Primary School appeal - advice please

[mummyof2munchkins]

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Background: I'll be accompanying my sister to a primary school appeal tomorrow. Nephew has leukemia, he has been extremely poorly and spent most of the first 3 yrs of his life in hospital. Around a year ago he finally started responding to Chemotherapy. He became well enough to attend school nursery and a lot of support and help was given to the school to help them deal with an imune suppressed child (he is still on chemo). Nephew is behind other children his age for obvious reasons and it's been a really difficult transition for him to be away from his mum. After a year he's finally starting to settle and progress.

DSis applied for a place in the school under special health grounds (category 2) and supplied evidence from the oncologist to prove nephews illness and treatment.

Nephew was not offered a place in the school and was not considered on special health grounds because the evidence did not say why this school would help. DSis didn't know there was additional proof required. Looked after children and siblings don't have to prove why the school chosed is beneficial, it seems only children with medical conditions have this additional requirement.

The appeal is tomorrow so any advice would be very much appreciated.

This is tricky. The reason that there's no requirement for further information from sibling or looked after children applications is that the result is automatic. If you are a sibling and there is sibling criteria, you get that position in the list. Same goes for LAC. Not so for medical.

For medical grounds, you have to demonstrate that the medical needs are so great that only this school will do (or rather, you have to demonstrate compelling medical needs, and if you don't make it specific to that school, you're likely to fail).

As your appeal is KS1, it is must likely to be an Infant Class Size regulations appeal. What is the PAN? If 15/30/45/60/90, then it will be ICS. To win that, a mistake must have been made by the admitting authority, or to not admit him is so unreasonable that a reasonable admitting authority would have admitted.

Your trouble is that if the authority didn't have information, they couldn't make a reasonable decision. They haven't made a mistake, your DSis has.

They may be sympathetic, but it may be that there is nothing they can do. Why does he need that particular school?

The reason this school is a better option for him is due to the efforts already made by Dsis and the Mcmillen nurses in ensuring the school understand his medical condition and needs. It was also a really difficult transition for him and only now is he able to be in school without Dsis being with him. His communication skills are delayed and he's still in nappies so a lot of time and effort has gone into making sure school understand and are able to support him. It is so distressing for Dsis and nephew to start this all over again in a new school.

Why haven't they applied for an EHCP? I think your DSis is going to have to explain why she didn't realise that she needed to put extra evidence in.

However, I would also raise that if the letter actually says "was not considered under the medical criteria because...." that is an error. It should say (paraphrase) "was considered under the medical criteria but insufficient evidence was provided to justify a place on these grounds". You could argue that if the letter says 'was not considered', then that in itself is an error, because your DSis did supply some evidence. It's quite a shaky argument though, because they can say 'had we considered it, it would have failed...'.

Has your DSis now got stronger evidence?

Sorry but I think that Lougle is correct in saying that Dsis has not given the committee enough information to allow a place to be offered under medical. It has to be why that school in particular and I would guess they are saying any school with training could handle your nephew.
However what I cannot understand is why if nephew has been in the nursery attached to the school no application for an EHCPlan has been made. From your description I cannot see how he would not qualify and as such would automatically get a place at the school Dsis nominates. My temptation would be to asking that question of the school and the nursery.

What's the wording on the letter?

Get him an EHCP ASAP.

I'm not sure the argument that dsis has trained the school to understand his needs will hold much water as surely she could now go train the school he has been allocated?

Definitely get the ball rolling for an EHCP.

How did the appeal go?