Appeal for Year 7 place at faith secondary school after oversight

I wondered this too. Is he perhaps less bothered than op by the allocated school place? As far as I can tell he is not staying over over at pils to give care, just stopping by each evening on his way home, taking dc with him.

Has the admission authority (Trust or LA) made an administrative error?
What is the Published Admission Number?
What is the schools capacity? This is not PAN multiplied by 5 and can be found on the school's funding agreement, a copy will be online on the DfE website under the financial section.
What does the most recent published census show the current numbers in Y7-Y11 are? Is this higher than capacity?
Will the children who have been offered a places at NOD be at a disadvantage if your child is admitted?
This isn't just class sizes its lunch hall space, moving safely around corridors (inline with health and safety and fire regulations) and toilet facilities in the school.
What is the LA travel policy for secondary, if its 3 miles like most, then any school within that radius is acceptable.

Everything else is waffle and not needed!
The appeals board dont need to know how convenient it is to drop your child off before caring for a relative or travelling to work. They just need to know if there is a basis for appeal.

I'm surprised to read that you have hired a "consultant" and none of this information is included within your appeal. They should at least have researched the latest NCA assessment of the school and census data.

It was also unanswered why he is registered on the Electoral Roll at his own DP's house - in the catchment of their first preference school.

There are a couple of reasons this could be. One is to try and protect the home from sale should care be required in future. The other is because he moved out/intended to move out at some point.

I too want to know where OP's DH's input is with all of this.

Despite being the Head of a PS and presumably aware of Secondary applications he's seemingly left OP to complete all the preference forms, didn't help her get the evidence they need for the faith school and is now paying a consultant to help with their 3 school appeals.

It was also unanswered why he is registered on the Electoral Roll at his own DP's house - in the catchment of their first preference school.

OP, I hope you get a place for your DS from the waiting list as the reasons for your appeal are poor - and you are up against 99 other students appealing the same school.

It’s not just multiple, it’s that the contradiction each other.

Some comments mentioned that clerk being the same for Appeal process might weaken the case as they submitted multiple Appeals.
Is that correct? Can multiple Appeals affect individual appeal weight?

And this one?

Links to the other threads have been posted on this one which cover off the other 2 schools (which are a “no” in relation to your question).

If the form had been submitted correctly would you have got a place? That is a critical question I think. And is that the case for all three schools you are appealing for?

There’s a lot that doesn’t add up. In one thread OP said there were only 3 slots on the form, in another there were 4.

From another thread the boy has only been at his father‘s school since January 2026, but on another implies both children have been there long term due to the caring issues. It’s not clear where this 11 pupil class is but OP asks whether a letter from the headteacher would help the appeal (the HT being the child’s father).

OP says:

appeal for school 3:

• the independent application to the school was not competed correctly, i genuinely believed I had completed everything but hadn’t submitted the full application
• because of this the supporting evidence for faith criteria wasn’t considered

Now there was confusion (for 2 months?) about who should sign the SIF form.

OP’s husband has worked in good and outstanding schools, but also pulled his current school up from RI? (I won’t say any more about him but note that he seems very hands off on this process and not particularly supportive of his family.)

The “appeals consultant” appears to have given very iffy advice but has been paid for 10 hours to advise (he clearly saw OP coming).

OP is understandably in a panic but doesn’t seem to realise that giving different versions of the situation isn’t going to get her usable advice.

(We sent DD to a school that didn’t have a great reputation, but can honestly say that her experience there has been incredible. We’d never base a decision on inspection ratings - they don’t measure what is important to us. A bright child is likely to succeed in a school with a focus on staff and pupil wellbeing. DD’s best friend is in an apparently outstanding school which allows zero personality and has a terrible approach to SEN. Both girls are on target for 8s and 9s in their forthcoming GCSEs, but mine isn’t a nervous wreck.)

And that the subject fit/ transport/ friends stuff is all to support the basis that a mistake was made, which was disadvantageous in DS getting a place at the right school
What does this mean?
It sounds as though you think the “mistake” was the allocating body not giving a place to this boy wonder, not you in fact submitting the forms with missing information

Bizarre to spend any wordage on your child's love of reading which they can do anywhere with or without school. Likewise drama gcse is just as good as btec, plenty of performance skills involved, plus we know you're over-egging his passion for drama now. As PP says, in a tiny school, it's hardly surprising kids take parts in other year's plays. The logistics/travel all seem irrelevant for secondary too. As for the faith info, that all comes down to your cock-up really. I'd set expectations to low and have more hope for the waiting list to work out.

Of all the irrelevant points made, that is the most irrelevant of all.

Clerks are utterly impartial.

OP

Do you know that you would have got a place if you had submitted the SIF correctly - as in, did the admissions on offer day go down to the category below faith, or out beyond your distance within the Faith category?

I think you do need to mention the mistake in terms of admissions because it shows you would have got a place if it hadn’t been made and maybe link this with the fact that because you should have got a place your son will know others from their primary school church etc. Also you need to be honest about who made the mistake as this is unclear did you complete the forms but they weren’t signed off by the priest because if this is the case the appeal panel maybe sympathetic yes you should have checked but you thought you had done the right things

Did your consultant really tell you that the fact that you had cocked up the application form was a good basis for an appeal?!
He’s milking you, shamelessly.

You didn’t provide all the relevant details correctly when making your application, so the place was given to someone who did 🤷🏻‍♀️

Is the Appeal clerk the same across different councils?

I understood that showing a error in application was made (albeit my error!) was a good basis for the appeal.

An error on the part of the admissions authority is a very strong basis for appeal, but in this case it was your own error. Describing it only as an "administrative error" in the beginning actually feels a bit intentionally misleading, especially if later on you sort of dance around it.

Acknowledging that you made a mistake on the application is useful to include when explaining that your family actually actively practices a Christian faith and belongs to a faith community despite your DS being (I assume) categorized as a non-faith applicant in the allocation process. That's a potential discrepancy and it's a good idea to explain. But there's not much else there in terms of an appeal argument.

I understood that showing an error in application was made (albeit my error!) was a good basis for the appeal.

If that’s what you were told by your consultant, it’s poor advice.

And that the subject fit/ transport/ friends stuff is all to support the basis that a mistake was made, which was disadvantageous in DS getting a place at the right school.

Again, I hope this wasn’t advice from your consultant, because it’s wrong. A mistake (in school admission terms) means not applying the oversubscription criteria correctly, overlooking relevant information such as a sibling already at the school and so on. Subject fit and the other things you mention aren’t part of the oversubscription criteria, so not giving any weight to them is not a mistake. Similarly, an outcome you don’t like is not a mistake in admissions terms.

Be careful of wasting your money OP, a consultant won’t be able to give you much more advice than what you have already been given on your threads.

They don’t always. My children go to Catholic schools and I had to ask for confirmation that they had received my certificates that I’d submitted online. I know two people who missed out on places to the school because they didn’t submit the correct paperwork. No one reminded them. The onus is on you as the applicant to make sure youve done everything you need to do.