Another question about Appeals

[MiraNova]

Just found out that DS hasn't got a place at our preferred school. Admission criteria is:

1. Looked after children
2. Exceptional arrangements
3. siblings
4. children for whom the school is nearest
5. any other applicant.

In the event of oversubscription priority will be given on the basis of nearness to the school. (as crow flies).

We live in a rural area, and for 2010, the spread was:

1. 0
2. 0
3. 4
4. 5
5. 14

We live just outside the parish boundary of our nearest school, which is a Voluntary Aided (C of E) school (STJ), and according to their admission criteria we come into No 8 (as we don't live or worship in the parish).

The CC website states this "Out of county, Grammar & Voluntary Aided Schools (Catholic and Church of England) will not generally give priority to local children and therefore will not be taken into account when assessing under the nearest school criteria. And indeed last year this school was over-subscribed.

Our second nearest school (STM), is the one we put as first preference - on the assumption that this would be our "nearest school" for the purposes of the admission policy. My DDs also went there, and our son attends the adjacent pre-school so that he would make friends to go onto school with.

To our surprise (particularly given the numbers last year) we have been offered our 3rd choice - which is the Voluntary aided school above - STJ.

I suspect the "nearest school" criteria hasn't been applied in our case. If this is so - and I presume I will be able to check shortly - would this be grounds for an appeal?

I know things like childcare and friends made at pre-school don't hold any weight, but we only made those decisions based on the admission criteria on the website, and the expectation we would get a place at STM. Both DH and I work, and our childminder only picks up from STM (and adjacent pre-school).

Any guidance/advice gratefully received...

ok thanks, that point has really been niggling away at me!

so everyone should be in a priority category for at least one school - even if they end up not getting in under that category? The fact that we are, as far as I can tell, in the last priority for every school in the county (haven't checked them all yet!), means that effectively everyone else is in a priority system, and we're in a lottery?

Is there some paragraph in the code I should be referencing when I make this point?

thanks again..

One other thing that you need to keep in mind is that the publication that is important is Surrey's admission policy in the printed book. That is always deemed to be the correct document and if the mention of STJ taking local kids is not in there then Surrey are not abiding by what is in their agreed official document.

I can't think of a specific paragraph that applies but the word "fair" appears over and over again. It is a Word document so a search for "fair" will find them all. You could perhaps refer to 1.72 which says "Admission authorities and governing bodies must ensure that their admission arrangements and other school policies are fair". The word "must" in this sentence means it is compulsory. Your argument is that the admission arrangements are not fair in that, as you say, everyone else has a priority school where they are very likely to get in provided they name it as one of their preferences whereas parents in your situation are in a lottery with no priority anywhere. If it were me I would ask the LA's representative at the appeal to explain to the panel how this situation can be described as fair.

admission - the website link I included above, where the statement about Voluntary Aided Schools not being included for Nearest School criteria, is specifically mentioned and included in their official booklet. They say "For admissions to schools we will be using ?straight line? distance for measuring your nearest school to your home address and also for prioritising within each category. You can also find your local maintained school by using the Surrey SMART Online webpage at findaschool.surreycc.gov.uk/."

That statement "and therefore will not be taken into account when assessing under the nearest school criteria." is key I think. If it had said " may not", then it would be a different story. I will be focusing on this, and the fairness element I think.

Miranova,
I agree, go for it.

Have found out that we are Fifth on the waiting list for STM, which isn't great news. They have confirmed that places were allocated in the following way:

1. LAC 0
2. Exceptional Circs 0
3. Siblings 6
4. Nearest school 4
5. Others 15

They told me on the phone (at least twice) that the furthest distance is 2.25km, and we are 2.72km. What puzzles me is that I know 2 people who have confirmed places who are further away than 2.25km, albeit nearer than us. They definitely don't have siblings, and also have nearer schools so have been admitted under criteria 5.

I have had nothing in writing from the LA at all, apart from an email, which makes no mention of appealing or what to do next, although it does mention that a letter will be sent out. I am quite keen to get written confirmation of the furthest distance they have admitted a pupil from, as it all sounds very odd, and I think this may help my case.

Do they have to put in writing this information - and will they do that automatically or do I have to request it?

thanks

Hi MiraNova, am just wondering whether we've actually applied in the same area...am a bit surprised to see that they've admitted 15 under "others" for you, while nearest school was only 4 - is it a church school? Just wondered if you can get more information about what "others" meant - unless they are children of staff, or twins/triplets, in which case there must be a lot of multiple births that year...And then why you aren't considered an "other" if those families that you know don't have siblings. Maybe you should email them as well as put it in writing. First class post should get there quite quick, that will cover all bases.

We've just been told that we are 10th on waiting list, which is even worse than 5th.....To be fair though, they said they only took 10 siblings and 20 were on nearest school (30 places). We were apparently out by 103m....the furthest being 0.938km. And to think I thought we were pretty near, being less than a mile. Just considering my options next, including switching waiting list schools, as we didn't get any of our choices at all.

it's a nightmare isn't it. The school is Voluntary Controlled - so uses the LA's admission criteria. It's in a rural (ish) location, with other popular Faith schools nearby. It only admits 25, and 'others' are anyone else who wants to go to the school, based on distance as the crow flies, and we are just a bit too far.

Our case is that we should have been admitted under the "nearest school" criteria, so should have easily got a place, but didn't.

Sounds like you have got a good case for your appeal - how you can be edged out on the distance while so many admitted via "other". Good luck!

I really hope so, the LA were criticised recently by the Schools Adjudicator about how the admission criteria - "as the crow flies" wasn't fair to rural communities in our area - so I plan to quote her.

Just emphasise your distance vs the ones who got in via the category "other". Have you got an appeal date yet? Good luck!

Thanks everyone for all your support and advice, it has been invaluable. I sent off the Appeal form today (recorded delivery), in good time for the deadline. I have kept it simple and am appealing just on the basis that the admission criteria has not been followed correctly. According to their website, appeals are held in June and July on the whole - so a bit of a wait.

I will come back and update you on how it goes, in due course...

The LA have confirmed, after a review, that the policy was applied correctly saying "When considering your application for a school place for DS, STJ was considered to be your nearest school and as such he was considered under criteria 5 for STM, which you had named as your first preference school. Indeed the fact that you were offered a place at STJ under criteria 8 for other applicants based on distance, does demonstrate that the school does admit local children and it is correct to include it as a nearest school.

When I asked how he could be considered to be "given priority" I got the response. "I regret that you found the wording on SMART online misleading and I shall certainly arrange for this to be reviewed."

And today it has changed - it now has the following sentence added "However there are exceptions and for full details of which schools will be treated as a nearest school you should have a look at Surrey's School Admission booklets."

I do have a copy of the original wording - and submitted it with my Appeal papers - am I right in thinking that this (very quick) change to their website will help my case?

I have found another local VA school, that doesn't give priority to any local children, but did admit last year under their last criteria. That school doesn't have 3* next to the name either - so that is inconsistent.

I also found another page on their admissions website that says:
"Find out which is your nearest school. Children who apply to their nearest community or voluntary controlled school will take priority over those for whom it is not. Use our Surrey Smart Online system to search for your nearest school"

I also plan to ask the admissions officer at the appeal, what would have happened had STJ been oversubscribed this year - would this have then meant DS would have been considered under Criteria 4? If so - then surely we should know which criteria we will be considered under, before we put in our application - not after others preferences have been allocated. If we would have been allocated somewhere else entirely, then they wouldn't be treating STM as our nearest school in that situation - is that a reasonable argument?

I have reason to believe that we only just got a place at STJ, as I know someone closer to STJ than us, who has been allocated another school much further away as they didn't get any of their 3 preferences (STJ wasn't one of their preferences), which must be the nearest school with a place. I think had they included STJ we would have been allocated the school much further away.

The fact they have felt the need to amend their website should be helpful to your case. It is effectively an admission by the LA that the arrangements were not sufficiently clear.

You can try the argument you suggest but I expect the answer would be that your son would still be considered under category 5, so I doubt it will get you anywhere.

Your fundamental point at appeal is that STJ does NOT give priority to ALL local children - in particular, it does not give priority to children in your parish (parish C), only to children in parishes A and B. Because you were admitted under criteria 8 there was a reasonable chance that you wouldn't have been admitted at all.

If you take the LA's argument at face value, any school which uses distance as a tie breaker should be counted as one admitting local children and therefore could be classed as your nearest school. I would imagine that would be all of them! The fact that some of them are not counted for the purposes of the "nearest school" rule shows that this argument is not universally applied. The LA should be consistent. If they make this argument in the hearing I would challenge them with examples of other schools that use distance as a tie breaker but are not counted as the nearest school such as the local VA school you mention.

They are trying to take the line that you got into your nearest school so there isn't a problem. You need to get the panel to see past that and understand that parents in your parish are disadvantaged in that they do not get priority for any school. They are in the lowest admission category for STJ and STM.

The LA argue that STJ gives priority to local children. The fact that you are in the lowest admission category for STJ clearly demonstrates that they do not.

thank you - that's really helpful.

Good gracious, Surrey CC are being so cloak and dagger! Even I found their replies to you confusing to the point of misleading! Bring the documents with the original wording to the appeal! It should be the wording on the documents at the time of the deadline (Jan 15) that matter and not what they've hurriedly altered today that count. Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

yes aren't they! Even with their revised wording, it is still arguable I feel - and as you say, it's what was there before that counts.

The LA have to go by what is in their admission book on the cut off date. The fact that they have just altered the wording on the website is a tacit acceptance that the wording was incorrect and misleading, even more so that they took a decision to immediately change it rather than wait for the 2012-13 book coming out.
Keep banging away at the admission people at the LA. I would ask them to confirm in writing that the wording has been changed, exactly how it has been changed and on what date. The honest truth is that with an LA the size of Surrey the person who presents the case for the the LA may not have the detailed knowledge of what has happened here. Get the admission office to admit in writing that they have moved the goalposts.
Before long it will dawn on somebody that admitting your child may be a darn sight less harmful than opening a very large potential can of worms at an appeal.

An update - we got offered our 2nd preference school a couple of weeks ago, and went to have a good look round. It's very similar to our 1st preference, but a bit larger and a bit further away - we really liked it too. So we accepted the place, and managed to sort out childcare after school, and DS knows a few children from his pre-school that will be going there with him.

We had stayed at 5th on the waiting list at our first preference for weeks, but after hearing of some movement, found out that we were first on the list last week, and this week apparently a letter is on its way, offering us a place!

On top of that we've just received a letter from our 3rd preference, which we'd accepted initially, confirming DS's place there and the induction afternoon dates, despite having not only returned the form, but emailed the LA to confirm that we were taking our 2nd pref and telling them we no longer needed our 3rd preference and asking them if we needed to do anything else.

So we now find ourselves in the position of literally having 3 places - one at each of our preferences. Of course, I was straight on the phone this morning to our 3rd preference as I know they have a waiting list, and am a bit shocked that they were not aware we had declined the place.

Need to wait for the letter for our 1st preference, but think we are going to decline that now after all, and stay with our second preference.

I really can't understand why Surrey don't have a better system for waiting lists - it seems unnecessarily manual and slow - and it looks like there is still quite a lot of movement - so if you're still waiting for a place in a Surrey school - don't despair, I think there must be quite a lot of movement still to come..

Thanks to all who responded - your help and support is really appreciated.

Thats good news for you and actually two others who wil benefit from the released places. But it does beg some questions about the competence of Surrey if you now have three offers!

Wonderful news MiraNova!