So upset at school offer

[kathjee]

Actually sat here crying, sounds so silly. But DS got his third choice, which I was never keen on and is far away.

All his friends got 1st choice and so happy and messaging in the watsapp grp. He's going to be gutted when he gets home from school.

I know we can appeal but iv also heard they are rarely successful. Can anyone help or advise re appeals pls? I feel like we always have such bad luck in these things, without sounding cliche it does always seem to be us who don't get first choices etc 😭.

@Crazybaby123
my son has SEN but no ECHP so doesnt get a preference, so we couldn't take a chance on it

Ditto - we are moving (closer to our preferred secondary) for this exact reason. My son will have to move primary school which I'm dreading. But he should make friends and go to secondary with them so that should hopefully make the transition to secondary a bit easier.

I suppose it will vary by area, but I know lots of people who got a school place from the waiting list. It’s a fairly usual thing to happen. What varies is how long it takes. If you opt to join the waiting list, a few weeks you be able to find out where you are on it, and that should give you a sense of your chances.

I agree. It's early days and there are bound to be children who drop out, moving house or something. Don't give up, keep trying.

Good luck.

Actually, my son now says why didn't we move his primary so he could have transitioned with the same year 6 cohort. He has made a bunch of friends but does say he would have liked to have done this.

No your dc application is ranked for each of your preferences following the published admissions criteria, irrespective of order, and allocated the highest preference for which you qualify for a place within the PAN.

I do object to state funded faith schools full stop. Not least because of the inequality that it creates in the admissions system.

I wouldn't have minded being low priority to get my dc into a faith school, if she was given a higher priority for admission to non-faith schools. I wouldn't have wanted her to go to a faith school in any case, but I see no reason why non-religious families should have more options and opportunities than religious families.

If we are going to retain religious discrimination as part of the admissions process, then I think the playing field needs to be levelled - parents should have the option to opt in to being prioritised by faith schools on the understanding that this will push them further down the list at non-faith schools.

@atriskacademic thanks, how can I contact you

My kids are much younger (we're waiting on primary places for our elder) but a friend's daughter a couple of years ago got her sixth choice at first, then a couple of months in got into her first on the waiting list. I wouldn't despair yet.

very sorry for you though, it's all very stressful

I'm still waiting to hear about my sons, though I'm actually hoping for the 3rd place as we changed our mind on the first 2. People are saying waiting list my older son was number 212 on the waiting list safe to say he never got the school 🤣

We went with private - that was always our number one but he had to sit an exam so we were not 100% he would pass!! Thankfully he did.

2nd choice had odd admissions criteria which preferred students for whom the school is their closest available school

I never heard of this being an admission criterion, I thought schools had to follow a fairly set pattern.
Is this a common thing?

Assume your ds has already got an offer for September but presumably you need to decide very soon whether to take it up.

To me that sounds like a valid reason to appeal. That being an ethnic minority in a white school is hard and he'd be more suited to a more mixed school.

This was what I was trying to reply to

No, as I have already explained that is not true. Schools are not allowed to give priority to first preferences. That is the law. When they get the list of applicants to sort into rank order, they won't be told whether they were first choice or sixth choice. Naming a school as your second preference does not reduce your chances of getting a place there.

In our case, this is a very large secondary school which has this criterion. I think they are running this system to give students who live rurally a chance as they would otherwise be too far away from any secondary school. Unfortunately, this system leaves my village in a blind spot 😂

@kathjee There is already another thread up, focusing on appeals. I will post some general pearls of wisdom there later today.

@kathjee There are several experts on admission appeals on Mumsnet. I am one of them. I have been helping people with appeals for over a decade. I am happy to answer PMs. If you post about your case on the Secondary board, other experts may well offer their advice.

Yes I always thought it is unfair. if we all pay the same taxes we all should have the same chance of getting our children into schools.

It's perfectly acceptable as a criteria and my have sprung up because eg there are two schools in a town and none in outlying villages, so the people in the northerly villages have North School as their closest, but North School is, say, 1 mile from the southern part of the town and 3 miles to the village to the villages. So this criterion means that southern town residents are encouraged to put the nearby (less than 1 mile) South School down as they will not 'oust' northerly village residents from North School.

Trouble is that if schools don't say something, you get parents wanting to appeal because they put their favourite school as #6 and their least wanted as #1.

Giving preference to students who’ve applied to their closest available school is a standard over-subscription criteria in my LA. At least for the non-faith schools.

My LA has a lot of children living in outlying villages, with the secondary schools situated in the larger towns / cities. So there’s a lot of children living 3 or more miles away from any secondary school.

I believe the aim behind that particular over-subscription criteria is to avoid disadvantaging the children living in the outlying villages too much, because otherwise from a distance point of view, there’s a good chance they’d be right at the bottom of every admissions list.

Don't despair op. I was in this position a few years ago and got in on appeal. I am no expert but there are literal experts here.

You can appeal to both your first choice and second choice schools.

As others have said for grounds for appeal you need to argue the detriment to your son in not getting a place outweighs the detriment to the school in going over PAN (published admission number).

You can put as many reasons as you like. You already mentioned ethnicity which I would have thought is hugely important and valid. In addition, research the schools you want and see what they offer that your offered school does not. It might be a language, a particular subject or an extra curricular activity that would be detrimental to your child if they don't have that opportunity. Or all three. We provided a lot of evidence like pieces or work, reports and statements.

I wish you all the very best of luck. It is a long shot but there's also the wait list. Being realistic, I also spent some time convincing myself and DC that the offered school was in fact good for many reasons.

I would also offer a bit of a caution that some people here are not experts and will tell you that you don't have grounds for appeal. I have noticed this already in the replies and I remember being told the same. But there are extremely knowledgeable people here who have actually worked in the appeals process and I will be forever grateful for the advice and support they gave me.

We could have been in this position 4 years ago due to the local school set up. Luckily we had the option of a selective Grammar but if my son had not got in my plan was.
1 : Appeal
2: Find out how far down the waiting list he is.
3: If not far (position 1-20) Let the school know you want to remain on waiting list & home school until a place comes up.
4: If far down the waiting list, give the allocated school a go, it might not be too bad, but also remain on waiting list for preferred school just in case.

Good luck, its a very stressful time.

You can put as many reasons as you like. You already mentioned ethnicity which I would have thought is hugely important and valid.

I do not think that it will be.