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 😭.

Yes, you have repeatedly misstated the position. All secondary school appeals are heard under the same rules. It doesn't matter whether it is an in-year admission or a phase transfer. Parents can win by showing that the prejudice to their child from not being admitted outweighs the prejudice to the school by having to cope with another pupil. I have been advising parents on admission appeals for over 15 years and I have won many secondary appeals on these grounds. And they were almost all phase transfer appeals.

If you really do work in admissions, it is a shame you don't understand the rules governing appeals better.

"Think about it logically, when do you draw the line. Because your argument would apply to every single child that didn’t get their first choice. They don’t hear those appeals for phase transfers. You have to be able to prove they didn’t stick to their admission code."

Yes, we do hear these appeals for phase transfers, it is the same appeals process as for in year admissions.

I sit on appeals panels. I sat on around 60 last year alone for phase transfers - appeals heard in the summer of year 6 for people who did not get the school they wanted for year 7.

Appeals can be won on the grounds that the detriment to the pupil of not attending is greater than the detriment to school of taking another pupil. In fact that's how most year 7 phase transfer appeals are won: most aren't won on the basis that the admissions authority made an error. Most appeals still fail, but around 20% are successful.

You may be sure the 8 appeals lodged to your school already don't have grounds on the basis that the admissions authority made an error, but you cannot be sure they do not have other grounds that a panel may decide mean the detriment to the child is greater than the detriment to the school, so they may still win.

Accept the place or you could be placed anywhere.

there will be movement as people have moved out of the area and no longer need the t place.

appeal is tricky now the system is run by computers so there are rarely errors unless data is inputted incorrectly

To say again, most secondary school appeals are not won on the basis of errors. Some are, but that is not the only grounds on which secondary appeals can be won. Most are won on the balance of prejudice, i.e. by the parents showing that the disadvantage to their child from not being admitted outweighs any difficulties the school will face from having to cope with an additional pupil.

Tbf your answer isn’t getting any more correct the more you repeat yourself. You have twice linked to documentation that you don’t appear to understand.

I don’t work in the admissions system but I have picked up a fairly reasonable understanding of how the process works. Enough to know that balance of prejudice arguments do apply to phase transfers and that plenty of parents do win appeals on this basis.

Needing to prove a mistake with the admissions process as the only way to win an appeal only applies for ICS appeal. Whether that’s in year or a phase transfer.

It did used to be the case that they were automatically allocated. I was on the governors at a primary school 15ish years ago and the receptionist was asking me about children on the list from our village who they hadn't had applications from but that had been allocated places by LA. They were all ones that I knew were going to private school.
It all changed a few years ago when the applications system changed, but it was like that once!

e who they hadn't had applications from but that had been allocated places by LA.

To be in the state system, those children had applied somewhere.

Admissions in England have been co-ordinated by LAs since at least 2007. Parents apply to LAs for places, not to individual schools. An LA-controlled school generally does not find out who applied until shortly before offers are made when it receives the list of children being offered places. Other schools (VA schools and academies) do find out earlier as they are sent the list of applicants to place in order. However, if it turns out that any school still has places available after all applicants have been allocated a place, either at that school or elsewhere, those places may be filled by applicants who did not apply to the school and failed to get any of their preferences.

An LA can only allocate places where they have received an application. There is no mechanism whereby they can reliably identify all the children in their area and they have never been required to do so. The LA would clearly be acting illegally if they allocated places to people who didn't apply ahead of people who did.

As I say, this has been the system in England since at least 2007. Those children may not have applied for places at the school where you were a governor, but they definitely applied for places somewhere.

Don’t despair! My lass didn’t get into the school we wanted and was way down the waiting list. She didn’t get into the school on appeal. A week into term I got a call and she had a place!

make friends with the school’s admissions person, she can tell you where you are on the waiting list, likelihood a place will come free etc. there’s so much movement between now and September.

i think what worked for us is I asked her when term started what happened now and was told she would be writing to everyone to ask if they still wanted to be on a waiting list. I asked for the form to be emailed to me and returned it straight away.

No,it doesn’t work like this. The order you place the schools doesn’t affect the allocation. What does affect the allocation is the published criteria for each school and your child’s eligibility using those criteria in order. The offer that is made is based on this. So , as a random example, if sibling in catchment priority is a higher criteria than out of catchment siblings and your child has a sibling and you live close to the school, then they will take precedence over a child with sibling priority living further away out of catchment, but that child would be
offered a place before a non sibling out of catchment child.

The admissions computer works out the algorithm using all the published criteria in order, but bear in mind that there are only a fixed number of places, so if a schools priorities were

LAC,
Children with named education plan
Siblings in Catchment
Catchment children
Siblings out of catchment
Distance

so if in one year 10 places out of 120 are allocated to LAC and children where the school is named on their education plan, a further 50 places allocated to siblings in catchment, then 50 places to catchment children without siblings, that leaves only 10 spaces left for out of catchment siblings, and any other out of catchment children based on distance.

The computer works out your child’s individual eligibility for EVERY school on your application list compared to every other child who has applied for that school, your offer will be the highest school on your list for which your child qualifies using the published criteria. They might qualify for them all, or for one, or even for none. This is why you are advised to find out under what criteria you were refused in case you think a mistake has been made and your child was eligible using a higher criteria. it is rare, but it does happen.

If you don’t qualify for admission to any of the schools on your application then you will be allocated a place at the nearest school with an empty place.

There should be more info about waiting list places around Easter or in May depending on your area. That's when schools have the acceptance data in my area at least.

That's one hell of a risk, I couldn't do it

Balance of prejudice absolutely is a valid ground of appeal including at year 7 entry

However - it should be repeated that most appeals relying on balance of prejudice do not succeed, assuming the school has made a decent case as to why it’s full (most can, they have generally calculated their numbers pretty tightly). An appellant generally has to show something pretty unusual and specific to succeed on this basis. Friends and parent logistics generally don’t count. Nor does better academics or behaviour - everyone wants those.

So just out of curiosity - apparently 85% of children in my county got their first choice of school.
What would I Google to find out that percentage, furthest child admitted etc. for local schools?
I'm drawing a blank by searching for things like "admissions statistics". I got the above figure from a local newspaper.

The figure in the local newspaper almost certainly came from a press release from the council. It is unlikely these statistics are available online at the moment. Indeed, many LAs never publish that much detail.

My local authority publishes school admissions results on their website. These will tell what the furthest distance from school at which places were allocated were on national offer day. If you want information on how far the waiting lists came out before the summer holidays, contact the school directly - my school responded very readily.
My local authority has announced that they will publish this information on the 11th of March, so not long to wait. If your LA doesn't publish it, just e-mail the school admissions team.

Unfortunately, this is normal. But in past years the private school kids left some gaps when they did not take up state places but this won’t happen this year to the same extent.

The best thing to do is remain calm stick to continuing interest and keep positive. The process will last until Summer and you might get more offers.

good luck.

It's been a long while since I've been to an appeal so can't advise on rules, but not everyone loses. Eg there was a rule about whether an extra pupil would physically over populate the school building -and I think the rule on no more than 30 per class has relaxed. So I'd do as much research as possible on ..
The school you want & reasons why you should get it

Why your 2nd choice wasn't your 1st (if they ask)

The school you have been offered and why it won't work (also have to argue why you put it as an option could be just found out something, etc).
Good luck 👍

PS to anyone in general
if there's anyone else applying next year do not put a school down you won't be happy with....if they push for three choices put choice 2 twice
Also check that your child isn't one of the exceptions that push them up the order.

So sorry , you're not a Debbie downer or a pessimist, this has happened to a friend of mine her DD hasn't gotten any contact from the only school she chose yet everyone else from their class whom applied seems to have gotten that school including my child, , all siblings go to the school and family etc (same with mine but most that applied from the same school except me and this one friend didn't have family or siblings in the school they applied for)

I had this for my kids primary school years ago too but luckily even though the 'governing board' said no and we appealed, we got turned down, and a week later got contacted by the school offering us a place.

It can be hard to wait so long and you might not get in but I hope you do, and keep being realistic but always have that small bit in there that says.. you never know.

I have seen many people go through this as I worked in a primary school office for 14 years. You need to stay on the waiting list for your first choice school and take it right up to the wire. People drop out all the time, even in the first week of year seven. Many have put a state school, (I’m presuming you’ve applied to state), as a backup choice in case they don’t get into their real first choice of grammar/private et cetera. You won’t see any movement on the waiting list though until the replies from all the first choice offers come back. Then the council can send out a second round of offers and so it goes on. (Please don’t ring the actual school, it’s not up to them, unless they are selective.) You need nerves of steel, but I have known children 200th on the waiting list get offers at their first choice school right up to early September. Some people do not tell the council they are not taking a place and the school doesn’t know until child simply does not turn up on the first day!! Hang in there and good luck!

I should also have said that it is always best to accept the school you have been offered so you at least have a place somewhere. Then hang in there for your first choice. Once again, good luck.

Waiting list! Lists close end of term July if you’ve not got a place by then immediately go back onto the waiting list reapply in year application) as they reset to 0.
Play the waiting game. Tenacity gets you places. This was me 12 years ago and now DS about to leave school.

Not for Year 7. The Law requires a waiting list to be maintained until the end of the Autumn term. You may need to reconfirm (or reapply) in the Spring term, but there will definitely be a waiting list that is still active for Y7.

@Vynalbob I just wanted to respond to your earlier message: "PS to anyone in general
if there's anyone else applying next year do not put a school down you won't be happy with....if they push for three choices put choice 2 twice
Also check that your child isn't one of the exceptions that push them up the order."

This is bad advice. They would just disregard a choice that is put on the form twice (and I am guessing that the online forms would not allow that anyway). In our case, doing what you advise would have been disastrous. We put four schools. Two we really liked, a third we were ok with. We didn't really want the fourth one, but put it as a security choice. Some people really like it so it still has has more applicants than places. We would not have got it automatically if we hadn't put it on our form.
We were then allocated fourth choice. Not great, but at least we had a not so great option that was not far away. If we had not put this school on our form, we would have likely been allocated to one of the two schools which never fill their places and therefore take pupils that are "centrally allocated" - i.e. pupils that have not got a place at any of their choices. Both have bad access via public transport and are not schools I would have wanted my child to go. So, putting a school we didn't really want as fourth protected us from getting a shitty school far away.

Yeah, that's fair enough what I was getting at was avoid putting a school you definitely don't want as if you're end up in an appeal situation they may rightly ask the question why did you put ???? as a choice and then need to think of a reasonable answer.