Successful appeal for reception class place above 30

[seahorse]

I've just heard that my appeal to allow ds a place in a reception class has been upheld. We had to argue on the very narrow grounds allowed when all 30 places have been allocated.
If anyone needs any advice, help or ideas as to how to go about this process please post them here.

littlefishy1 - usually schools have a policy which gives priority to siblings. so you should be OK. If not, and given this school has been allocated to your older child I would expect that you would have strong grounds to appeal on the basis of unreasonableness for you younger child. But of course you need not appeal until such time as the younger starts school (and indeed only if they do not get a place).

We also appealed and won places for my dds in yr 1 and yr 2 at the local, officially full, school. It was maybe similar to seahorse's case, we moved into a village and very much wanted the dds to go to their local school (a 5 minute walk) rather than to the nearby city school they had been going to, which was now a drive away. Officially the yr 1 class was oversubscribed and the yr 2 class full. Even though the classes only had about 16-20 children in, the school is limited by physical space restraints.

I wrote a rather impassioned appeal essay which got the girls a place that same week, even though we had been told it would be a long wait to go to formal appeal and probably then a long time on a waiting list til 2 other children left the school.

my appeal focused on the immense importance for small children to be part of their local community and go to their local school, and the impact on car use of having to drive them to another school rather than walk them to our local school. I think this worked as our LEA is very keen on reducing car traffic into the city at rush hour, and is also keen on children going to their local catchment school where possible. I used quite emotive phrases such as "forcing infants to become car commuters into the city rather than being integrated into their local community"!

so I suggest it might be worth looking at your LEA's priorities on a website and seeing if you can tie these into your appeal.

thanks for all the comments, I'm going to put the appeal in later this week, hopefully a place will come up on the waiting list

and littlefish... didn't realise our similar names, this is my ebay name I've had for a few years (pet name for ds!), used it automatically... we've got similar taste! I'm sure I can come up with something else if its a problem

Hope the appeal goes well Littlefishy1.

I'd be really grateful if you could think of another name if possible.

Hi there

Only just found this website and was wondering if anyone - maybe seahorse? had some advice for us. We are going to appeal on 10th February to get our daughter into the local catholic school. She is in reception, the class has 31 (one permitted exception with special needs and full time support) and we have only just moved into the area. This is the only school we wish her to go to as we want her to have a catholic education. It is the only catholic school within a 2 mile radius. So far, our arguments centre around the fact that we believe it was unreasonable for the school to deny her a place because the benefits to her outweigh any disadvantages but we still feel this will be somewhat of a fight. Does anyone have any advice for us? It would be very much appreciated. Thanks

Humzinger - I think you might get more replies if you started your own thread to ask for help.

Humzinger - come and talk to me about this...

Tell me about the appeal.

my child has been going to the nursery of our local school for nearly 5 terms..only to loose a place due to simply and purely our postcode...oh and a baby boom!we live in a rural village with no young children..we are older parents and all our friends and families children are either university are working...there are two schools within a 5 minute drive...the one we chose was the one slightly further...her only friends she has are the nursery friends ..her teachers hav said she is so far and above any expectations of a child of her age..by moving schools at this point will have a serious effect on her both socially and mentally...do we have any chance with an appeal....any advice would be grateful..p.s.she is very sensitive to change..there hav been two intakes of children at the school which hav affected her.....constent wetting accidents..behaviour etc..

Hi Seahorse

I know its been ages that you won the appeal however, it would be very helpful if you can email me your appeal to as my son have been refused a place in our preferred school. Please help.....

Seahorse's appeal was 12 years ago. Things have changed since. I very much doubt her case would succeed today. To win you need to show that a mistake has been made which has cost your child a place, or the admission arrangements don't comply with the Admissions Code and this has cost your child a place, or that the decision to refuse to admit your child was irrational.

If you would like to post details about your case you will get help from experts. But recycling someone else's successfully case is very unlikely to be a winning strategy.

Hi Seahorse.
This is years ago for you but starting for me.
I have an appeal in a couple of weeks - had no idea how hardcore it all is - I thought it was just a friendly chat!
Could you send me your old appeals info - I need to put a strong case together - contemplating getting professional help?
Let me know if you still have and would consider sending and i will give you my email. thanks!

Seahorse has not been on this site for 12 years (at least, not under that username) so I doubt you will get a reply. Some of her advice on this thread is very outdated. Her case would be unlikely to succeed today.

I would recommend against getting professional help. It is usually a waste of money. There are no obscure legal points involved in appeals and you won't get you money back even if you win.

To win you need to show that:

• the admission arrangements do not comply with the Admissions Code and this has cost your child a place, or

• the admission arrangements have not been administered correctly and this has cost your child a place, or

• the decision to refuse to admit your child was unreasonable (which essentially means irrational)

As I said above, recycling someone else's successful case is very unlikely to be a winning strategy as the reasons they won are almost certainly not relevant to your situation. And recycling a case from 12 years ago is even less likely to work.

If you post details of your case on Mumsnet you will get help from experts. But, assuming yours is an infant class size case, you need to be realistic. Unless you have evidence that there has been a mistake and your child should have been offered a place your appeal is unlikely to succeed.

Seahorse

I know this is a very old post but I appear to be in the same position as you

Would you mind helping out with some pointers or even letting me see a copy of your appeal ?

Thanks so much in advance

Terrytrowell please see prh47bridge's last couple of posts above. Seahorse's appeal was so long ago that the details wouldn't help you anyway, even if he/she were still on the site.

I would post a thread of your own, better on Primary Education rather than just Education, where there are 3-4 really knowledgeable posters (including the aforementioned prh47bridge, also admission and tiggytape - to name only 3, apologies for omissions!)

You'll get up-to-date, excellent advice for your situation. Good luck.

Hi Seahorse, are you still around to help? Xxx

As per my last post, Seahorse hasn't posted since 2003. I suggest you start a thread of your own in Primary Education.

I suspect if you strip away all that was said the only reason the appeal succeeded was because the school failed to publish admission criteria in sufficient time for parents to make an application. Rest doesn't apply to ICS.

As prh has wisely and repeatedly said, seahorse's apparently winning strategy from more than a decade ago probably wouldn't succeed now. And please, please, please do not think for a moment that attaching the caselaw to your appeal, outlining the meaning of reasonable, is the way to go! Panel members receive a lot of training abaout how to interpret reasonable and don't need to be sent an extract from a legal textbook.