Appeals help, please...

[runaroundstartsnow]

My friends have received none of their choices.
Friend 1 has put catchment school first and been offered a school 2miles away.
Friend 2 put church school first-it goes to 12yrs and she has 2 younger children and didnt want to be taking them to different schools when the eldest transfered to middle school, The middle school system is commen here.
Her catchment school( also a church school) she put 2nd.This school is a school for 4-8yrs hence the reason she did not put it first.
She does not attend church, neither does friend 1, both their catchment schools are the same and they live near to each other.
It seems the catchment school has accepted mainly church goers and siblings.
What do they do? both are distraught.Friend 2 has been assigned a failing school(its just getting to satisfactory though) its 4 miles to drive from her.
Between them and the assigned schools they have 9 closer schools.
Can anyone help?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'catchment' school, tbh. Most schools have admissions criteria (for faith schools, usually SEN(?), faith, siblings, distance), rather than defined catchments.

2 out of our 3 nearest schools are faith schools; we are atheists so there wasn't any point applying as we'd be at the bottom of the admissions pile for these oversubscribed schools.

Hope that your friends get something sorted soon.

Local catchment as listed on authority application form.However as its a church school, catchment children are about number 6 on admission criteria.

Ah, I see. Did your LA form have info about previous years stats (eg number of applicants, number successful under different criteria)? Ours did, although come to think about it, the info about faith schools wasn't in the main booklet.

I guess that's no help now, but I was just wondering if your friends knew that they had a slim chance of getting in or whether there has been a big shift since last year.

Did they put any other schools down? Where are they on waiting lists?

The first question is whether a mistake has been made. If the admission criteria have not been applied correctly that gives grounds for an appeal. Your friends can still appeal even if no mistake has been made but most appeals for Reception are infant class size cases, which means you should only win if there has been some kind of mistake. If it isn't infant class size your friends' chances at appeal would be better.

Apart from that, the main thing is to accept the schools offered and get on the waiting lists for all the schools that would be acceptable. They can go on the waiting list even for any school even if they didn't put it down as one of their original preferences.

Yes they have put themselves on waiting lists for about 7 schools which are closer.
They both thought they would get catchment school if not any other on list.Sadly the 3 closest schools to them are church schools so they are bottom of the criteria.For non church schools they would be going against everyone else who are nearer.
My address means i have 7 schools within 1mile, they have 2 church schools and the nearest non church school is 1.4 miles from them so they would never get a place on distance. It seems so unfair, they have been crying all day

The postcode lottery that is education in the UK is awful.

I hope that things work out for your friends.

bump

It's exactly as prh47bridge says.

The first stage is to double-check that the applications have been considered correctly, under the correct admissions category, that the distance to school has been accurately measured etc.

Does the catchment school guarantee places for every child in catchment? Very few do, which is why there are admissions priorities and why distance to school can be such an issue. If none of the schools named on the application form can offer the child a place, they will be offered a place at the nearest school which still has places. That, probably, is why the offered school is some distance away - the others were full.

If the admission number for the school is 30 or a multiple of 30, the scope for a successful appeal is very limited - essentially, there needs to have been a serious error which deprived the child of a place. Complaining that the offered school "isn't good enough" will cut no ice at an appeal.

Some LAs have a 'second round'. This means that once all places are offered and parents have made decisions, there will be some movement (because, for instance people go private or have changed their mind about a school and opted for another which did have space). That might be an option.

But it isn't an 'appeal', which needs to be done on the grounds that rules were followed improperly, not that rules seem stupid or disadvantage you (unless you can show the offered school is unsuitable for a specific reason relating to your child's needs-e.g. it's on twenty floors and they are in a wheelchair).