school appeal help!!

[angryma]

Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum thingy so please be gentle.I lost my children's school appeal yesterday and am gutted. The panel consisted of three old women and one was actually answering for the lady from the LA. They disregarded the fact that my evidence was really strong and my son's disability which means he struggles walking even short distances.
Can someone please offer me any help??

Hi, sorry to hear you've lost the appeal. But can you give us more details? What evidence did you present that they disregarded? What disability does your son have? Why did they (presumably) feel that it wasn't necessary for your son to attend your chosen school? Why do they feel another school is suitable for your child if you feel only your chosen one is? etc etc...I hope someone comes along who can help you, maybe some more details will help.

As others have said, the age of the panel is irrelevant. However, in general members of the panel should not be answering questions on behalf of the LA. They are independent and must not act in ways that call their independence into question. Having said that, it depends on the questions you were asking.

Was this an infant class size case? What is the school's admission number? Did you apply as part of the normal admissions round (I presume not given the timing)? What year are we talking about here, Reception, Y1, Y2 or another year? What were the questions that the panel were answering instead of the LA? What reason has been given for rejecting your appeal?

I am happy to offer whatever help I can but, as others have said, we need more details.

Sorry for replying late. We've recently moved and the school that I was appealing for is around the corner from where I live.
The LA said the net capacity for the school was 204. The school currently has 224 pupils. But the PAN for the school is 245.
The LA stated that the infant class sizes are over 30. But I pointed out to the panel that the school uses vertical streaming and the class sizes are all under 30.They then said that the school was cramped etc. I presented them with the ofsted report and pointed out that there is no suggestion that the size of classes wasn't affecting the childrens education in any way.
They said teachers are already . overstretched, and there is no funding for in year admissions. I pointed out that the school has HLTA'S that can support teacher in class. Also I said that school census is taken in january and funding is based on these numbers. Anyway, schools are supposed to have some financial resources set aside to deal with unexpected spending requirements.
Can I also ask, when exactly do the panel receive a copy of my statement/ evidence, because three days before the appeal i went to the town hall to give my statement to the clerk to the panel and was told at the reception desk (by two of the most unhelpful women) that this was the wrong place to send it to and that I should take it to the childrens services. So I took it there only to be told that it was supposed to be sent to the town hall. Anyway the woman that I handed it into was the same woman that was fighting against my case.
So she had a real good read through and said wow you've really done your research and then proceeded to tell me that she would be going up against me. How silly of me.

I'd echo everything that's been said so far.

If this was an infant class size case - where classes are limited to 30 by law - you would have had to demonstrate that there had been some serious defect in the admissions process which had deprived your son of a place.

If the panel was not acting (and visibly acting) independently then you may have grounds for an appeal to the LGO. But you would have to convince them that the panellist was biased towards the LEA rather than (as is sometimes necessary when LEA representatives lapse into jargon) trying to draw out the point that they were making. (This is often necessary with nervous parents too.)

Finally, I know this has been said, but your gratuitous dig at the panel members for being old and female is unnecessary. Panellists are volunteers and so the pool is skewed towards those with time to give, who may well be older than you. But that probably also means that they have themselves gone through the school admissions process several times and have (sometimes) been school governors for donkeys' years and so know how it feels from both sides.

Do come back with more information and we can advise again.

You're saying, I think, that this was an infant class size case. If it is, then the limit, set by law, is 30 and the panel has almost no discretion to admit your child unless (as has been mentioned) you can show that the consideration of your application for a place was mishandled in some way.

On the information here, I doubt that it has. Schools do not make financial contingencies for admitting pupils over the statutory limit or have additional staff on tap. I assume the school's extra pupils are in KS2, not KS1. Nor do I think vertical streaming is the issue here.

Relevant papers for the appeal are supposed to be delivered to all in good time for the hearing. I don't see what your complaint about the LEA representative having seen your statement is - it would be more a matter of concern if they hadn't (or hadn't provided you with a copy of their statement). Neither side is supposed to bamboozle the other by producing new evidence at the hearing - if they do, the panel may have to adjourn to consider it.

The PAN is for one year only, not the whole school. I presume the PAN is therefore 35 (i.e. 245 / 7) although that seems a bit high if the net capacity is 204. However, it suggests that this is not an infant class size case.

The point about funding for in year admissions is, as you spotted, a complete red herring and should have been ignored by the panel.

The papers you received notifying you of the hearing should have told you how to submit your evidence. The clerk to the panel is supposed to send out all the papers to the panel members and you at least 7 working days before the hearing. Anything which arrives after that should be circulated immediately. If significant evidence is received less than 3 working days before the hearing the panel may decide to adjourn the hearing. The LA's representative would have been provided with a copy of your evidence at the same time as it was circulated to th panel so you didn't damage your position by giving it to her.

How many classes are there in infants and how are they arranged (i.e. how many children in each class and what years are they in)? There should have been a class arrangement in the LA's case which gives that information. That should be in the papers you received before the hearing.

What reason did the panel give for rejecting your appeal?

The big question we need to answer is whether the LA presented this as an infant class size (ICS) case (often referred to as "class size prejudice") and, if they did, whether or not it was ICS on the facts and, indeed, whether or not the panel decided it as an ICS case. Your statement that the LA said that infant class sizes are over 30 suggests it was presented as ICS. The PAN suggests it may not be ICS. Hence my questions about class arrangement and the panel's decision.

Excuse me but can I just hijack this thread a minute?

If a class is mixed with reception and yr1 pupils does the 30 children rule still apply?

Sorry for hijack!

Angryma,
Firstly in terms of the information that should have been presented, you should have put in writing your case as should the LA and these should have been sent to you before the date of the appeal. The rules are in paragraph 2.20 of the Schools Admission Appeal Code, which states that the admission authority (The LA) must supply the clerk to the appeal panel with these documents at least 10 school days before the appeal hearing date, unless you as the appealant has waived that right. The clerk then has to send out the appeal papers to the appealants, the presenting officer and the panel members at least 7 working days before the hearing.
Most LAs want you as the appealant to also abide by this timetable but actually you can present any evidence you want at any time (though there is a risk of an adjournment if you do it on the day of the appeal). You should have given the information to the clerk to the appeal panel rather than the presenting officer but they would have seen the information anyway before the appeal, so I don't think you have an issue there. I do wonder though whether you have a case regarding how and when you received the LA's case.
The figures you quote don't seem to make any sense. The net capacity of the school could well be 204 with 224 pupils, but then the PAN would actually be something like 29 (204 divided by 7). I am not sure where the figure of 245 comes into this. Could you confirm this figure?
What year group is your son? If they are infant then it would probably have been an infant class size case, where the criteria for admission is different. So what year group and the numbers in reception, year1 and year2 are all important. Can you also look at the papers provided by the LA, do they state that this is an infant class size case or not?

In fact for a pupil coming to the school mid-year which is an infant class size case practially it means that you cannot win on appeal, no matter how good your reasons were. The only criteria for admission is that the LA made a mistake in refusing you admission (unlikely) or that the decision made was perverse (even less likely.
If you wish to challenge the decision of the panel then you will have to do that with the Local Government Ombudsman but that has to be in terms of procedural issues, you cannot simply argue they made the wrong decision. The fact that you claim that one of the panel members was answering for the LA is a good starting point but I suspect you will need more to convince the LGO to order another appeal hearing.

Yes. The limit of 30 children in a class applies to any class where the majority of the children are in Reception, Y1 and Y2.

(my last post was for DaisyDisco, by the way)

Sorry answered my own question as I've realised it's an infant class size rule not a reception class size rule. {blush]

Thank you prh47bridge.

Discodaisy,
The answer is yes, it still applies. The only time it would not apply is if the majority of the class were not classed as infants, that is it was a mixed year2 / 3 class.

I obviously can't type as quickly as PRH and panelmember!

Sorry about being so vague in my post. I apologize if I offended anyone with the 'old women' part,but I was simply stating who the panel were.
My children are in yr1, yr2 and yr4.
The appeal was not a class size one, rather the LA were arguing that admitting three more
children would cause prejudice to the efficient provision of education or efficient use of resources.
They argued about the size of TEACHING SPACE and that the school is very cramped as it is.
Their arguement was also the financial resourses. I read on government website that sprimary schools are expected to 8% of their budget for unexpected spending requirements.
The LA stated that the school has reached it's PAN, but it clearly hasn't because the PAN for 2010 and the coming year is 245.
The school currently has 224 pupils.
The infant classes are mixed.
They are as follows;
reception-24
reception/y1-27
y1/y2-27
y2-28

So the school hasn't reached the 30 limit.
They went on to talk about how teachers would be overstretched.
I told the panel how I know of atleast five children who have left the school in the last few months.
I was told by the receptionist at the school that alot of families have moved out of the area but still attend the school.
Under our LA's admission policy they give preference to those living in the area.
A neice of mine was kicked out of another school in the area for being 10 STEPS OUTSIDE THE CATCHMENT AREA. The LA lady lied through her back teeth stating that they never measure the distance from pupils homes.
My son in yr2 is currently being assessed for autism. He has problems with his hearing and suffers from LLD. The school that I was appealing for has a room specially adapted for hearing impaired children. The panel ignored all these facts.
How could I argue the financial resources
aspect etc. Any help would be much appreciated.

To deal with the obvious first.

This was not a class size case.

The PAN is NOT 245. The PAN is the admission number, i.e. the number of children that will be admitted to Reception each year. If they admit 245 to Reception every year the school will be very full - over 1700 children! The figures you have given suggest that the PAN is actually 35, meaning that there would be 245 children in the school if every year was full. If they have 35 children in the relevant year (Y2 for your son) they are up to PAN. The fact that the school is under the 245 it would have if it admitted up to PAN every year doesn't change that fact.

If your neice was kicked out of a school she was attending for being outside the catchment area that was a serious error. Once you have a place at the school and have started attending it can only be taken away from you if the place has been obtained fraudulently, and even then it can only be taken away during the child's first term at the school. However, if your neice failed to gain a place because she was outside the catchment area there is nothing wrong with that.

There is nothing wrong with families moving out of the area and continuing to attend the school. They are legally entitled to do so. The LA CANNOT take a pupil's place away just because they have moved. The LA will not measure the distance from pupil's new homes when they move, so the LA representative was telling the truth.

Have you had the appeal panel's decision in writing yet? If that states that the prejudice to the school from admitting your son outweighed the prejudice to your son then the panel have dealt with the case correctly.

As Admission says, you cannot go to the LGO and argue that the panel made the wrong decision. The only basis for going to the LGO is that the wrong procedure was followed. A panel member answering questions may be a start towards that depending on what the questions were, but it may not be enough on its own. So far nothing else you have said constitutes a procedural irregularity, I'm afraid.

In addition to thinking about whether you can put together a case for the LGO, you should make sure your children are on the waiting list for this school.

Angryma,
I very much hope that the LA in their written statement did not state that the PAN was 245, because this is incorrect and if they did it illustrates a frightening lack of understanding of the admission arrangements.
The net capacity of the school is 245 which when divided by 7 gives 35 which will probably be the PAN for the school. It is not the net capacity figure which is important but the PAN. The school has to admit up to its PAN in each year group on request from a parent. When they go above the figure of 35 per year group then they would not admit and parents have to go to appeal.
It is difficult to work out the exact numbers in year 1 and year 2 because there is no breakdown to year group but adding up the reception, year 1 and year2 numbers comes to 106, which divided by 3 is 35. So my guess would be that the LA is perfectly entitled to say that they cannot admit as they are at their PAN in year 1 and year2
You are quite correct that the classes have not met their 30 limit but this is not the reason for the initial refusal to admit, it is because the school is at PAN of 35. As such it is for your two youngest children not an infant class size appeal.
The LA will always talk about the financial pressures and the cramped classrooms - they might well be right but it is for the panel to decide whether they could admit for each child in turn. I could well see why the panel might agree with the LA that they should not admit on the predujice to the school at the end of the first stage. But when it came to your particular circumstances I would have thought that the panel may have been sympathetic to your child with special needs and admitted them, because the prejudice to the child outweights the prejudice to the school, especially on the basis of LLD. It is difficult to know how the panel would view your other two children but I suspect that the panel may well have fallen into the trap of taking all three children as in effect one appeal, whereas they should have looked at each individual case in turn. You could then easily have had a more difficult decision to make with one child being offered a place and the other two not.
The issue over 8% of funding being retained is just gobbledy gook from the government, no primary school was allowed until two weeks ago to have more 8% of free cash at the end of the financial year without it being clawed back by the LA and most primary schools do not have any spare cash. It is not relevant to an admission appeal as is the LA comments about the financial implications of not getting funding till next year - actually if your children were in school at the beginning of January the school would get funding from April.
If I am honest I do not see a lot in your posts that would allow an appeal to the LGO to have any chance of success. You need to consider your other options and ask the LA where there is a school that can accomodate all three of your children.

Speaking as the parent of two disabled children who can only walk short distances, my experience is that this does not constitute grounds for admitting a pupil to the nearest school: the LEA are far more likely to offer transport to a further school that has spaces.

Thanks for the clarification, OP.

Some more excellent advice here from admission and prh47bridge - they are much more knowledgeable than me on the subject of non-standard class sizes, as schools in our LEA are so big and so oversubscribed that we always admit in multiples of 30 - and I can't add to it.

Yes prh47bridge, the PAN for the whole school is 245. The admission numbers for my three children years are 35. The infant classes are under 30 at present(YR1 AND YR2),and my eldest YR4 group is 35.
I have received the decision in writing and it states:
'The panel felt that to admit further children into the school would cause prjudice to the efficient provision of education or efficient use of resources'.
Admission, the net capacity for the school is 204. They currently have 224 pupils in whole school. But the PAN for each yr group is 35. The PAN for the whole school is 245.
The appeal for all three children was indeed treated as one.

Just to clarify, there is no such thing as a "PAN for the whole school". The PAN applies to an individual year. Whether or not the school is below the number it would have if all years were full up to PAN is irrelevant. Class sizes are also irrelevant when looking at PAN. All that matters is the number of children in the year, not how they are arranged into classes.

To give a couple of examples, if there are 35 children in Y4 the school is up to PAN in that year even if they are mixed in with other years and taught in classes of 20. Any further children applying for Y4 will therefore be refused admission even if the rest of the school is empty. For completeness I should say that there are a few exceptions such as children with a statement of SEN naming the school who must be admitted even if the school is full. But in general if the year for which you are applying is full up to PAN your child will not be admitted no matter how few children are in the school overall.

It works the other way too. If there were 32 children in Y4 and 3 more children applied for admisssion the LA would have to admit all 3 of them, even if all the other years were overfull and the school was bursting at the seams.

I have to say that I am surprised the PAN is so high. The net capacity suggests a PAN of 29. Given ICS regulation I would have expected the LA to set it at 30. An appeal panel has to remember that the years that are currently below PAN could fill up at any time. A PAN of 35 means that if every year is full the school will be 41 children over capacity. That is a lot. Indeed, the school is already 20 beyond its net capacity. I would therefore expect that appeal panels would be very reluctant to admit children into any year that is already full as it will only make the school even more overfull than it already is.

I wonder why the PAN is so high. Has the school been extended since the net capacity was set?

You haven't clarified what questions the panel were answering for the LA. It is just possible that putting this together with the possibility that the panel treated it as a single appeal rather than considering the cases individually may be enough to get a second appeal from the LGO but I think it is a long shot. However, even if you do get a second appeal I think the best you can hope for is to get your Y2 son admitted. Your best hope for all your children is the waiting list so make sure you are on it. Given your son's disability you should also talk to the LA about transport to the allocated school.

Angryma,
Can you go back to the original written paperwork that was the Local Authority case and post exactly what was said in the written paperwork about net capacity of the school and the PAN because it is still not clear what figures were being used by the panel. AS PRH says if the net capacity is really 204 then having a PAN of 35 is not appropriate, it should be 30. Under those circumstances it is no surprise that the panel said the school was full
It would be very useful if you could say how many classes there are across the whole school and the number in each class and year groups. Plus did the LA quote any sizes for the rooms, as they were stating they were crowded.
Also when did you receive this written information?
What else does the letter say? The phrase you have quoted is the standard sentence but this should then have gone on to state what was considered by the panel in making such a decision.

Hi prh47bridge, the net capacity for the school in the local authorities paperwork was 204. The school currently has 225 pupils. But the PAN for reception, y1,y2,y3,y4,y5 and y6 is 35 each. I'm confused myself.
I thought that if the school used mixed classes and the classes fell short of 30 (as they do in this schools case) then at least 2 of my children could have places. Also they have exceeded the limit in another year too.
Admission, in reception they have 34
yr 1 - 37
yr 2 -35
These classes are all mixed and so the numbers
are
reception - 24
reception/yr1 - 27
y1/y2 - 27
y2 - 28
The other years are yr 3 - 34
yr 4 -35
yr 5 -27
yr 6 - 22
There are 4 infant classes and 4 junior classes.
The measurements for the classes were written as 25 pupils - 67m2
27 pupils - 42m2
27 pupils - 42m2
28 pupils - 47m2
The 4 junior classrooms are all 50m2.
I received the written information over a week before the appeal.
The decision letter reads as follows;

The panel heard evidence , as part of the LA's case about how the authority determined the size of the intake at the preferred school(But on the letter from the school the head has said 'the admissions limit is set by the governors at 35)and the consequences for the school and the children concerned of exceeding that intake number.
The school was already overcrowdwe in parts and the overall lack of space at the school was contributing to possible health and safety issues. (I pointed out that the current ofsted report makes no suggestion that there is such problem).
The admission of any further children would reduce the available pupil/teacher contact time by increasing class sizes.
The panel noted that the school had already reached its standard admission number in this year group and that there are vacancies in other school in the area in which you live. ( nearest is 20 walk all on busy roads)
After giving the case careful consideration , the panel decided the LA had established that all normailly available places at the schoolhad already been allocated in accordance with the published criteria. The panel was also satisfied that the LA had proved that the admission of more children to s* school would:
.Result in overcrowding of the available accomodation and would prejudice the education of other children in the school and would not represent an efficient use of the LA's resources, as places are available at other schools within the borough.
PHEW! that was hard work.
And that all they had to say.
I pointed out to the LA that how is it that you've provided these admission numbers , when I've managed to get a completely different set of admission numbers for the same year from the same authority.
The lady from the LA didn't have anything to say, then a lady from the panel jumped in trying to give the answer and the the lady from the LA was like yes, yes that's the reason.