Appeal dismised for Reception 2010

[sareca]

hi there, can anyone help me. My daughter was not offrd a place at the 1st choice school I chose for her, I appealed and it was dismissed. The reason being I live too far away from the school. However before I appled I asked admissions twice if it would be a problem, they said no both times. My daughter is not at school at the moment and I am teaching her at home. I have been in touch with my local councillor and advised her of the situation, she is writing a letter of support to the Education Appeals Panels asking them to reconsider, I have also written to them and the Director of Young Children and Families for my local council. My son attends the nursery at the school I want my daughter to attend. The funny thing is I have been told that I live too far from the school but my younger brother attends the school and we live on the same road. My daughter has been offered a place at the 3rd choice I specified, I did not want to put this school but I knew that if I didnt and this problem arose she would be given a place at any school that had space and I did not want that. The school she has been given a place at is closer to where we live, but I cannot get 2 children to 2 diffrnt schools at the same time. I was told by admissions that Nursery is not compulsary so I should take my son out and take my daughter to school. The school was a last resort school as the other two choices both had schools and nurseries, which would make it easier for me to get them to and from, especially as I have a 9 week old baby as well, plus both are excellent schools. My daughter also attended the nursery at the school and the teachers helped with her speech therapy as she has a speech impediment, they were fantastic, all this information was given in my appeal. The response from the Education Appeals PAnels, was the appeal was dismissed as classes are full, but I know find that its because of distance that she was not given a place, am VERY annoyed. Can anyone tell me if they have been in the same situation and how it turned out or does anyone know what else I may be able to do. I am so stressed and worried about this. I want my daughter to be in school enjoying the experience. I need help.

Sorry I haven't got a clue but would your second choice school have a place for your daughter if you moved your DS to that nursery? (assuming there's a space for him?)

Unfortunately there is a limit on class size - 30 children in a reception class. After siblings of children already at the school however many places are left out of the 30 are given to the nearest children. All the other children will have lived nearer to you, so that is why you have no place. The class IS full and you lived too far away.

Where is she on the waiting list - you might be lucky if you're near the top and another child or children leaves.

what titchy says.

it is obviously annoying that you don't live close enough to get into your preferred school, but I'm not sure what you expect them to do about it. Presumably your brother was accepted in a year when fewer people applied who lived closer.

None of the schools round here have a nursery so that in itself is no reason to reject a school.

If the council uses distance from school as a tie breaker (which most do) then that would be why you failed to get a place initially. If they use a lottery to allocate places then distance doesn't enter into it. Either way, you obviously failed to get a place in the initial allocations. The fact that your younger brother is at the school is irrelevant - he is in a different year from your daughter and there may not have been as many children applying for places that year.

The reasons you failed to get a place initially should have been stated on the letter telling you that you had failed to get a place at your first choice school. They would also have been stated in the council's case for the appeal. If it is because you lived too far away they would have said that and would also have stated the distance to your house and the distance for the last pupil admitted.

As Titchy says, there is a limit on class size in infants. Classes in Reception, Y1 and Y2 must have no more than 30 children. If admitting your child would have caused the school to go over this limit the only way you could have won your appeal would have been to show that the council made a mistake in refusing your initial application, e.g. because you were placed in the wrong admission category or because they measured the distance to your house incorrectly. If no mistake has been made I am afraid the appeal panel is right to reject your appeal on the grounds that the class is full and admitting your child would cause class size prejudice.

If the council's case and the panel's decision don't mention class size prejudice it means that admitting your child would not have pushed a class over the 30 limit. However, the argument then would be about whether the prejudice to your daughter through not attending the school outweighed the prejudice to the school through taking another child when it was already full. If that was the position I'm afraid the arguments about nursery, etc. that you give do not make a compelling case. Sorry.

I'd say stay on the waiting list and find out your position. You can't expect to have priority over someone living nearer.

I agree with PRH, everything you have said seems to me to suggest that the appeal panel were correct in their decions.
Whilst i am sure that you feel that you have a good case for admission I am afraid that you don't. You will not receive any good news from either the local councillor or the Director of Education because they simply do not have any jurisdiction to overturn a decision of the admission panel, only the LGO can do that and then only when there have been major mistakes made.
I think that you need to re-think what you can do on the basis of accepting the place offered, whilst keeping in touch with the LA about being on the waiting list for the school you want.

Lots of good advice here already.

Schools usually give priority to siblings of children already in the school, but being the older sibling of a child in the nursery does not count for that. Nor is it relevant that your brother (your child's uncle) attends the school. Unless your child's speech problems are severe enough to be treated as a medical need and unless the school can cater for that need better than any other local school (does it have a speech therapy unit or specialist staff?) then that will not give you priority for a place either.

It sounds to me that the panel made the correct decision in law, even though it is disappointing for you. You need to make other plans - joining waiting lists for other schools, looking in neighbouring boroughs and finding a place for your child.

Many parents end up in the situation with two children at different schools. What they do is to find somebody who can take one child while they take the other: a friend or a relative or a childminder. It's annoying, but will the same for many parents.

thanks all for your replies.

I would like to point out that the reasons my daughter were not given a place were not specified in any letter I received from the council, hence my annoyance that I have now been told distance is the issue.

My brother is one year younger than my daughter, so he applied last year and the applicants for the school were higher than this year according to the school secretary.

It is hard to explain the many many conversations and different pieces of information I have been given by the council without taking all day to go through it.

A friend of our family actually used to work for admissions up until the beginning of this year and after speaking with her a short while ago, she opened my eyes to what really goes on.

The second choice school has no spaces and the waiting list for that school I have been told is extensive. The nursery for that school is also full as I tried to get a place for my son there before he was offered a place at where he is now.

The funny thing is I used to live 2 roads away from the school and moved closer to my mums as my dad is unwell and I help to care for him. I asked admissions whether distance would be an issue as I knew I would be further away if I moved and didnt want to risk my daughter not being offered a place. I moved as I was told it was not a problem as I would be living within the distance limit, now I find that I'm not. Not really fair is it. Had I known that the information I was given was a load of rubbish I would have stayed where I was.

Anyway, thank you again for all your comments and advice

Was distance mentioned in the case the council presented to the appeal? If it wasn't, distance is not the reason your child was not admitted. If distance was the reason your child was not admitted the council would have stated the distance from your house to the school and the distance for the last child admitted as part of their case and this would have been in the documents sent to you before the hearing. If this information wasn't there, either the council has fouled up badly (unlikely) or distance was not the issue.

I wonder if the problem wasn't the distance but the timing of your move. If you move between submitting your application and places being allocated, many LAs will treat you as a late application. If this happened your daughter would only have got a place if the school wasn't full after dealing with the on time applications.

Without seeing the council's case for the appeal it is difficult to comment further. It may be that knowing all the details would show that a mistake was made, either by the council or the appeal panel. However, the letter from your local councillor will have no effect, nor will your letter to the Director of Children's Services. As Admission says, the only way an appeal decision can be overturned is through the Local Government Ombudsman (unless you are willing to spend a lot of money on a judicial review, which I would not recommend).

I would like to help but I'm afraid nothing you've said so far indicates that a mistake was made.

Can you clarify the ages of the children?

I thought we were talking about an application/appeal for a place in Reception, but you mention that your brother who is a year younger than your daughter already attends the school. So are you applying for a place for your daughter in year 1 (or above)? Or is your brother in the nursery there? If so, that might also explain (in part) why he got a place and your daughter didn't, as nursery admissions aren't governed by the same criteria and, as people who live closer to the school may not want a nursery place there, it is often possible to get a place in a school's nursery even if you live farther away than the distance at which they usually allocate school places.

I think Prh47bridge has probably hit the nail on the head. Your house move (which you didn't mention in your first post) is likely to have put you into the category of late applicants.