Successful appealing for school place

[KMG]

Does anyone know of ground which help a successful appeal?

The infant classes of the primary school are full, but at junior level, classes are slightly bigger, because of successful appeals. What can we do to boost our chances?

We are in the catchment area.
There is a younger sibling at the school.
We applied for the school when we moved (2 yrs), but there wasn't a place.
We have been on the waiting list since.

Is there anything else we can do?

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You need to look at your Local Authority criteria and at how the school applies those criteria. Eg Is it your nearest community (i.e. non-religious) school? Some LAs have this as a criterion and its often overlooked by parents who appeal. If it's a religious school can you get a letter from your vicar/priest/religious leader to support your appeal?

This is all helpful, thanks. Can anyone else add anything?

What constitutes 'a good educational reason'? The infant school that no.1 son is at, feeds to a junior school, which is further away from the house. But also has bad ofsted report, bad SATs results, teachers don't stay long, etc. The catchment area school has excellent offsted report, good SATs results, etc. But surely anyone could use those arguments for an appeal? Do you have to come up with something specific about your particular child?

It is our nearest school full stop. Both schools in question are community schools, but the better school is the nearer one, and we are in the catchment area.

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Robinw, thanks for your help and advice. He isn't technically 'moving' school, in that he will be finishing at an infant school, and we need to apply for junior school. He would automatically get a place at the associated junior school, (the bad one). The other school is a primary school, and we know they are over-subscribed, and have no 'spaces', so he won't get a place without an appeal.

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Hi Kmg, I can't help with the appeal process info because we have never appealed. However my son, now in year 3,(first year of Juniors) has moved primary schools three times - twice to oversubscribed schools, where the intial answer was 'no there is not a place for him'.

I'll list a few reasons why he may have got into these schools. This might be of interest to you.

You say your son is on the waiting list. You may be doing this already, but do keep phoning the school secretary and ask if there is any chance of a place coming up. Always mention your son's name. I used to phone at least 2 or 3 times a term. Not too much to nag, but enough, I hoped, for them to remember us. In each case, when my son was eventually offered places at these schools, the head knew I had been in contact with the school throughout the waiting period.

I was told a surprising number of parents just put their child on the waiting list and never make contact for years. This can be a really bad move, IME. A friend of mine had her child on the same school's waiting list as mine. We were offered a place and she wasn't. She phoned the school and found out that they had lost her application form! She had to reapply for the waiting list - luckily she was offered a place soon after. So do get the secretary to periodically check up that your son's name is down.

Also, IME, places often come up a few weeks after the beginning of term. Sometimes pupils who have a place just fail to show up - they are going elsewhere and their parents havn't been in contact with the school. I think it's a really good idea to do a little polite phone pestering around this time - and the week or two befor the start of term.

Another thing to consider: I have heard that some children leave good state primaries around the age of 7( end of infants) to go to the private primaries with a view to getting into a particular private secondary school. Can you find out if your school loses a few pupils around this time?

Lastly, does the good state primary have any after school clubs or activities that your son could join - or is the bulding used as a community hall so you could attend social activities there? Is there a Beaver troup that some of his potential classmates belong to? My son joined the Beaver troup at his future school 2 years before he was offered a place. Anything that strengthens your son's social bonds with the school may help show your commitment to the school and help ease him into the new class if he is offered a place. Also some of these activites may be run by people who are active in the school. I found out a few weeks agoe that my son's Beaver troup was run by the head of the PTA and a parent govenor - this probably had little influence on him being offered a place, but at least my son was not just a faceless name on a list to them.

Do keep hoping. My son was on the waiting list of his current primary for two years - we were told there was absolutely no hope of him getting in, bacause movement was so rare - but suddenly a family left the area and a place came up.

Good luck!

Living in Stoke Newington, London N16 and just found out that my son hasn't got into either of the good local schools we applied to (Betty Layward and Grasmere), even though they are the nearest to our house. We're about to appeal but has anyone got any advice or information on successful/unsuccessful appeals. Appeal form has to be in soon so please post asap. Thanks for your help

Rachel1,
First you need to find out whether the schools have applied their selection criteria correctly. It is probably worth talking to the respective school secretaries to find out how many of the places were taken by siblings - this will give you an idea of how many other places were available.
Did the schools correctly calculate your distance to their schools - again this is worth checking. I note that Grasmere in particular is very strict about the shortest distance to the front door, so if you live in a flat, someone in an upper story will lose out to someone on the lower storey.
The final criteria for both schools (though I note that this is 2nd behind siblings at Betty Layward, and 3rd at Grasmere) is "social, medical and special educational need". For this one you need to think about whether anything relevant has been picked up at your child's developmental checks or any medical issues. One family I know successfully appealed on the basis that their son had asthma, and that this was the nearest school. Another appealed on the basis that the children were adopted, and needed a primary school rather than an infants/junior transition.

Make the basis of appeal specific to you at all costs - you can't just say that you want the better school.

However if the schools have reached their class size limit of 30, then really the only basis of appeal is that the rules were incorrectly applied in your case, so you need to find out what data was used, and by how much you "failed".

Try the following links:

www.ace-ed.org.uk/pdf/appeal.pdf
politics.guardian.co.uk/mpsurgery/story/0,9061,468347,00.html

Kmg - I have no personal experience of an appeal but a neighbour has recently had a successful one. Have you spoken to the headmaster? I think if I was in your situation I would go and have a chat with him and basically praise him and his school - local schools always seem to have a bit of friendly rivalry!! Say that you love his school and that you feel as though you belong there, explain that your older child likes the school and would like to be at the same school as his brother. If you think it is the best school for your ds fight for it!!!

Jusy got my daughter a place at our new local school, which is also the best one around, by providing them with a gp letter saying i am epileptic so need to be within walking distance of the school.