off waiting lists and give up your appeals or something? Accepting your offer just means that you have a back up school to go to if your appeal doesn’t succeed, and does NOT affect your position on waiting lists or chance of success in appeals.

So why is everyone up in arms about me not accepting the place then?! 😂 However, according to the school who hounded me to accept the place it is not the same thing. The panel saw it as backing up my argument too but as I said the school offer was always there if I wanted it so win:win.

I didn't mean to make it about me. People are misunderstanding what I wrote and saying I'm wrong. I'm just trying to give advice to the OP that contributed to me winning my appeal. It might be different advice than others give but that is because it appears some panels do things differently. If I'd followed advice on here I'd not have had an argument as why the offered school wasn't suitable but I'm advising OP to make sure to have that argument prepared as they actually might get asked about it.

@TotoroElla not rejecting is the same as accepting. So you followed the advice.

@mumoftwogirls2017 good luck with your appeal and waiting lists.

@TotoroElla well done on successfully making the OPs post all about you

OP I hope your DD has come to terms with school 2, or you are on the wait list for school 1

I haven't said anything about rejecting the offer. As I said the offer was there if I wanted it. The panel certainly didn't think I was bullying them!! How would that even work? You don't win an appeal because you don't have another school for your DC to go to. You have to home educate.

All I'm saying is in my case not accepting the place backed up my argument and the panel saw it as that. I asked for feedback as to why I won so I know. The offer was still there if I wanted it so I lost nothing.

I also won because of why the offered school was unsuitable. Again, something people get told on here doesn't happen. But the panel asked me specifically why the offered school was unsuitable.

It did as it backed up a point I made. I was told it did contribute to me winning. I've not said to decline the offer and not have a back up school. I've clearly said I still had that school offer if I wanted it.

Not what they told me.

As others have said, it definitely did not contribute to you winning your appeal. If anything, it may have weakened your case. It can look to the panel like you are trying to bully them by rejecting every school other than the one you want. That never goes down well. Even if they accept that you aren't trying to bully them, rejecting the offered school does not strengthen your case.

@Tiredalwaystired - The words "I'm sure they don't" in @EduCated's post were clearly referring to your comment, "I’m also sure the person with a desk full of appeals doesn’t feel like one less appeal would make much difference", not the strength of OP's case.

yes it was. Your post starts with “I’m sure they don’t”.

It won’t have contributed to you winning the appeal. Not having another school place doesn’t improve your chances at appeal. It’s bad advice because all it does is stop the person who is appealing from having a back up school to go to if their appeal doesn’t succeed.

It definitely contributed to me winning the appeal
No, it definitely didn't.