am i being unreasonable

[mobhug]

my daughter was not given a place in a RC school, as we are outside the catchement area not the required churches attended. i have family and freinds kids attending this school and also will be starting reception and rely on them to look after my second one as i work for 5 hours. this school is also on the way to work. now i am given a place around 1.5 miles beyond this school. i will have to either stop working or reduce hours even more. this is going to be very hard. i am appealing. any advice would be grateful.

I'm afraid that there is nothing in your post that gives you grounds for a successful appeal. You can certainly try but I would expect the appeal to fail. Child care problems and transport difficulties rarely make a successful appeal.

If this is an infant class size case an appeal should only succeed if you can show that a mistake has been made and your daughter would have been admitted if they hadn't made a mistake. Unfortunately I can't see anything in your post to indicate that there has been a mistake.

You will have a better chance if this is not an infant class size case. The appeal will then be about whether the damage to your daughter's education through not being admitted to this school outweighs the problems the school will have through being forced to admit another pupil.

Sorry if that came across as a bit abrupt. I do sympathise with your situation and the difficulties you will face.

your advice is good , i am kicking myself for not getting this right from the begining. i did move in the area , but not the catchement. i feel i let my daughter down. being in a faith school , is continuity to develop her faith . she loves going to church. not having this oppurtunity feels so wrong. she has no educational needs , which i can argue about. any advice would be grateful

Do you know if this will be an infant class size appeal? If you are unsure about that, can you tell me the admission number for this school?

i am not sure.the school admits 60 students.

In that case they have classes of 30 in Reception which makes it an infant class size case. That means you should only succeed if you can show that a mistake has been made.

All I can suggest is that you make a big thing of the faith angle and how important it is to you and your daughter, and tell them about the difficulties it will cause you with work if your daughter isn't admitted. The appeal panel shouldn't admit your daughter on that basis but you may be lucky and get a sympathetic panel.

You should also make sure you are on the waiting list for this school. You may be able to get a place that way, particularly if you didn't miss out by much.

thank you for your advice, its very helpful . crossed fingers. i am going to the school to get the map showing the boundaries. also i feel they have there is an error done by them as when i spoke to headteacher she said i was outside the catchment area and we do not belong to the 3 parishes as requested where else the admission criteria 4 states that family attending mass weekly from any other parish and leaving closer to catholic school. which seems a bit vague so does that mean you have to be in catchment area.i am on the waiting list. i can only pray.

That sounds like a possible mistake but I'd need more information. Can you name the school so that I can take a look at the admission criteria? If you don't want to name it publicly feel free to PM me.

I am new to this site and dont know how i can send mail to you however the school concerned is st. cecilia primary school, North cheam. many thanks for your help.

As long as you gave them a priest's reference showing that you attend mass regularly at your local Catholic church you should have been in category 4 or 5 if this is your nearest Catholic school (depending on whether you attend weekly or monthly), category 6 if it isn't. The concern is that they may have placed you in a lower category, possibly category 11 (any other applicants). It is, of course, possible that you were correctly placed in category 4 or 5 but the school was full up with children in higher admission categories and higher priority children in your own category. You need to get the school to confirm which category your child was considered under and, if it isn't the right one, why.

By the way, you PM me by clicking on "Message poster" to the right of my name at the head of the message.

Hi I just wondered how you got on with this and where your child ended up going please? I am about to embark on all of this with my daughter. Thanks Emily