Any tips for primary school appeals?

[smallmotherbigheart]

This is my first time doing this, and I want to do this right. My son didn't get into any of the preferred schools that we listed? Has anyone done an appeal before?

[whattodonowanyone]

her daughter has been offered a place I mean....

[mynameisjess]

@Jim37

There have been so many occasions where Heads have given parents incorrect advice. It really baffles me...

[janeyjampot]

whattodonowanyone - have you checked that your daughter was placed in the right admissions category? Is your sister in a different category? (Sibling, faith, etc?)

Put some more information up and I'm sure there'll be an expert along soon :)

[Panelmember]

Appleforme - If this is a middle school application, infant class size regulations don't apply and so you have a better prospect of success. If you have information about a health need that wasn't submitted with the original application then it is worth submitting it now, as if the LEA accept it it may move you into a higher place on the waiting list. The LEA are very unlikely to offer you a place, though, if the class/year group is already at its Published Admissions Number. Then you can take all of this to appeal and can present other arguments about (eg) capacity, If the school is 30 under capacity you can certainly mention that, but bear in mind that the panel will be looking at the capacity of (say) classrooms and communal areas, so spare capacity in another year group doesn't necessarily help you very much if your child's own year group is full.

Whattodonowanyone - Yes, it does sound odd. If you live on the same street - unless it's a very long street indeed - it's surprising that you didn't get a place. Have you checked that you were placed in the right admissions category and that the distance to school was measured accurately? One possible explanation would be that your sister's child, although living further away, was in a higher admissions priority than you. Could that be possible?

You need to find other acceptable schools and join waiting lists. If this is an infant class size appeal you should only win if there has been an error (which sounds like a possibility at the moment but not a certainty) so you can't put all your eggs in one basket.

[vjo891]

Hi you all seem to know your stuff!! Please can you help me with our situation? 10 days ago we were sent an email from admissions saying our daughter had been given a place at our first choice of school, but then we didn't get sent an acceptance form in the post. Yesterday I emailed them to chase it up and was told that the offer of a place had been withdrawn because they had made a mistake and her place should have gone to a child with a sibling in the school. There was a pdf of a letter to us attached, dated the same day as the offer email, which said that she had not got in because of distance and the class limit of 30 had been reached. We never received that letter, the first I heard of all this was when I contacted them yesterday. Are they allowed to make an offer and then withdraw it? Is that a ground for appeal? Any advice much appreciated, thank you.

[clam]

Jim, you say you would have got into your 2nd choice school had you put it first. Are you sure about that? Our LEA abandoned that a few years back and I thought all LEAs had too.

[PanelMember]

VJO - Yes they are, but there are some ifs and buts. Para 1.50 of the school admissions code says:

1.50 Once an offer of a school place has been made it is only reasonable for an admission authority to withdraw that offer in very limited circumstances. These may include when a parent has failed to respond to an offer within a reasonable time or the admission authority offered the place on the basis of a fraudulent or intentionally misleading application from a parent (for example, a false claim to residence in a catchment area) which effectively denied a place to another child; or where a place was offered under co-ordination by the local authority, not the admission authority, in error. If a parent has not responded to the offer of a place within a reasonable time, the admission authority must remind the parent of the need to respond within a further seven days and point out that the place may be withdrawn if they do not.

What sort of school was the offer for? Was it a foundation or VA school? If it is, and the LEA made the offer on their behalf in error, then that would seem to fall under the bit of para 1.50 that I have highlighted. If it isn't a foundation or VA school then none of the circumstances listed in that para seem to apply, although you need to bear in mind that these are examples and not an exhaustive list. Even so - even where the LEA is correct in withdrawing the offer - there is case law which suggests that they should do so quickly, because otherwise parents are entitled to rely on the offer that's been made. Quickly is taken to mean within about 3 days.

I suggest that you write/email to the LEA and say that you do not accept that, in all the circumstances, para 1.50 applies to you and that they therefore have no basis for withdrawing the offer. Reinforce that by saying that even if they did have the right to withdraw the offer (which anyway you don't accept) they lost that right because they took far too long to do it. Point out that the supposed withdrawal of the place only came to light because you chased up the missing acceptance letter and so (presumably) you could have gone on for days or weeks believing you had a place at the school.

Where LEAs make mistakes (and the mistake here is the withdrawal of the offer) they are supposed to rectify them without making you go to appeal. Many LEAs do, though, insist on such cases going before an independent panel. If you do have to appeal, the panel will take note of the LEA's apparently chaotic (lack of) systems. Make sure you have copies of all letters and emails - especially the email which shows that you did not receive the rejection letter until many days after it was dated.

[PanelMember]

Clam - Most (all?) LEAs operate the equal preference system but what Jim says may very well be true. You don't get any additional priority because you place a school 1st on your list but if you fulfil the admissions criteria for more than one school, the LEA will pass on the offer for the higher-placed school. So, if Jim would potentially have received offers from schools 1 and 2, the order in which they were placed on the list would make all the difference as to which offer was passed on.

[maz4474]

Hi, I would like to add a new question. My son has been refused admission to catchment school on infant class size. The PAN was decreased from 60 to 30 3 or 4 years ago when infant and junior were merged into a primary on one site.

We are appealing on unreasonable grounds. The school has classroom space for another class (confirmed by headteacher), but not funding for a teacher, and has a precedent for taking a second class 3 years ago when all school places in area were full. We know there were 17 applications refused from within catchment this year.

Does anyone have any information or experience about success of multiple or group appeals, based on a whole village being refused their catchment school?
Many thanks

[PanelMember]

Mello Maz.

I think you need to frame your appeal differently. The appeal will centre on the fact that the PAN is 60. Arguments that the PAN could be 90 if the school created another class and hired another teacher are beside the point - the panel has no power to direct the school/LEA to raise the PAN.

If you want to campaign with other parents to create a bulge class at the school, you would do better (in my view) to lobby councillors, pointing out that this school seems like a good site for an extra class. You'll probably only make headway with this if there is a shortage of places across the LEA - most LEAs have to live with the fact that there's some degree of mismatch between where the schools are and where the pupils live.

Think carefully about group appeals. In the first place, there is no provision for a group appeal, in the 'class action' sense. Each refusal of a school place can be appealed against. At the appeal hearing, the LEA may well present its case against admission to all parents, and then there would be sessions at which each family could present its case and the LEA could respond to that. If it should turn out that the panel is inclined to grant all the appeals - let's say there are 15 - then it has to consider whether the school can cope with admitting 15 additional pupils and (if not) it prioritises which of the pupils should be admitted. So if anyone is really determined to get their child into a school, they need to convince the panel that their child is more deserving of a place than the other children whose appeals are being considered. Presenting the appeals as one undifferentiated block would not do that.

[PanelMember]

Hello.

[vjo891]

PanelMember thank you very much for your really clear and helpful advice. The LEA has now said that we will have to appeal the decision, so I think that's what we'll do, and your tips are really appreciated. They have now shown me the 'pupil audit' which shows how the rejection was made and if they are right then we were 0.023 miles further away than the last successful candidate (my daughter's best friend). The LEA say the rejection letter was sent out on the day and their only mistake was not amending the email before sent out. We don't believe it because i'm sure we would have received a letter if sent, we think they probably only realised the mistake after the emails sent and they were contacted by the other parent - but if their evidence is accepted, would the panel not just say that the criteria were applied fairly and we are seeking to take advantage of an administrative error to get round what is ultimately a fairly reached decision?

[PanelMember]

VJO - Yes, the LEA probably will say something like that, but the panel ought to be aware of para 1.50 (and the rest) of the admissions code. The gist of your appeal is that

• you received the offer of a place
  
  
• you had no reason to think that there was anything wrong with that offer, especially as you live very close to another child who got a place
  
  
• para 1.50 of the code allows LEAs to withdraw offers in very limited circumstances. 'General administrative cock-up' isn't one of those circumstances (and I am assuming here that there is no question that you (eg) misrepresented your situation etc). The LEA therefore has no reason for withdrawing the place that can be justified by reference to the code.
  
  even if* they had such a reason at the time of the error, they left it far too late to act on it. There is case law (I think it is Admission or PRH47bridge who knows chapter and verse on this) that says that the maximum period for withdrawing mistaken offers is 3 days, because after that parents are entitled to trust and accept the offer.
  
  Yes, it could be argued that the original decision was fair and reasonable as it was based on the published admissions criteria but that's not the point at issue here. On your side, the argument is that it is unfair* to withdraw an offer 10 days after it was made and that the admissions code and associated case law supports parents who are placed in your position through no fault of their own.
  
  This is why evidence about dates will be crucial, because it will demonstrate to the panel that you had had the offer for 10 days before you were told it was being withdrawn. It's true that you cannot prove that you did not receive the rejection letter at the time it was supposedly sent, but make sure you have all the other e-mails and correspondence, especially the e-mail that had the letter dated 10 days earlier as an attachment and the original offer of the place by e-mail. It's the panel's job to weigh up your child's interests against those of the school, but it seems to me that the admissions code is very much in your favour.
  
  As you live so close to the last child admitted, I also wonder whether your child was the 30th on the admission list before the LEA discovered that they had omitted a sibling, and so the LEA dropped your child from the list to make a place for that sibling. Again, if they did that after the offers were made, that is wrong - they should have admitted the sibling as the 31st pupil who would be an 'excepted pupil' under the infant class size rules. This is something that you may or may not want to probe at the appeal. If I am right (and assuming the panel know their stuff, which they should do) the panel will not be impressed.

[admission]

VJO,
The arguement that you did not receive the email is obviously going to come down to who do the panel believe more. You that you did not get the email or the LA saying we sent the email and therefore believe that we informed the parent very quickly and the legal arguements about not knowing for ten days are invalid.
What is however completely factual is the circumstances around your initial email confirming a place. If panelmember is right and you were 30th on the list and therefore offered a place but then on discovering the glitch the LA then bumped you then that is a much stronger case. The LA should not have bumped you but should as panelmember says have offered a 31st place to the unfortunate sibling. That is maladministration by the LA
So I would go with both arguements at appeal

[vjo891]

Thank you panel member/admission both for your comments, much appreciated. A friend of mine knows the mother of 'the unfortunate sibling' so should be able to do some detective work and find out when their error came to light .....

When we make our appeal do we have to cite this case law? Is it from panel decisions or the Courts?

[prh47bridge]

Panel decisions don't set precedents. You don't have to cite case law as such, but I'll give you the references just in case.

The issue about the amount of time the LA has to withdraw a place is covered by two cases. One was a judicial review which decided that it was ok to withdraw the offer the same day it was made. The other was a decision by the Local Government Ombudsman (case 99C01876) which said it was wrong to withdraw an offer 3 days after it was made.

The action an LA should take on finding they have made a mistake is covered by the Admission Appeals Code paragraph 2.7 (which says they must offer a place without an appeal) and paragraph 3.18(c) (which says that children admitted late because the authority realises they have made a mistake are regarded as excepted children and do not count towards the infant class size limit) combined with Admissions Code paragraph 1.50 (which has been mentioned above).

A properly trained appeal panel will know all of this.

[maz4474]

Thanks Panel Member for your valuable info re group appeals. I have been contacting other parents to share ideas to strengthen all our appeals, in the hope that the panel will be inclined to grant them all, but we will still present our own individual cases.

I am not aware of a shortage of places across the LEA, but contacting local councillors cannot do any harm.

Are there any examples of how many children are needed to create a viable extra class, eg 10 successful appeals added to original 30 would then make 2 classes of 20? Having read all the above I cannot see individual appeals being successful as there were no mistakes made, our only hope is the sheer number of people who were refused from the catchment school.

[PanelMember]

You're welcome.

I think your last question is unanswerable. As you know, admitting even one child over the statutory limit of 30 means hiring another teacher. I suspect that - in these cash-strapped times - few LEAs would want to create a class smaller than 30 (assuming that that is the usual class size in the school in question) simply for economic reasons, but that really is the LEA's call.

You need I think, to decide how many of these issues you ventilate through the appeal and how many are better pursued through a political campaign to expand the school.

[vjo891]

thank you prh47bridge, and previous contributors for your advice, that is really helpful and we are very grateful to you for taking the time to respond

[Mumelie]

We went through a primary (infant) appeal last year (and lost). Best bit of advice i had (after the appeal) was it has to be a 'need' not a 'want'. ie. a sibling at the school already so impractical for you to drop at 2 different schools is a 'need'. I think this school is better than the one offered is a 'want'.
Good luck.

[Mumelie]

oh, also, this book is very very helpful if you can get it in time;
www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Your-School-Appeal/dp/1408111403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305379650&sr=1-1-spell&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

[admission]

If you want to talk about how many pupils you have to have in a class to make it sustainable financially, the figures do vary from LA to LA as they have different funding regimes and they get different amounts of funding, plus teacher's salaries vary from £20k to £35K +.
An average cost for a teacher and materials and everything else that is needed directly for the classroom is about £50000, which would equate to around 18 to 20 pupils. However this is in isolation, when you add in the costs of the school office staff, headteacher, school hall etc then the figure is usually considered to be equal to about 23 to 27 pupils depending on age and LA involved.
Obviously if a school is operating with classes of 20 then it is in effect balancing out teacher's salaries with things like less resources for the class or scimping on maintenance or less TA support.

[sarja]

Hi my son has been refused a place at our prefered school, he is first on the waiting list and i am going to appeal on the grounds of not being able to physically get him to any other school. My sister's child attends prefered school and she was going to drop off my child along with her own as i start work before breakfast club starts. Do i have a good case???

[PanelMember]

Sarja - To be frank, probably not. If this is an infant class size appeal (as discussed here and on other threads), you will win only if you can show there's been a mistake in not giving you a place or the decision was so unreasonable as to be perverse. Nothing you've mentioned here indicates a mistake.

If this isn't an infant class size appeal, you can argue that the prejudice (ie disadvantage) to your son in not attending the school is greater than the prejudice to the school in admitting another pupil. Even then, though, your case isn't very strong. Problems with the school run aren't usually enough to win an appeal. The LEA will argue - and the panel may well agree - that you could use a childminder or find another parent willing to help you with the school run.

You've got nothing to lose by appealing but, as your son is 1st on the waiting list, you're more likekly to get a place through that route.

[prh47bridge]

I agree with PanelMember. An appeal based on transport difficulties will almost certainly fail.