Late Grammar School offer: over the moon but stressed/flummoxed

[PermaShattered]

What a 3 days we've had - any insightful comments welcome. In short:

1. Our daughter was offered 3rd choice (her 11+ score was about 30 down on passmark);
2. 3rd school is outstanding but we appealed to 2nd choice school as was our preference;
3. Last Friday took calls from our local Ed admissions authority saying why appealed when have offer from grammar school?
4. Said we hadn't. She made further calls to other relevant admissions authority and came back and told us we definitely have an offer and it would be in post next day (Saturday just gone);
5. It duly arrived, and we posted our acceptance same day (they should have got it today) - verbal acceptance of place given by phone on Friday;
6. On Friday the Authority also withdrew both our place at 3rd choice school and our appeal to 2nd choice school;
7. Today i take a call from a friend whose daughter got substantially higher score than my DD - and she is 188 on waiting list;
8. I call our admissions auth to check they received our acceptance (they said still in posttray but will be dealt with this afternoon);
9. I query whether there could possibly an error and i'm told categorically 'no'. And if there was, we have a written offer, accepted it and they can't take it off our daughter;

10. Finally, my other DS is that grammar school.

I'm perplexed. What could be a possible explanation?

Ah, Seeker I thought it was a Mumsnet forum! I've posted a vague thing on there ....... I'll heed your warnings.

this has had to take priority for you - quite rightly. Don't beat yourself about being behind with housework. Pretty sure your family (and particularly your DD) won't hold it against you in exchange for a positive appeal outcome .

Yes, indeed .

Any idea when the appeal is likely to happen, Perma?

I do have an appeal date now - I won't be too specific but it's a few weeks away yet :(

Sorry that was an ill-thought question, Perma. Quite understand your 'vagueness' in the interest of not 'outing' yourself. Oh dear....

Your DD isn't going to be missing any open/induction events at the grammar school whilst this appeal is looming, is she? Hope not!

Still following this thread. Good luck to you, Perma, and your DD.

Just dropping in to wish you the best of luck, Perma. What a nightmare! I'm sure you'll be successful, and that your DD will be absolutely fine when she gets to the grammar school.

Also just popping in to wish you the best of luck. It sounds like you have a very strong case indeed.

Don't let people get you down. Everyone wants the best for their child and that can make it hard to see someone else's child get a place when seemingly others have done better in the 11+. But you have a duty to do the very best by your daughter, and these appeals are in place exactly because of how hard it is to be offered a place and have it withdrawn.

Thanks all for your lovely comments and thoughts :) Nice to read at the end of a tough week. I've had my orders from DH to try to switch off now for the weekend. Not easy!

gazza I don't think she'll miss anything :)

Have a good weekend all x

Hi perma (waves) - it was me who recommended the eleven plus forum- there are some nutters on there as on here- but I can assure you I am not one of them. I have helped and been helped- probably much like on here. Don't worry about me being a plant- I only have one child, he is a boy and already at sec school. Still following and rooting for you :)

Thx diddled :)
Two (minor) developments but shows the ineptitude of both LEAs.

1. The 'other' LEA held onto the Offer for 5 weeks before doing anything with it. If any experts out there know what the legal responsibility of the LEA is once it 'holds' an offer please do tell!

1. We AT LAST received, on Sat, our receipt for our written acceptance of the offer from our Home LEA. This, my friends, was a receipt for a child "in a Reception/Year 3 class"

sorry - that shows.......

Permashattered , I think they're waiting for you to go back and fill them in with a few more details so they can help you a bit more, on the thread you started on the 11+ site.

elevenplus forum members being 'scary'?? Not in my experience. I guess it depends on what you post. The forum, as it says on the tin, is about the 11+ which means that most of the posters are pro selective education so you won't get many buns thrown by people who are Labour-type champagne socialists like you do here on MN.

The downside is that most think like me so it gets a bit boring after a well.

Legal responsibility of the LA is simply to pass on the offer appropriately. There is no requirement as to timescale these days. Having said that, if you were adversely affected by an LA hanging on to an offer in this way I would hope the LGO would have something to say about it.

Thanks prh. I was mainly just interested really - if we'd been told straightaway it just means the whole episode would have started earlier i suppose.

Anyway, my head is spinning - the waters have been muddied yet further.

It now seems the two Local Authorities are blaming each other. Oh. Dear.

I don't think it matters who made the mistake, it's the fact that a mistake was made.

The fact that they are blaming each other for the mistake also strengthens your case that you couldn't possibly have known about it, because they still can't decide what's happened even now! You had legitimate expectation of a place due to error.

Hi lougle Thanks for the reassurance. Again ;) It's incredible really. I've asked both for a full statement about the communications that took place between them - with dates etc. ....

Ah ha! I always knew the legal principles of proprietary estoppel would be useful to me ONE DAY! Well, actually I didn't - but they are now :)

Promissory estoppel surely?

jean either?!

I agree with lougle that the issue now is that a mistake was made and not rectified in time. Regardless of who or which LEA made it. As i recall, you obviously also have the emails between you and your admissions authority in which the latter was willing to put into writing their support for your case. These should also support the argument that you couldn't possibly have known it was an error before you were told the place was withdrawn.

God- what a mess! Makes you wonder what else they get wrong!! They have both ballsed it up!

jeanpaget yes, promissory estoppel :) (Look, it's 21 years since I was at last school!) and detrimental reliance...

Alien yes, have all the emails etc. But now that I'm getting together supporting documentation I'm trying to ensure I have enough material to make sure I cover all the facts/arguments, without wanting to annoy panel members with too much detail and overkill :(

Jean that should have said law school. I need my bed.

Update: Home Authority has now admitted errors. So both Home LA and Maintaining Authority made a number of errors.

Views on that welcome!