Am I being unreasonable to not expect the only school in my son's catchment area to be able to set its own criteria for entry to reception class?

[pralinegirl]

We live in a small village without a school. The village is close to another village where the school there is the catchment school for our area too and the only one. Kids get bused from here to there. Its a Church of England Voluntary Aided school which according to what our county council said today means it can use the usual system to manage applications and admissions but set its own criteria, which of course include one parent being an active Christian. Our DS will be 5 in November and I had assumed that as the other schools we chose are naturally not in our catchment area, as its the only one, and are also oversubscribed, that we'd stand a good chance at appeal, as the LEA could insist that the school increases its places from 24 in reception. The LEA says no, the appeal is with the school and they admit according to their critieria and only the school can decide to offer more places. What really gets me cross is that this means the school will know long before the LEA date of 23 April who they are offering places to, but will not tell the parents, but use the normal system. This whole system stinks, it isn't about choice at all!

praline - no, didn't think you were being sarky, don't worry! I just felt a but silly that I hadn't read your OP carefully.

UnquietDad
If we write to MP or end up appealing should we hide our application to an independent schoolor mention it in context - its our last resort as we really do want him going to a local school but we don't want to end up with no choice at all!?

I'd keep it quiet. Say you need a local authority place! Of course, they may give you one on the other side of town...

PG - keep it very quiet! We employed an appeal specialist to nurse/coach us through the whole process and that was one area he said the appeal panel will focus on in affluent areas. It is a direct question that tends to be asked early on in the appeal and many people get caught out as they answer honestly and then the general opinion of the appeal panel is well they have considered it they must be able to afford it so place goes to somebody else!

Also remove engagement ring/earrings/jewels if quite significant/large suggesting you have more than 10p! Also be careful where you park your car - don't want an appeal panel member seeing you get out of a super dooper car and then going into panel saying "oh no we can't afford private school". It shouldn't have a bearing but it's human nature I am afraid [grin}

Would it be helpful/useful if I emailed you our appeal reasons - I think there were 11 some may apply to your situation!?

Smurfs, that would be great if you could let me know those things. We will keep the independent school as a last resort and we had never considered it until now and won't mention it.

Good practical advice too - would never have thought of that - would on the contrary have focused on looking good! At least I never have time for make-up. cheap or not!

UnquietDad, thank you, seems agreement is don't say a word.

Hello PG, I am not the best with technical things so I not sure how I contact you without displaying email address on screen? Any ideas? I dug out DS file and re-read all our appeal reasons, got all fired up about it and thought yes we were right to go through all the stress!

Sorry Smurfs, no idea, Could you list the main ones/most important/ ones I am least likely to think off by message!?

Apologies PG, DD has chicken pox....DS has just recovered from them this week
Apologies for the errors typing with DD on knee and my letter P seems to be sticking - hope it makes sense

Our appeal reasons were as follows I have ommitted all those areas which would not apply to you:

1)The best environment for DS - small nurturing environment as shy, sensitive boy. Had in place a mentor system which would benefit his young years.

2. Allocated school - we visited the allocated school and then rejected it for the following reasons: 3 pupils were excluded (yes in a primary school!) I then went through the most recent Ofsted report for the allocated school and picked out all the negative points and included them.

3. Size of allocated school v size of school we wanted.

4. Travel - logistics of getting DS to allocated school would have been awful so suggested that I would have had to take 3 buses. Also said would be able to car share with other parents and thus reducing DS carbon footprint! Not technically correct but ho hum...

5. Capacity at school - Head was willing to admit additional pupils and I submitted Heads email confirming this.

6. Informed decision not just based on locality - visited all schools and then went on to pick all the fab points ou about the school we wanted.

7. Knew current pupils and thus would settle better also stated that the social backgrounds of the children at the school we wanted were very much similar to DS experience whereas is he went to allocated school he would be socially isolated and less able to have them for tea etc as comletly different area to where we are (DS would have been eaten alive at allocated school he is not street wise)

8)We stated that families that express well reasoned preference to be educated at certain environment should be given due consideration.

9. Involvement within the community - I joined the Gardening Club!

10. Questions of possible predjudice - Infants Class Size Prejudice did not apply as small school however we asked they excercised a degree of flexability in discretion available to them as the class size was considerably under the 30 child limit.

I attached letter from Pre-School head that said most of the above and also letter from MP.

Let me know if I can be of any furthur help.

Smurfs

Thanks smurfs, sorry you are having such a bad time with sickness - ours had it 6 wks before our wedding but luckily spots mostly gone by then!
Many of the things you kindly mentioned would apply to our situation so big thank you. I'd hoped to share travel with the friend whose kids already go there and as in the pre-school already we can easily argue the community one. I reckon hopefully the fact that he currently knows no kids in his own village due to current nursery arrangements will help. Its a devil not finding out until late April here in norfolk, Were you similar? Its a shame I haven't seen the school but will make sure I visit wherever they offer.
Thanks again and will let you know if we get lucky!

PG - you are very welcome. We didn't find out to the end of April. You then need to able to submit the appeal form within a certain - I think with us it was 2 weeks. There is however a section on the form where you can state that your appeal reasons will follow. So you don't have to compile and submit everything within the 2 weeks.

With regards to the appeal itself there is also a section on the form where you can state if there are any dates which you cannot do. We were of the opinion that we would leave it blank and not include our already booked holiday as the LEA hears all appeals for each school on the same or consecutive days and we wanted to know asap rather than delaying it.....yes you can guess the rest I had to fly back from our holiday for 2 days leaving DH and DC so I could attend the appeal!!

Best of luck and I hope you don't have to appeal but if you do there will be lots of support for you on here Smurfs

praline girl, do you still post on here, need to give you a message

Yes poodle and am also catable - having only recently found out what it meant!Please do.

Hi Praline. Something came up on the other site about school staff not being allowed to be given priority, and i remembered your post as i looked up the admissions policy (i was bored!) you should be able to use this if you cant get you child in, as apparantly they are not allowed to do it.....see post below from other site

poodle Sat February 23, 2008 8:00 PM

AE, does that go for all schools or are va exempt? just i followed up another posters thread about admissions appeal for primary,and it had this on the school website:

"In the interests of recruitment and retention of teachers, places will be offered to the children of permanent teaching staff. After this consideration, children will be admitted in the following order of priority"

are they breaking the code on this?
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Reply Quote Duncanduncan Sat February 23, 2008 10:03 PM

Member
Posts: 173
Joined: Aug 2006

poodle,
The school should not have this as an admission criteria as admission expert has stated . The code is clear that this should not be an admission criteria. There is a bit of a get-out clause which says that an admission authority can offer a place to a newly appointed member of staff after the published offer date but not as you have posted. So the answer in my opinion is that they are breaking the code

Thanks pooodle
I noticed this too and wondered about it, not sure whether it would only help appeal if any child of a teacher had actually taken up a place in reception this year or not, but we'll see. Its just a pain finding out nothing until late April and paying £5 each friday to have my DS in a preschool for this sole reason! Especially now he is asking about his school.

Pooodle - if you see this..
Am dismayed by a message on the other site suggesting that my DS will be disadvantaged at an appeal by not already having friends in his own village when that is exactly what I hoped he'd gain from school. I really resent the inference that if I worked less and was able to meet more mums and him meet more children he'd have a better chance at appeal. I resent paying extra money to put him in the village preschool essentially to meet local kids when he is now just rather confused about which school he will go to and why he can't see it.Is this really what the appeal (if we need one) will look at - have I disadvantaged my son by working and placing him in an excellent nursery which the hospital provides close to work? - the pre-school in the village is only open mornings anyway! I am probably being over-sensitive but I have no choice but to work and this isn't an easy village to make friends in even if you don't work.

Smurfs, I hope that you have a flag on this post still despite it being a year ago - I don't have CAT on my account so can't contact you any other way.
Was hoping to pick your brains re appeal as ours looks quite similar to yours and I just found out (5 min ago!) that my son didn;t get into his preferred school. Gutted. If you get this can you let me know and I will start new thread? THanks!

pooodle on Fri 08-Feb-08 17:27:37
"be careful, it is very very very difficult territory, read up on the primary appeals threads to find out why. if you cannot prove the admission authority made a mistake in applying the criteria, it is an automatic no, no matter how heart rendering the reasons. its law, they cannot go over it. "

They can even if they did not make a mistake but there is still a valid case why the child should have been admitted. We got our dd into an oversubscribed school on medical grounds though the appeals panel said no mistake had been made as such, but her needs were so overriding. The needs have to be pretty strong though and well backed up.