Fair Access Protocol advice please

[Moon05]

I have applied to several schools for my Year 8 daughter and one of the schools has advised me that the application has been declined but is being referred to the Fair Access Protocol panel meeting in 2 weeks.

As a brief background my daughter has high functioning autism and struggled in the first weeks of year 7, became a school refuser and is now accessing online school paid for by the school where she is on roll plus top up funding.

My questions are:

1. Should we have input to the process as I am concerned that a panel who doesn't know my daughter will be deciding what is best for her?
2. Will they just put her in the nearest school with space? (Which I don't feel would work for an anxious child)
3. The school that has refused the place and referred her to the panel invited us in to find out about why we were applying and the difficulties she has had - is this allowed as I believe the Schools Admissions Code forbids interviewing parents and children? I shared information in the hope that I could find out if the school was a good fit for her, but as they subsequently declined the application, I believe they have used this against her.

There does seem to be some confusion here. Is your daughter currently in a school or not. If they are on a school role and relatively local to where you live, then the FAP does not apply, it is for pupils who have no school place and all the local schools are full.
It is not clear why one particular school should be saying they are referring the application to FAP, because this is an LA led system designed to make sure that a pupil without any school place is found a place at a school relative to where they live.
I think you need to talk to the LA admission office about what is going on because it does sound a bit like one of the schools has used you to find out more about your daughter before deciding that they do not want her. It is in everybody's interest to get your daughter full time in a school so you would have thought the LA would want to sort this out

Thanks for your reply admissions. She is on role at the high school she started in year 7 but they pay for her online school. She can't return to that school though due to the anxiety and social exclusion she suffered there.
Yes I agree that the LA should be trying to get her into school so I think the FAP process could be helpful as most local schools are full.
Am I right in thinking that they have contravened the schools admissions code by finding out more about her then refusing? Could that be my grounds for Appeal?

Interviewing pupils to decide whether or not to admit them is illegal. If the school had a place available they were required to offer it to you. It should be easy to win an appeal if they did not offer a place when one was available. Even if there wasn't a place available, you could still argue that the fact they interviewed you before rejecting your application suggests that they would have been happy to go over PAN if the interview was satisfactory. You can therefore argue that the appeal panel should treat it as if there was a place available.

Having said that, you need to ask yourself if a school that behaves in this way is really the right place for your daughter. She may be better off at another school.

Thanks prh47bridge you have confirmed what I thought about grounds for appeal.

Their attitude to our daughter is mine and my husband's worry. The trouble is the only other schools with places are not ones we would want her to be placed in, which is what we suspect will happen through the FAP.

If there are local schools with places then it is unlikely that the LA will invoke FAP, they will simply offer a place at one of the local schools with places.
If you have applied and been rejected by the school you want then the process is for you to appeal for the school that you want.

Thanks to both of you for your advice. I finally got answers yesterday when I realised that the school I had applied to had been in touch with Education Access who started the FAP. This is because my daughter has been out of school (although still on roll) for around a year, has ASD and school related anxiety. The school are proposing a managed move from the old school with extra support. So poor communication led me to believe that they didn't want to accept her, but in fact we could get her placed there or perhaps another school with appropriate support. Very relieved but grateful for your advice here.