Secondary School Appeal

Feel free.

Feel free 🙂

@prh47bridgesorry to crash this thread but would you mind if I messaged you.

I see that @Littletreefrog knowledge of premier club link mirrors mine.
She can defo play for school team and can trial for county girls etc but as others have said school footy itself can be limited anyway

Yes but in my area all the premier partnerships are along these lines. Op needs to check. She’d look daft if appeal was based on elite coaching for her daughter if that’s not what the programme is. Never seen it be that. But overall sporting offer and law gcse etc I think is a decent angle

Sorry, but it is likely that you have misunderstood the sibling case. If a mistake was made in applying the sibling criteria, then they would have won their appeal with no need for any "balancing" arguments. So if that didn't happen then clearly the sibling criteria did not apply to them.

Without knowing the circumstances it is difficult to comment further, but it may be to do with the definition of a sibling in the specific policy e.g. they usually have to reside at the same address. Or, as you imply, if they are outside of a formally defined catchment area they may have lower priority than siblings who are in catchment.

The one I appealed for did, both sibling in catchment, and sibling not in catchment are both in the criteria... I just had a very strong case, so it can be done.

Some schools don't prioritise siblings. If they don't, having a sibling at the school carries no weight at appeal.

I have been advising parents on here for over a decade. I hate to blow my own trumpet, but I am regularly mentioned as an expert. I am always happy to answer PMs.

I've sent you a PM, happy to send you my write up for you to get any ideas from!

If your daughter does get in to the first choice school on appeal I would make sure she is aware that the links with a premiership club could mean very little to nothing to her in terms of football development.

The school my son goes to is linked to a premiership club. They do have some good football facilities (they had her before the link anyway) but they are only really used in general PE and for after school home matches for the school team (which if she is at a proper academy she might not be able to play for). Other than that they are booked out to grassroots teams etc paying to use them.

The links with the premiership club are more things like engaging disruptive or low achieving pupils by taking them off site for some lessons at the club or community programmes such as cooking classes for pupils and parents identified of being in need etc.

My DD is also in a club football academy and unfortunately her secondary school doesn’t have great footballing for girls. However to be honest she’s training at the academy twice a week plus fitness so it’s not made a big impact, she often doesn’t have time to represent the school due to the academy training.

I am not clear if the academy she is currently with is at the premiership club already but if not their scouts are always looking for talent at games and tournaments, so whilst her desired school would be great, it won’t fold her back if she’s not there.

I hope your DD is happy wherever she goes and keeps enjoying football.

@Funkylights the links you’ve posted relate to the clubs charitable arms which will have a different remit to the clubs youth development programmes. The latter will focus performance and potential

It's not a long shot if done right.

Last year I met none of the admissions criteria and successfully appealed a stupidly over subscribed school that I lived 7 miles from purely down to sporting and curriculum offerings, it's actually a really strong reason for appeal rather than 'my child wants to be with their friends'.

I knew someone else that had a sibling in the school, and didn't win their appeal for the same school, so mine was even placed above that 😬

If you need any help , feel free to ask!

@Lionesses2026 Law is tenuous I think. It’s not remotely necessary for anything. A specific sport is more compelling. Plus other things like the sports facilities and how seriously they take sport.

https://www.mancity.com/city-in-the-community/healthy-futures/city-inspires

https://www.mufoundation.org/en/Projects/Partner-schools

This is an example. You might find that the club link is not to coach high performers. In Manchester it’s focused on positive life choices in deprived areas primarily

You might get a place on the wait list! Don’t rule that out there is loads of movement between now and the second round of offers.

From experience a lot of schools do very little in reality re girls footy. Very few matches and maybe one (often half hearted) extra curricular session a week. The level is still low as only 1/2 max of any year group team actually play out of school. Most academy players aren’t interesed in it. The programmes run by premier clubs also often focus on pupils at risk of dropping out of schools and it an engagement tool to keep them in education. It’s not about excellence in coaching in my experience.
You'd be better focus on sports generally I suspect.

I don’t think Law gcse is really significant. Gcses options can change and be dropped.

Your daughter's aptitude for sports is a strong point in your favour for an appeal. I would see if you can strengthen it still further by identifying anything else this school offers that is missing from the allocated school and is particularly relevant to your daughter.

As I was typing this, you posted about law. As GCSEs are a few years away this is less relevant as a lot can change in that time, but I would still add it to your appeal if you have any evidence that your daughter would want to study law.

Edited to add - not sure why I quoted that post! Sorry.

This is poor advice. Unless football aptitude is mentioned as an oversubscription criterion in the admission policy (unlikely) then it has no bearing whatsoever on admissions.

The OP can ask for it to be taken into account at appeal, but it is not correct to imply it should have been taken into account in the original decision.