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?

[HabbaDabbaDoo]

Oops. Double posted.

No I am not saying that maladministration = negligence.

I was making the point that legal terms differ from everyday terms. Certain conditions need to exist for maladministration to exist. Whereas a cock up can be anything you or I deem to be a cock up :)

[lougle]

who even put it in writing.

[Yellowtip]

teacher the child may indeed in fact be brilliantly able but the test score is the measure used, and on that measure the AP says the child is so far below an acceptable score that admitting her would breach the school's admissions criteria. There really is no denying that a child way outside the acceptable zone is in a different position to a child who has a longer bus journey to school or a longer walk that its peers. The EFA is therefore highly unlikely to order a fresh appeal. That really is the bottom line, in reality. The BV ruling is indicative of the LGOs thinking on this. It's useful and it makes sense.

Perma of course there's no compulsion to share, but clearly it would help shed light if you could relate exactly what the decision letter said. it doesn't sound as though it especially helps the case that the experts are making on your behalf, or do you consider it does?

[Yellowtip]

And lougle yes I do get the difference between a pass mark and rank order and don't consider it material, because it isn't.

[lougle]

"teacher the child may indeed in fact be brilliantly able but the test score is the measure used, and on that measure the AP says the child is so far below an acceptable score that admitting her would breach the school's admissions criteria."

You are extrapolating. They didn't say 'the child is so far below an acceptable score....' they simply said 'accepting her with that score would...' which would be the same as if the score was simply 1 or 2 below the last child admitted.

Of course it would breach the admissions criteria. Bad luck for them that they breached the admissions code by making not one but two errors and that the errors cost Perma's DD a place at the school.

"There really is no denying that a child way outside the acceptable zone is in a different position to a child who has a longer bus journey to school or a longer walk that its peers."

Absolutely correct. Totally different position. Fortunately for Perma, this case is not about prejudice, it is about maladministration, which puts her DD in exactly the same position as any other child affected by maladministration.

"The EFA is therefore highly unlikely to order a fresh appeal. That really is the bottom line, in reality."

The EFA is a relatively new body. If it follows LGO lines, then it should order a new appeal, or even recommend that the place is reinstated to expedite justice. I don't think anyone can say what it will do or is 'highly likely to do'.

"The BV ruling is indicative of the LGOs thinking on this. It's useful and it makes sense."

The BV ruling is irrelevant because that school had a pass mark, this school didn't.

"And lougle yes I do get the difference between a pass mark and rank order and don't consider it material, because it isn't."

Of course it isn't, in the world of Yellowtip, where the admissions code, admissions appeals code and several LGO cases can all be dismissed because it 'isn't fair'

[eddiemairswife]

there have been several mentions of the 'three day rule' .Can anyone tell me where I can find official evidence of it's use?

[lougle]

The interesting thing about the case we keep quoting is that the LGO feel it is so important that despite only giving reports of cases from 2005/2006 onwards, and that particular case being from 2000, 13 years ago, they still have a link to it.

That a case could have such an outrageous maladministration - that the places offered were in no way authorised and in fact that the admissions officer had expressly said 'you can't do this' to the Head Teacher, yet he did - and the places were still upheld and the LA told 'tough luck' indicates to me, that Perma's case is still strong, despite the error in judgement from the Appeals Panel.

[eddiemairswife]

Thankyou Tiggy.

[lougle]

This LGO report states:

"The presenting officer?s oral case opposing Simon Smith?s appeal effectively argued that, because Simon had been unsuccessful in the Kent tests, his appeal could not or should not succeed. This was, in effect, an inappropriate and circular argument. The comments by Mr Maitland indicate little sympathy with an appeal against an admissions authority?s decision that an applicant was not of selective ability (see paragraphs 40 and 44 above). The County Council?s entirely reasonable and proper decision to provide the nonstatutory reviews of the Kent test results, known as head teachers? appeals, did not deprive appellants of their statutory right of appeal about selective ability. However highly selective a school may be, parents have a right to appeal against an unfavourable assessment about selective ability.

(c) Mrs Moore accepts that she and other panellists had some regard to the Kent test results of successful applicants, and of unsuccessful applicants who might not be appealing. Those results were irrelevant. As appellants could not have had notice of this confidential information, this was unfair. This arose partly through the conflict of interest whereby Mr Maitland was both the Clerk to the Governors and the Clerk to the Appeal Panel."

As I've said before, this is nothing to do with test scores, but as there are some people who insist that it does, then this LGO report shows that the argument is not valid.

[prh47bridge]

lougle - Regarding the EFA, the LGO says much the same. I don't think it is a policy difference but we'll have to see. The LGO says they cannot overrule the appeal panel but they do on occasion recommend that the child is admitted without a further hearing. I think the point is that, as their recommendation is not binding, they aren't really overruling the panel. It remains to be seen if the EFA will do the same. I hope they will.

Yellowtip - The Bishop Vesey case did not prompt any training whatsoever in relation to grammar schools. If you read the decision in full you will find that there was not a single point at issue that was specific to grammar schools. The case concerned a series of failings in the conduct of the appeal.

The school repeatedly breached the Appeals Code and told the LGO that the Code is too onerous for a school that is it's own admission authority! As the LGO said, they are entitled to their view but they are not entitled to ignore the Code. The appeal panel (which had not been properly trained) also breached the code by failing to follow the decision making process mandated by the code and failing to consider the arguments put forward by the appellant properly. The appeal panel was not helped by the fact that the Clerk was also not properly trained. None of those failings had anything at all to do with this being a grammar school.

The only point at which this being a grammar school impinged on the case was in the LGO's decision that fresh appeals should only be offered to those appellants whose sons had achieved the pass mark. The reasoning behind this part of the decision is not included in either the summary or the full report so we cannot draw any conclusions from it. It may be, for example, that Bishop Vesey had a separate review process allowing parents to challenge the test results, in which case an appeal cannot again look at the test score.

Sadly Bishop Vesey chose to ignore the LGO's recommendations regarding offering fresh appeals.

In terms of this case the BV case supports the view that both the Admissions Code and the Appeals Code apply in full to grammar schools and that there are no "common sense" variations allowed.

[Yellowtip]

lougle I may know a little about this sort of stuff too, you're very rude. Am I correct in thinking you haven't yet sat on an appeals panel? I also think one should treat a great deal on this thread with caution.

The BV ruling is perfectly pertinent since if you knew much about grammars you'd know that there is no real difference between schools with a pass mark and those without. The mark at which children get accepted is remarkably constant, year on year and 30 marks out is massive. You'll no doubt quibble about that but it is a fact. All grammars are quite able to look at their data over say the past decade and see what the range of scores are for those who have been admitted to the school. I suggested much, much earlier in the thread that the school/ AP may well throw up their hands and say that child with a score this low has not been admitted in the past decade and it would be wrong to do so. Both for the child and the school. The snippet of the decision as reported by Perma appears to say exactly that. It is drawing attention to the very low mark. All scools have admitted children with marks slightly below; it's probably not the case that any school has admitted a child with a score 30 below. The AP rightly considered this relevant.

[Yellowtip]

Obviously I mean that marks are remarkably constant within schools, not between them. They have inched up slightly with the tutoring bonanza, but not much.

[prh47bridge]

I agree with Lougle about the reason this case remains on the LGO site. It is regularly referred to in appeal hearings where places have been incorrectly withdrawn. The case is well known in admission circles. It is by no means the only such case referred to the LGO as appeal panels still sometimes get it wrong. I have been involved in such cases myself(including one involving another selective school). In every case the LGO has decided in the appellant's favour but the case hasn't appeared on the LGO website or been referred to in any LGO reports. Presumably the LGO feels that the later decisions don't add anything to the 2000 decision which it regards as definitive.

[beatback]

Having read this thread and the maladminastration from two local Education Authorities. The local Authorities surely under the law have to provide something similar to what was offered, so that would be to a academic private school, because you cant offer one thing then take it away after the cut off point which was three days in this case. Therefore i think the op should be pushing for the local Authorities to pay for a private school with similar academic standards to the one she appealed to.

[lougle]

Yellowtip once again, the issue is that you are relying on your common sense to decide if you think Perma's DD deserves a place when the case is about maladministration.

The appeals panel can look at whether a child deserves a place if asked to do so, under clause 3.13 of the appeals code:

"a) where a local review process has not been applied, the panel must only uphold the appeal if it is satisfied:
i) that there is evidence to demonstrate that the child is of the required academic standards, for example, school reports giving Year 5/Year 6 SAT results or a letter of support from their current or previous school clearly indicating why the child is considered to be of grammar school ability; and
ii) where applicable, that the appellant?s arguments outweigh the admission authority?s case that admission of additional children would cause prejudice."

However, in this case Perma is not asking for a place that wasn't her DD's because she performed badly on the day. She is asking for a place that was her DD's to be reinstated because it was removed too late.

[Floggingmolly]

All this and yet the appeal has already been heard and the panel say otherwise...

[Yellowtip]

prh I think it's fairly obvious that I've read the full decision, since I quoted numbers which appear only there.

APs get it right more often than not prh. So in your case of mistaken offer for the selective did the appellant's child score massively low? Where was the child in relation to the last child in? And was the mistaken offer made on Allocation Day or subsequently?

lougle you're being rather a peacock here. I mentioned common sense since I find that common sense often informs the law. Not always but often. I also find that where something is manifestly not sensible (as here), the law will find a way to circumvent an idiotic result. So far, so good.

[Yellowtip]

So the criterion is maladministration per se tiggy, not maladministration causing injustice?

[fiddlyfoodlebird]

It might be an irrelevant question but I'm confused as to whether OP's DD's school is a "pass mark" 11+ or a "first 150 past the post" school because on Tue 30-Apr-13 11:48:05 she said "Jean, I don't think so: my DD's original (as we know it) was 27 below this year's pass mark which was 5 marks up from last year's (reflecting the bigger pool of applicants)."

[Floggingmolly]

If it is, Yellowtip, it is a crime against common sense.