Admissions day - tips and info if you are disappointed.

In that case, the appropriate way to address your concern about costs is to lobby for a change in the legislation which creates a right of appeal, not to pressurise parents into not exercising that right.

Before the hearing, one might have a sense of how weak or strong the appeal is, but quite often something emerges at the hearing which radically changes the picture. That’s why I would never tell posters on MN “don’t bother, it’s hopeless”; we haven’t got the full picture here.

This isn't true. We pay a service charge for the year, then also pay per appeal. Around £400 each. That's not minimal.

Yes, and some of those people may get a place in the second admissions round. We always get several families lodging appeals then withdrawing them when they get a place a month or so later. We have to pay the appeals service about £75 each for those.

Most of the costs are incurred by having an appeals process at all. The incremental cost of a single appeal is minimal. Yes, schools would save money if there were never any appeals, but that isn't going to happen.

The cost is made up of things like;

Compulsory training for Panel members at the school's cost each year. It's really not cheap.
Fees for the Independent Clerk. It's a professional role and they take on a huge amount of work to ensure that decisions are compliant.
Expenses for Panel members.
Potentially, expenses for Presenting Officers - Governors are able to fulfil this role and they have the right to reclaim expenses such as travel, childcare and suchlike. If a member of staff does it, then there's paying for cover.
Cost of transporting bundles to panel members, the clerk, etc. You can't just stick them in the post 2nd class and hope they'll get there.

Quite. The advice very often is that the parent is unlikely to win any appeal on the arguments they outline here.

I would disagree that people are encouraging appeals with weak reasons. What I see is people informing about the process, and offering advice on reasoning. You’ll see plenty of posts advising that travel, wanting to stay with friends, parents’ working arrangements are weak reasons. I think perhaps where we disagree is that they then tend to be offered advice on what might make a stronger case, whereas you feel they should perhaps be told not to bother.

It is rubbish that it costs schools (I would be interested to know what the £15k covered), but this is a statutory process available to parents as part of the national admissions process. It is not their fault that schools remain chronically underfunded. To dissuade people from using it because you don’t think they should sits very uncomfortably. There is no way to know the strength of a school’s case without going to appeal. And the point of the appeal is to weigh up the strength of that case, and decide whether taking that extra child is justified and manageable. It’s not for us (or parents) to pre-decide that for them.

Great advice here. Hang fire and make a considered appeal submission.
The amount of appeal forms we received yesterday that are just ranting about why they can't go to the offered school, and will home educate if unsuccessful 😬

I understand what you're saying and parents do need to think carefully before deciding whether to appeal. At the same time, as parents we really do need to do what we believe is best for our children. I am planning to appeal for reasons I won't go in to here. I have no idea whether my grounds for appeal will be classed as weak. All I know is that I have to fight hard to get my son in to the right school. Having watched him struggle for years, I can't sit back and watch him go to a school that's really not right for his needs. I have to at least try.
I don't feel great about costing the school money but the appeals process exists for a reason and I intend to make use of it.

PanelChair's advice in the original post is excellent, but I'm disappointed that some of the "experts" on these threads encourage parents to appeal, even when their reasons are obviously weak.

Everyone has the right to appeal, but there is also the moral question of whether they should appeal if they know the odds are against them. Each appeal costs the school several hundred pounds and several hours work. Our school spent £15k on defending appeals last year, and many hours of (voluntary) effort from the school governor who acts as the school's representing officer. Not one of the appeals was successful, and most of the reasons were weak (in many cases because they were just related to things that people considered our school to do better than other schools, rather than things that only we offer).

Some schools do put up a weak defence - especially if they actually want to increase their numbers for financial reasons, but have been prevented from doing so by the LA. Context is key to this e.g.

• Most schools are strapped for cash at the moment and can't afford to keep numbers low - if they have space for more students, and are allowed to take more students, they will do so, with or without appeals.
• Academies can increase their PAN without permission from the LA, so if they're full, they're full.
• If a school has recently added a new building to its site, so has extra capacity, then it might be worth a shot. But if the new capacity is in the Sixth Form (for example), don't expect it to help you get a place in Year 7.
• You can often find past appeal stats online, either on the school website or the LA website. If not, ask the school for their data. It will help you to see whether they are experienced at putting up a solid defence.
• If a school has never been oversubscribed in the past, or isn't super-popular, they may be inexperienced at defending appeals, which may help you.

Having said all that, if your appeal reasons are weak, and the school's defence appears strong, consider your conscience. If you had to pay for the appeal, rather than the school paying for it, would you go ahead? Are your reasons for wanting the school really likely to be better than anyone else above you in the waiting list? If your child was a student of the school, would you mind them being forced over PAN, increasing the student:staff ratio if another parent successfully appealed for the reasons you are planning to appeal on?

There will be people on here who disagree with me that conscience should be a factor. But they probably don't have much direct contact with school finances to see the negative impact, as I do.

The receptionist doesn't understand admissions (not that there is any reason why they should). They were wrong. You can appeal for any school for which you have applied and didn't get a place.

@KirriIrry Hearings are usually in person, but they can be dealt with over Teams, Zoom or similar. If the appellant doesn't want a hearing, the panel will decide their appeal on the paperwork.

I'm going to add something too:

Don' talk down the offered school to your DC - they may end up going there. Be positive about it (whilst still trying to see if you can get into a preferred school.)

@theworldhasgoneinsane Thank you

Coming back to add another point to PatriciaHolm’s excellent list:

• If you’re trying to get information from the admissions authority (school or local authority) by phone, make sure you are speaking to someone on the admissions team. As theworldhasgoneinsane’s post shows, receptionists, people on switchboards and others are not always familiar with how admissions and appeals work and sometimes confidently give out information that’s misleading or simply wrong,

@KirriIrry from what I've read they're completed by Microsoft teams, think it was the gov website that said that

@prh47bridge Thats very helpful, thank you for responding.

one more question if I may - and I warn you, it’s a daft one! Are appeals in person or a review of submitted paperwork en masse by a panel?!

@MarchingFrogs the receptionist at second choice school said because it was my second choice and not my first choice I can't appeal it

What reason was given re not being able to appeal???

You named the school on your CAF?
Your DC was not offered a place? (I would say 'and you were not offered a higher preference school?', but in Essex, at least, this wouldn't be relevant)

Therefore you have the right of appeal.

Thanks @MarchingFrogs that's really helpful. I'm a bit annoyed second choice school told me I couldn't appeal. That's misleading but will apply for then aswell this week. They are not as over subscribed so think it'll be worth me appealing that one too

You have the legal right to appeal the decision not to admit at each school that has turned your application down.

(But if copying and pasting any part of your written submission - and there may be genuine reasons 'Why this school' is also 'Why this school', like the accessibility issue - please remember to change the name of the school concerned, if you have mentioned it in that section. Panel members are reasonable folk and understand the multiple appeal scenario, but it does look a bit odd).

@theworldhasgoneinsane Yes, you can appeal for as many schools as you want.

Thank you so much for the feedback. It's appreciated.

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies thank you that's reassuring. It's quite unclear about how many schools you can appeal as both schools (first and second choice) are saying different things about whether I can appeal second choice school. I will ring the council on Monday

@theworldhasgoneinsane
In our area, you can appeal to as many schools as you want.

You sound like you have an extremely strong ground for appeal. Good luck.