Appeal

[Mumof5help]

Hi please can anyone offer advice? I’m due to complete an appeal for my children’s in year school transfer appeal, year 5 and 1. We have just moved into the area. The year one class currently has 30 pupils. Our current school is 5.5 miles away and all other schools in the area are also full to new admissions, what are my chances ?

It very much depends on the strength of the arguments you put forward for admitting your children and the strength of the school’s arguments for not admitting them. Bear in mind, though, that the Y1 appeal will be held under infant class size rules which (in a nutshell) mean that you’ll win only if you can show that an error has been made or the decision to refuse a place was so unreasonable that it should be overturned. That’s unlikely with an in-year application.

Unlikely for a child in year 1 because they can't go over 30 in a class, they would have to employ an extra teacher to be in ratio. You'd have to have greater reasons than just distance I think.

To add to PanelChair's comments, an infant class size appeal can be won on the basis that your child should have been treated as an excepted child, which means they don't count towards the infant class size limit. One of the categories of excepted children is children who have moved into the area outside the normal admissions round for whom there is no other available school within a reasonable distance. For primary school pupils, a reasonable distance is defined as 45 minutes journey each way. You say that all the schools in the area are full. If there are no places available nearer than your Y1 child's current school and it takes more than 45 minutes to make the journey, you can argue that your child should have been admitted as an excepted child.

Have you spoken to Admissions about the availability of places locally ? If you are moving into area they have the responsibility of trying to help you secure places.

You can also approach the local schools yourself, some will not tell you to complete an application form but I would for those schools that you want to. When refused, you can appeal.

I would appeal for the schools at the same time and request that they are scheduled for the same day. IMO that strengthens your chances as the panel almost choose for you from the options.

I suspect the issue you'll have is that 5.5 miles would not be considered an unreasonable distance unless it's significantly further by road. When I moved (admittedly not quite so far) it was expected DC continued to attend the current school until a place came up at a closer one.