Secondary appeal - not offered place from feeder school

It's not disadvantage Vs the school offered, it's the disadvantage that would occur if your child didn't get a place at your preferred school, which might be because of things that are different at the offered school. The distinction is quite important because panels are simply not allowed to say or imply that a particular school is worse then another. They can only say that for this child, with the circumstances as stated in the bundle and any oral evidence, their need for the appeal school outweighs the prejudice/difficulty/hardship to the school to make space for an extra pupil.

So it's never school A Vs school B in the sense of 'which is best for this child'. It's 'we believe the child needs x, y, z provision and our preferred school can provide that and the offered school can't'. Or, rarely, 'external factors mean that although the offered school is perfectly fine for our child, their circumstances mean that the location, cohort, etc., makes it unsuitable, so our child should go to our preferred school instead.'

It generally isn't, but you do occasionally come across appeal panels that don't seem to follow the same rules as everyone else.

Every panel will decide differently. I've seen strong cases that I thought would win and didn't, and weak cases that shouldn't have won but did Nobody here will be able to tell you how your particular panel will weigh up the arguments. You yourself are in the best place to predict the outcome because you will have seen the panellists' personalities, heard their questions, and got a feeling as to whether they appeared sympathetic to your case or not.

The question is if your child will be disadvantaged by not attending the appeal school. Any comparisons will be with the allocated school. The fact that another school may be even better is irrelevant. However, arguments around stability, friendship groups and similar carry very little weight unless there is professional evidence to show that the child has a greater need for these things than the average child. This is because friendships tend to be very fluid at this age. It is not uncommon to find that children who have been inseparable through primary school drop each other in favour of new friends within a few weeks of starting secondary school.

My understanding from the prior posts is that isn’t the case and others from the feeder appealed in the same cycle..?

So the panellists are unaware that perhaps the child being discussed is the only one from a primary school who will not have a place at a secondary school to which it is linked.

It's not as scientific as that - the three panellists will weigh the arguments based on their human instincts rather than a formula.

I have those numbers in my school's template case, but only because we have been asked for them in the past. I tend to add to it every time I get a question I haven't been asked before.

Did they give a percentage of children with EHCPs and a percentage of children in school SEN support plans? If so, you can compare them to averages for secondary schools given here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/fast-track/d47b562a-edde-4620-71e1-08dc758d6095

we're absolutely not supposed to. Obviously, it's impossible to stop people doing so, But we are not supposed to. We are supposed to have access to the same information that both sides in the room do, No more or less.

of course overtime if you sit in the same area, you do get to know all the schools quite well so it's entirely possible that a panellist did know something, perhaps from a previous appeal. They are definitely not supposed to be looking schools up on the website though.

I was always instructed that we should read the bundle provided and no more. The role of the panel is to balance the arguments of the admitting authority and the appellant, with reference to the terms of the admissions code. It's unfair if panellists start privately digging for information that isn't available to both parties.

Imagine if there was some core detail that, had you been aware of it, might have formed part of your case? How unfair would it feel if the panel said 'because of this information we find for the admitting authority', when (had you known about it) you would have used it to argue a completely different point? Or imagine a panellist says 'Ah well, you say you want your child to go to this school because they do drama but I know that the drama teacher is moving to a different school in September and they haven't been able to recruit a replacement.'

Panellists sometimes can't help knowing information that isn't in the bundle, but they shouldn't be actively looking for it, or basing their decisions on it.

Do you mean you're not permitted to, or not required to?

I've attended many appeals representing an admissions authority and it's not unusual for a panellist to ask a question that implies they've read something online and want to verify it, and occasionally they've mentioned seeing something on the school website.

As panelists, We aren't supposed to do any of our own research beforehand. So if we don't happen to know the school, then no, we won't know anything extra. We aren't supposed to go digging, Or indeed bring in any of our other knowledge about the school other than what is presented on the day

we can ask, of course, whatever we like on the day.

Fewer than 1 in 25 places at the school go to the top band but nearly 1 in 4 children applying scored in the top band

Wow, that's tricky!