Reception Appeal Lost - have i got anything to go to the LGO with?

[happymyrtle]

Primary School Admission Appeal lost - can anyone help me with whether or not I have a case for the LGO?

We were not allocated chosen schools on basis that they are all over subscribed - ie PANs reached - then appealed for nearest/preferred and first school on list and lost.

Points we raised were (1) health: widespread mouth ulcers our son gets when nervous stressed (supported by doctors letter), (2)admissions criteria: PAN was 60 3 years ago, then 59 2 years ago (yet they still offerred 60 places, 59 last year (yet they still offerred 60 places) and 57 this year (with 57 allocated and another 3 given on appeal) - it appears they are really operating at 60 to me as an outsider and holding 3 places back for appeal (3) os map they use to measure distance from school to house does not show extension put on the house 10 years ago that moves house 4 metres towards school + paperwork says "from centre of house" but actually uses os point at furthest corner of house away from school(our attached neighbours have got into the school so every metre is relevant)(4) i work 8.30 - 6 2 days a week so need someone to take and collect my son from school - he is at preschool of nearest school so have plenty of friends to help if he goes there but not at offerred school and employer confirmed in writing that they cannot change my hours to allow for school drop off, and younger child will have to give us place at preschool as cannot be in two places at same time on 3 days i dont work.

sorry what a mouthful - does anyone see anything i hear i could take to the LGO.

It seems very odd to me that with at least 18 people appealling only 3 met their criteria - seems to me like they just allocated 3 to take it back to 60 and not over.

any help much appreciated.

I think you potentially have two points to refer to the LGO here.

Firstly, your point about the PAN suggests, as you say, that they are effectively operating a PAN of 60 with 3 places held back for successful appeals. They cannot do that. They would need to have a very good reason for reducing the PAN in this way. They certainly should not have offered 60 places when the PAN was 59. Although that isn't directly relevant as it was last year and the year before, I would certainly bring that up with the LGO as that tends to support the view that the PAN is really 60. Add that to the fact that there have been 3 successful appeals this year and it is already a pretty strong case, especially if your child would have been one of those admitted had the PAN still been 60.

Secondly, there is absolutely no way they should be using an OS map for measurements. I hope that means this is a school that handles its own admissions. I wouldn't expect a local authority to be taking measurements off an OS map. They should be using a GIS (Geographical Information System - a very accurate computerised measurement). And if their admission criteria say they measure from the centre of the house, that is what they must do. How relevant that is depends on how much you missed out by. The appeal papers should have stated how far your are away from the school according to their measurements and the distance of the furthest child admitted. That will tell you how significant those few extra metres really are. If the appeal papers did not include that information, you should complain about that to the LGO as well.

The LGO is unlikely to be interested in the health issues. That is really a matter for the panel to decide. The LGO won't want to interfere with the panel's judgement on that issue. Similarly the transport issues won't interest the LGO and were probably ignored by the appeal panel. Transport issues rarely result in a successful appeal, I'm afraid.

If you go ahead with a complaint to the LGO, from experience I should warn you that you should not let whoever answers the phone put you off. Unless it has changed, they are junior staff who frequently give very poor advice about admission cases, often wrongly suggesting that the LGO won't take a case. Insist that you want to refer your case to the LGO.

If you are successful, the most likely outcome will be a fresh appeal. The LGO does sometimes recommends that the child is admitted but opts for a second appeal in most cases. A second appeal would be heard by a different panel to the first appeal.

Excellent advice from PRH (as always )

I agree the reduction in the PAN sounds dodgy as they are definitely not allowed to "keep" places for appeals.

Just to explain how things work WRT your comment "It seems very odd to me that with at least 18 people appealling only 3 met their criteria - seems to me like they just allocated 3 to take it back to 60 and not over. "
Yes that is how the appeals panel have to work. - appeals code para 3.30a "If infant class size prejudice is not proven, the panel must decide which children should be admitted before infant class size prejudice arises, and then consider all remaining appeals as infant class size prejudice cases. Panels must not make decisions until all the appeals have been heard."

So there must have been (in the opinion of the panel) 3 or less (or no) "mistakes" made by the admissions authority. Eg they could admit 2 for "mistakes" and one other where (in their view) prejudice to child not to admit was the greatest of the remaining appellants. The remaining appellants could not be admitted as no "mistake" was made in their cases. (Obviously if there were more than 3 "mistakes" then all the appellants with "mistakes" would normally be admitted)

I hope that makes sense?

Firstly I would say that you have no ability to question the decisions made in terms of your child's health issues or the issue over your work arrangements and the LGO will not be interested in such arguements.

The changing PAN makes me ask you whether this is a welsh school or an english school as the rules are lightly different in wales and could lead to this changing Admission Number. How do you know that the PAN was changing from one year to another? Did the admission authority volunteer this information?

There are potentially questions to be asked about the PAN depending on how you answer the above questions. What should happen in england assuming that the PAN is 57 is that the panel will hear the arguement by the admission authority to not admit any further pupils. They have at the end of stage 1 a number of decisions to make but the key one from your point of view is whether the admission authority have made their case and that the school cannot admit all 18 appealants. As the panel will note that infant class size regs comes into effect at 60 I would say that it is a certainty that the admission authority will make their case.

The other key question is whether the admission arrangements were correctly administered. This should be stated on the letter you got confirming that the appeal was unsuccessful and I would assume at present that the arrangements were not at fault.

At stage 2 in the appeals the panel hears all the personal circumstances and has a decision to make as to how many of those cases excede the prejudice to the school. That is something only the panel will know but the panel must not allow the ICS regs to be breached so the maximum they can admit is 3 to get to 60. The panel has to weigh up the cases and decide which three have the highest level of prejudice and admit those three.

I therefore do not see any obvious faults with the methodology that the panel will have followed to get to admitting the maximum of 3 at appeal, given that the panel can only go on the strength of the cases presented and not where you might or might not be on the waiting list.

That brings us back to the question of the official Admission Number, is it 57 or 60? If it is actually 60 then I would say you do have a case, because given the assumption that your neighbour got a place you would be the next on the list for a place of which there were 3, assuming this on distance only. But I suspect that the admission authority would not make such a basic mistake. The key is what is the quoted admission number in the LA book on primary admissions. If it says 57 then you have no case, if it says 60 then you have a case.

I would agree with PRH that they should not be using an OS map to decide distance. However many LAs do use a computerised OS map system for the measurements and this is very accurate. Each building has what is called a seed point on it and this is the point that it is measured from, this would accord with the comment about the centre of the house as this is usually where the seed point is - it will potentially not take into consideration any extension. I don't believe that the LGO will be interested if this point has been used but you then say about it being measured from the furthest corner of the house which is clearly not correct. Did you raise this at the appeal? If so then talk to the LGO.

What was the distance to your house and the distance to your neighbour who got a place? They should be very close, if not then they either did not get the place solely on distance or there is a mistake.

Sorry this gets very complicated and you do need to know all the info.

I see that Betsyboop is taking a different approach to the situation in that they are assuming that this is an infant class size case. So another question comes up, did the admission authority make a case that this was infant class size or would become an infant class size if more than 3 were admitted? Or did they as I have assumed just make a case for not admitting above the admission number of 57 without mentioning infant class size regs?

There are more questions than answers to this!

Thank you all for your advice - i am very grateful having read myself into a standstill over this. now largely brain dead!!

re the PAN - headmaster says in an email "for the last 3 years we have been allocated 60 children in reception though in sept 2009 59 of the parents accepted places. however our pupil admissions no has been in 2007- 59, 2008 - 59 and 2009 - 57. This is not the number of children that were admitted but the number of places made available to us by the local authority". do you know if the formulae has changed recently as i cannot see why the pan has been reduced - the headmaster himself says he has always taken 60 and the school has not changed - so why would the pan have been reduced?

I have been told that whilst we are first on the waiting list - the first three places not taken up will not be allocated to take the number admitted back to 57 - which effectively now moves us back to 4th.

Re the admissions criteria - i have been through the semantics with the lea 100 times - the appeal statement says "children with the strongest geographical claim, measured in a straight line from the centre of the child's home address (including flats) to the central point of the school, using the LAs computerised measuring system, with those living closer to the school receiving the higher priority". however it is clear from the map we have been sent that it is not the centre of the house either as they have it mapped or post extension 10 years ago. i have questioned this and am told variously "we use the centre point of every property as pre-determined by the os", and " taken from a central point of an address as pre-determined by the os", and "use a straight line distance using os co-ordinates (northings and eastings) which measures the central point of your home" ....

The map the lea provided showing the last place allocated - has the line going straight through the address point of the house - and this is very clearly not the centre of the property.

I have a friend in the os and asked him to look into this - he has recalculated the figures for me using the centre of the up to date satelite image (.410)(actual centre not address point) - and as you can see there is a .002 difference to the .412 that the lea measure us to be. the last person allocated was .409. i wondered if there was a semantics issue here perhaps.

many thanks for your time and advice.

thanks for added help just read - it is an english school and my second post may anwer most queries - the PAN this year is 57 though the headmaster is adamant and has told the lea he can take 60 as he always has. 57 were allocated on day 1 and 3 more have been given on appeal - 3 places to be clawed back as places are not taken up - before we at no 1 on waiting list are given consideration.

did take up all issues at appeal and their argument is that 57 is pan as of this year.

vis distances see my earlier post - last person in .409 - lea have us at .412 - if accurate to satelite image we are .410.

thanks but losing hope and not such a happy myrtle

There's not much I can add here, except to reiterate that you need to highlight areas where there is evidence to suggest that provisions of the admissions and appeal codes have not been followed. You need to establish whether or not this was treated under ICS rules and the point about where the measurement was taken from is certainly worth pursuing (even if unltimately it gets you nowhere).

Don't just go over all the ground you covered at your unsuccessful appeal.

The PAN is determined based on the school's net capacity, although the LA is allowed to set a PAN different from that indicated by the capacity. The method for calculating the net capacity hasn't changed for years so this doesn't give any reason for changing the PAN unless there have been changes to the school's buildings. What is the net capacity of this school?

I would include the headmaster's email in your submission to the LGO, along with anything else you have in writing from him about being able to admit 60 or the school admitting 60 in previous years. If the admissions booklet says the PAN is 60 you definitely have a case but, given the comments from the headmaster, I think the LGO may be interested even if the admissions booklet says 57. It is a strange admission number to set and it is positively inviting appeal panels to admit 3 further children. The appeal panel generally have to work with the PAN but the LGO is entitled to consider whether there has been maladministration in setting the PAN. My argument would be that setting the PAN at 57 pretty much guarantees that 3 further children will be admitted at appeal, noting that this has indeed been the result of the appeals this year. I would therefore suggest that the effect of setting this PAN is that the school is operating with an admission number of 60 with 3 of those places being reserved for appeals.

It may be that the LA has a good justification for this reduction in PAN but it doesn't sound like they gave that in evidence to the appeal.

They did use a GIS for measuring systems. That takes away some concerns. The difference between your measurement and the LA's measurement is only 3.5 yards (assuming distances are in miles) and still leaves you just outside the last person allocated, which makes this a weak point unless they've got that measurement wrong. The map they provided may well be intended as indicative rather than a totally accurate representation - I have seen other appeals where the map provided by the LA mis-located the appelants house a little but they had in fact measured from the correct point. Thankfully distance wasn't an issue in that appeal. They should, of course, provide an accurate map for the appeal. I would also note that their published criteria say they measure from the centre point of the address. If I was interpreting that strictly I might expect them to measure from the centre of the plot of land on which the house stands, in which case your extension would not be relevant. As Admission says, if they have measured correctly from the seed points they are probably ok. Their wording makes it clear that their GIS has the final word on distance, so evidence from your friend at the OS is unlikely to help unless he/she can show that they are not using the correct seed point. It is certainly worth raising this with the LGO on the basis that the evidence provided indicated that they measured from the wrong point on your property.

Don't lose hope! I think it is definitely worth taking this to the LGO. I can't guarantee you will succeed but I think it is worth trying.

Admission, you are right, I had assumed that the admission authority had made the case that admitting more than 60 would be ICS, but I should know better than to assume anything

happymyrtle you said "using the LAs computerised measuring system" - so does that mean the LA are using some form of GIS? If so I think that it will be impossible very difficult to argue over the distances calculated unless they have actually measured you from the wrong house etc. The LA may wish to tweak the wording on their admissions literature to remove doubt/questions, but I think it very unlikely that an appeals panel will overturn the measurement using a GIS unless it's been done from the wrong property.

If the PAN has changed, then it has to be done "officially" (at least in my LA, I'm assuming it's the same everywhere?) through a "Variation to Admission Numbers" process & parents have the opportunity to object both to the LA & the schools adjudicator. It would be worth seeing what (if any) documentation you can get your hands on for this (my LA publish community & VC schools on their website - but for VA schools I'm assuming the schools have it) as they will have had a reason for reducing numbers (eg "decrease in local demand for places" - which clearly isn't true of your school!)

x-post with PRH

Just to add, (in my LA at least) "Schools Admissions forum" minutes are published on the web too, and are a wealth of useful information for appeals sometimes (I have used them to show that LA were aware of an issue that caused a mistake in the admissions process & then repeated the same mistake the following year, having not fixed the root cause - my friend (whose appeal it was for) said it was lovely to watch the LA person squirm & needless to say they won )

The arguement of the PAN by the LA is somewhat bizarre. For a primary school the PAN is nearly always a multiple of 30 because of the ICS Regs.

So for the LA to have had PANs of 59,59,57 and 57 is strange. You cannot argue that the admission arrangements have not been properly implemented as they have. But PRH has a good point that a PAN of 57 is more or less guaranteing admitting 3 on appeal as the classrooms are able to take 30. It is a mute point what the LGO will make of this and you have nothing to loose by making such a case.

I think that it would be very interesting to try and find the school admissions forum minutes which should be somewhere on the LAs site. The alternate is that the LA has to formally accept the changes to the PANs at schools, that will have happened in the period January to March 2009 for this september's intake. Look through the Council or the Executive of the Council minutes for this period for an agenda item on school admissions.

Personally I would forget about the distance criteria because it has been done according to the LA methodology and it is unlikely that the LGO will take this point any further. Simply concentrate on the issue about whether the LA are incorrect in having such a PAN and how are they justifying it in the context of the head's comments and the actions of previous appeal panels.

thank you all again from rainy cheltenham - i think advice to abandon distance issue is wise - though there are a few semantics issue i agree there is little more than that.

on escaping work tonight i shall set to on the LA site and see what i can acquire in the way of admissions forum minutes.

i also await advice from the LA re why this year they are clawing the three appeals places back (ie the first 3 places to be not taken up will not be re-allocated to make up for the 3 given on appeal) when clearly this is not what has happened in the past.

there must be more to life than this .....

The LA is correctly administering the system at the moment. If the Admission Number is 57, they cannot admit any more pupils till they get to 56 in the year. that is the legal requirement, though I accept that they appear to have not done that in previous years.