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?

Perma - my "WC mum" comment was made in response to a poster who seemed to think that you was unable to prep your DD to the same standard as some MC mum and that the appeal process was a great way to redress the unfairness and give bright WC kids a chance at getting a GS place. I was simply pointing out that you was a lawyer as opposed to some disadvantaged mum.

Yellowtip has asked for a case where the school was a selective, where the DC scored substantially below the past mark, was offered a place which was subsequently withdrawn, and won the appeal.

But all people seem to be doing is introducing cases which don't match and insisting that case law supports their viewpoint.

"Yellowtip has asked for a case where the school was a selective, where the DC scored substantially below the past mark, was offered a place which was subsequently withdrawn, and won the appeal."

We don't have one. This may be the one we refer to in future.

We do have cases where the child had no right to a place at all and still won on appeal due to the error, which is what we're referring to.

"lougle not sure I follow this point: This mistake is the one which I believe is covered under the criteria of "the child would have been offered a place if the arrangements had complied or had been correctly and impartially applied". because she wouldn't have been offered a place if they had complied/been correctly and impartially applied.... (thanks for all that explanation BTW - and also congratulations!)

So still struggling with this bit of the Code: "The panel must uphold the appeal at the first stage where:
a) it finds that the admission arrangements did not comply with admissions law or had not been correctly and impartially applied, and the child would have been offered a place if the arrangements had complied or had been correctly and impartially applied;" because she wouldn't have been.... That's the crux of this paragraph."

No, she wouldn't. But once the place was offered, they shouldn't have removed it, which is the mistake which applies here. They removed a place when they shouldn't have and that mistake cost her the place. If they had properly applied the rules and gave reference to the LGO cases where it has been established that 3 days is too late, then they would have realised that they should not remove the place. Therefore the appeal panel should have recognised that and reinstated the place.

Yet we are getting posters going about the decision is unfair because the OP might have have arranged stuff in that 7 days.

No people are going on about it, not because you prefer not to wait until the last week of August to buy uniform, or need to make travel arrangements because the school is too far away for your child to walk to, but because all the evidence so far suggests that withdrawing a place after seven days is too late, even when it was made in error.

Yellowtip thinks this isn't the case, and she may be right, but so far, unlike the people quoting the case in York LGO Case 99C01876, I don't think she has produced a case to confirm that is so. If Perma has the time and energy to take the matter further, a ruling might be forthcoming on this specific issue. It might well be too late for Perma's DD but it might just make the LA/Academy involved get their act together it comes to sorting out their admissions process.

Of course I don't have a case to cite as precedent or I'd have mentioned it before, I'm simply coming at this from an ordinary Clapham omnibus point of view.

I agree with tiggy that these cases are very rare, relatively speaking and so cases of this sort relating to selective places will be even more rare. That may well work in Perma's favour.

I understand that, Yellowtip, and I wouldn't expect you to have a case. I would like to know where you have seen that there is a difference between selective and non selective schools in the appeals code, though, as that is what appeals panels are bound by?

One time we had a junior dealer offer shares at a ridiculous price because he thought that he was on the test system rather than the live system. Several outside dealers accepted the price and made millions.

The lawyers were called in and the deals were rolled back ie made void. The legal position was that the price was so ridiculously low that the other party must have known that it was a mistake. They had not made the deal in good faith. Therefore the contract to buy and sell those shares were invalid.

So much for the legal argument that what Perma did or didn't know isn't irrelevant. An offer had been made and she accepted it is argued. It doesn't matter that she suspected that it was an error. Ermm. Sorry but it doesn't work that way.

It does in that sense, Habba.

However, the appeals system has its own rules. The balance of power is tipped so far in the LAs' favour that there has to be a set of rules to allow transparency and challenge.

Perma was assured the place was hers. She then had legitimate expectation of a place.

The example you cite was of people taking a punt. Not the same.

I find it hard to understand how, if the LEA confirmed that the place was the OP's dd's on several occasions and in writing, they can go back on that once the established-by-case-law 3 days has passed. However, a bit of me does wonder why the OP didn't ask why the offer had been made when it seemed to go against all logic. Isn't that the natural thing to do?

However, it does look as if the place should be hers in law. Awful situation for all concerned.

She did, curlew. She asked 4 times if a mistake could have been made. The answer each time was a categorical 'NO!' She could do no more than that.

The complication is that there were errors, I believe, in both LAs and it took time to uncover. That isn't Perma's fault, though.

Perma said:

"In another news, it transpires that there has been a catalogue of errors spanning 2 LAs, the first one dating back to 15th March. And in spite of numerous 'check's (including a query from a 3rd LA on a possible error - again rejected ie no error has been made), no error was uncovered until 5 days after the Offer date."

But did she actually say "why has my daughter mysteriously shot 188 places up the waiting list?" Didn't she say something about assuming the paper had been moderated? Would you assume that- if the possibility of a mistake was also in your mind?

But, all that aside, the law seems to be saying the place should be hers. Ombudsman next, I assume.

Perma asked several times if a mistake had been made. This can be taken as a legal admission that she did not genuinely believe that it was a valid offer in the first place.

It's funny how you see my example as being totally different since it was some dealers taking a punt and hoping that it works out for them. If you read Perma's early posts you will see her at various stages expressing her concern that the offer will be withdrawn. My dealers weren't the only ones taking a punt and hoping for the best.

I started the day determined not to get into this moot court stuff but here I am at past midnight . Anyway, there is a bed with my name on it.

Perma asked several times if a mistake had been made. This can be taken as a legal admission that she did not genuinely believe that it was a valid offer in the first place.

No it cannot. On the contrary, the fact that she was repeatedly assured that no mistake had been made by people who are supposed to be experts at admissions (i.e. the LA's admissions team) means that legally she can assume the offer is valid. If we were not dealing with an admissions case but a consumer contract, say, the LA's repeated assurances that the offer was correct would be legally binding.

In any case the previous case law is clear. Once an offer has been made in error the admission authority only has a very limited time in which they can validly withdraw it. In this case the admission authority took far too long.

It is, of course, possible that this case will set a different precedent for how long an admission authority has to withdraw an offer. Personally I hope not. Parents need certainty. They need to know that they can start making arrangements associated with the school they have accepted (buying uniform, childcare, transport, etc.) without the risk that the LA will come back weeks later and say, "Sorry, we got it wrong. You can't have the place. Oh and no, we won't compensate you for any money you've spent. And because we made a mistake all your other chosen schools are now full up and can't handle any extra children so the only place we can offer is at the most unpopular school in town."

I studied Law a long time ago. Ok that doesn't make me a lawyer and it certainly doesn't make me an admissions expert but the legal concept of the 'reasonable man' was drummed into us.

So what is important here IMO is not what Perma was told and how many times. Rather, what would a reasonable person think if they were in Perma's position? IMO a reasonable person would have known that a mistake had been made despite what she was being told by an official. I mean, a DC that is 300 on the waiting list doesnt sudd

.. doesnt suddenly get a place unless a mistake had been made.

I agree, a reasonable person would think there was a mistake.

Once they had been assured on four occasions and had the offer in writing, a reasonable person, bearing in mind that they have no access to original source documents, would believe the place was theirs.

Would a reasonable person, on being assured that it wasn't a mistake, not ask "Well, what happened? Was the paper remarked?"

Yes, there's two discussions here, one relevant, the other "human interest".

I just can't understand why the OP didn't say to the LEA "Well, exactly how has this thing happened? Was it a re-mark? Was the pass mark changed? Did lots of people drop out?"
However, that is completely irrelevant- she didn't, and the LEA went on to screw up in a way that precedent says means she is entitled to the place. So she should be heading to the Ombudsman if she wants to pursue it further.

lougle - if you read Perma's early posts you will see that she wasn't convinced by all the assurances and that she was on tenderhooks, waiting for the mistake to be discovered. Other posters were telling her to keep quiet about it so .as not to attract scrutiny.

A lot of 'reasonable' people knew that it was a mistake waiting to be discovered.