Secondary Appeal - Appealing against a school

Is there just one catchment school? Are there shared or overlapping catchments? If your child did not get offered a place was it because you live further away from the secondary than her classmates and / or don’t benefit from sibling priority, or another reason such as it isn’t your nearest secondary or it has other oversubscription criteria such as Church attendance?

@flamingobeach so if you didn't get catchment school are you high on wait list? Sounds like you should be if all her classmates got in?
The risk is that appeal panel just take the view that there are plenty other schools to apply to

I'd steer clear of mentioning that if I were you as it makes it sound like that's the reason you want the school and that's not a reason.

Stick to the other factor and anything else that that school can offer your dd EG Spanish, football team etc.

You can bring it up by all means as it's relevant. The panel will then weigh this up as your case against the schools case and decide which is stronger.

The thing is you aren't appealing against a school you are appealing for the school if that makes sense. The right of appeal is to the refusal of a place. However the reason for wanting this school is relevant and important to explain - I would give detail about why you like this school and what it can offer your child .

So the main reason is just that you want your child to go to the same school as their classmates and they’ve been allocated a different school?

Oh, no, I never thought about PTA as a place to raise complains because this is something you do with the relevant person at school or school governors.

PTA in our primary raises funds for school and organises additional activities for school.

Ours doesn't have a PTA. Just a parent forum which is once a term where you can go and air grievances pretty much.

You aren't supposed to talk about your own child but it's basically people complaining that their child got a detention for 'wanting to know what time it is' (looking at their phone).

But tough on the child is all their mates go local

Any school out of the area would therefore suit your need.

And be prepared for lots of lost-property as they move from room to room for each subject, leaving a trail of stuff in their wake.

Our year 7 whatsapp groups are full of indignant posts about lost stuff. Put name labels on everything!

Re contact with teachers.. my DC have two teachers for quite a few subjects. They rotate some subjects eg cooking / art. They may move sets mid year. They could easily have 20+ teachers in a year so stuff like teacher cards & gifts just is not a thing

@JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything my DD has ADHD
Secondaries give kids the tools to sort stuff. Homework Apps and parent comms aps
They have their timetable and are expected to learn to manage themselves

@JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything Non of that applies at secondary - you leave all that behind

O dear, I better then start thinking about joining PTA to be closer to secondary school...

They don't.
Class gifts isn't really a thing at secondary. For a start there's a different teacher for every subject, possibly more than one, and if a school sets from year 7 the children in the same form won't even necessarily have the same teachers for every subject.
Parental involvement is far less at secondary* *which can be quite a shock at first, especially if you've come from a primary with a strong community. Expect to meet their teachers once a year for 4 minutes or so unless there's problems.

"I can't imagine that a kid with ADHD is gathering all communication and what to do, what to bring when is a trip when is a homework etc."

@JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything most secondaries have an app for all that stuff. Your child will be able to check their homework diary online, and you'll be able to check it too. If there is a trip, you will probably get a message either via a parent comms app or an email.

"How do the parents organise e.g. flowers for the teacher, christmas gift from a class? How are the parents raise funds if they don't communicate?"

Our secondary does have whatsapp groups, but most don't. Before we had them, things like gifts were just arranged by the children themselves, or among parent friendship group. When they have 10 different teachers, buying presents is less of a thing.
The PTA previously used email, the school newsletter, facebook, but now does have Whatsapp too.

What about SEN kids. I can't imagine that a kid with ADHD is gathering all communication and what to do, what to bring when is a trip when is a homework etc. Not to mention EHCP kids.
I have to find out how it works here where I live. We are going to be Y7 next year

How do the parents organise e.g. flowers for the teacher, christmas gift from a class? How are the parents raise funds if they don't communicate?

Not questioning. Just curious. My son is in Y6

Is your home and the primary school outside the practice catchment?

My DD had a school friend who joined her (full) class mid year because one of her parents was a police officer investigating a serious crime committed by another family at her previous school. But I think there was a definite threat to her safety and she needed to be quite a distance away for that reason. You've nothing to lose by trying though OP.
That said, there are lots of people with what might be considered sensitive jobs whose children go to school alongside the children of their clients, patients etc so I wouldn't worry too much. I can count on one hand the number of parents of my 3 children's secondary school friends I have met, other than those I knew beforehand. It's so different to primary school. I hope you get what you think is best but it might not be as bad as you fear if you don't

Exactly.

Appeals provide an opportunity to raise issues or concerns which don’t ‘fit’ within the school’s admissions criteria. Not all schools have a category for social and medical need and, even where they do, they require robust evidence.

Even if they did (and legally, parents have to be allowed to state their reasons for naming a school as a preference), unless the school in question has an oversubscription criterion including the situation - 'exceptional medical / social' might, but by no means all schools include this criterion in their admissions policy - no notice would be taken of it when ranking the application.

And if the school did have such a criterion firstly, evidence as to why only this school, on those grounds would have had to be submitted at the time of application and secondly, whoever assesses the information provided by the parent and their supplementary evidence woukd have to agree that the application met the standard to be ranked under that criterion.

School applications can only be considered under the published admissions criteria for a school, and on information known to the admission authority (be it LA / governing body or whatever) at the time of application. At appeal, issues influencing the parents wish for a school place, which are not covered by the school's published criteria, can be and will be considered.

(However - just like a school now being said to be totally unsuitable, based on a situation which already obtained at the time of application, turning out to have been e.g. second preference on the appellant’s CAF - not having mentioned something already known to the parent to be vitally important, and the school in question having a relevant criterion, only mentioning it at appeal, might also not unnaturally cause a bit of a sideways glance, so to speak).