Primary school place

[Snips]

Can anyone help?? We did not get our first choice of primary school, despite having two siblings at the school. We are out of catchment (and always have been), but our other two got in. I think we are going to try and appeal (know it will be difficult), but just realised that the school have measured the distance to the school using an old entrance to the school which is no longer used. Our distance shortens a little bit using the entrance they presently use. May be a silly question, but should I call the LA and tell them this, or use it for our appeal?? Thanks

The LA will see any evidence you submit for your appeal before the hearing anyway. You can't spring something on them. That isn't how the process works.

If the LA accept that a mistake has been made and your child should have been admitted they are supposed to admit your child without needing an appeal. However, many LAs don't comply with this and insist you go through an appeal anyway.

The fact that they measured to the wrong gate may not be enough to win an appeal. If the panel accept that this is wrong they are likely to want the LA to remeasure all the distances to see if your child would have been admitted. If your child still wouldn't have got a place your appeal will fail.

I presume this school doesn't give priority to siblings? What is the admission number?

Thanks for your help.The admission criteria is looked after children, siblings in catchment, catchment, siblings out of catchment, other children out of catchment. They admit 90 per year, and last year there were lots of children who had siblings who were out of catchment that got in. This year there seems to be lots of siblings out of catchment but closer than me. The main reason for thisis that there is another school nearby that a lot of parents were hoping for in 2009, but thinking they wouldn't get in, they applied to our school instead. They all got in to our school, but are out of catchment (but closer than me). The siblings of this intake are now in the Sep 2011 intake. Just after they all got into our school in 2009, the other school, which they all would have much preferred, opened up a booster class. But as they had all been offered a place elsewhere, they did not get into the other school. Sorry, I have gone on a bit. Our other hope for appeal was the sibling thing (my two at school were really looking forward to the little one joining them, and my eldest will only have a year with his little brother before he goes to high school). Not sure how likely that is to work though. We have put ourselves on the waiting list, and have rejected our offer of a place as it is in the other direction to our current school.

How do they expect you to be at two different schools for drop off/collection at the same time? Is that not a factor?

I would have thought so, but have been told by a friend who went through appeals, that they would either suggest you use breakfast and afterschool clubs, or alternate them being late! I wouldn't mind doing the latter, but the boys would be mortified, and the first option would be expensive! I am a SAHM at the moment so defeats the object of me being there to take the boys to and from school!

I am in the same situation (Dcs already in my first choice school, living out catchment) I have to wait another few days before knowing if DD4 got a place but if she has not, I will appeal on the "how to be at two different schools for drop off/collection at the same time?" like mungogerry said.

Sorry xposted! I am at the advice "alternate them being late"!

mungogerry and gorionine - I'm afraid that transport difficulties, childcare problems and similar isn't generally a factor appeal panels can look at. If this is an infant class size case they cannot consider that at all. The only question the appeal panel should consider is whether or not a mistake has been made. The problems with having to be in two places at once don't enter into it, I'm afraid. Even if it is not an infant class size case such matters are rarely enough to win an appeal.

Snips - You need a backup plan if you can't get a place at this school. Now that you have rejected the offered place you need to consider what you will do if nothing else comes up. Any alternative offered by the council is likely to be further away than the offered place. If you appeal you need to be clear about what your plans are. Unfortunately appeal panels regularly come across parents who reject the offered place in a misguided attempt to force the appeal panel to give them a place at the preferred school. If the panel think you are attempting to blackmail them in this way it could damage your chances at appeal. Just to be clear, I am not saying you are attempting to blackmail the panel.

Having siblings at the school is not in itself grounds for a successful appeal. However, if the LA placed you in the wrong admissions category and didn't give you sibling priority that would be grounds for appeal.

prh47bridge you got me really worried now, I just want to know NOW where DD4 is going so I can either stop worrying or start looking for a school that will have all 3 of them (Dd1 in high school, makes her own way there).

I agree with Prh47bridge.

There are several issues here.

What do the school's admissions criteria say about how distance to school will be measured? Do they specify which gate will be the fixed point from which all measurements will be taken? Are you suggesting that they have used a different fixed point for you than they have for all the other applicants? If so that would obviously be an error, but it isn't clear from what you say that it is an error which has deprived your child of a place (which is what the panel will be looking for) - it would depend on whether the new (shorter) measurement would put you inside the distance at which the last place was awarded. By the sound of it, you are a long way out of catchment and (perhaps) a long way past the distance at which the last place was awarded.

The situation is different if you are arguing that the fixed point, although it has been used for all applicants including you, should be changed to another one. The panel may or may not be open to that argument. They may take the view that they are there to scrutinise the admissions criteria as they stand and can't take any position on whether the fixed point should be shifted from one gate to the other. But, as prh47bridge says, if they do agree that measurements should be taken from the other gate, they may decide to deal with this by making a recommendation to the LEA (and leaving it in their hands). Or they may ask for all measurements to be redone. What they almost certainly won't do is take a measurement for you from one gate and compare it with measurements for all the other applicants taken from the other, because that would not be a fair comparison.

I can see the difficulty you are in - and I am sure the LEA and the panel will too - but the LEA's position will be that the admissions criteria have been designed to give priority to local children, ie those living in catchment. That is why out of catchment children - and their eventual siblings - are low on the admissions priorities. They will say that you (presumably) went into this with your eyes open when you accepted the first school place for your oldest child.

Given that this will be an infant class size appeal, you will need to produce more compelling evidence than saying it will be inconvenient to have your children in two schools. That much is obvious, but it isn't (unless you get a very sympathetic panel which is willing to stick its neck out for you) enough to win an infant class size appeal.

Rejecting the place you were offered will not boost your chance of winning the appeal (possibly the opposite, if the panel feel you are attempting to pressurise them). What have you done to find your child a school place? As a sibling, your child will presumably be quite high on the waiting list but you need a fallback plan for if you lose the appeal and don't get a place from the waiting list by the time your child is 5.

Oops. Got called away to the phone and by the time I posted, several other posts had arrived.

Really you neeed to establish from the LA what admission criteria you were considered under. If it was out-of-catchment sibling but you missed out on distance then you can then consider the issue of the school gate as frankly the only possible reason for appeal. As an infant class size reg case nothing else will be taken into consideration.

PRH is correct in that if there is an issue over where the distance was measured to and from then all those who got a place and all those who are appealing will have to be remeasured. There will then be an awkward working out of how many who were offered a place should not have been offered a place and how many who are appealing should have been offered a place and did not get offered a place. It is anybodies guess how many that could come to, but at some stage the panel will have to decide how many pupils could be admitted to the school who should have been offered a place.

I think your first step is to have another look at the detail of the admission criteria and see what it says about the measurement - does it say a specific gate or the main gate or what? I have no doubt that the LA will argue that they have measured it to the correct gate no matter what the answer, but it is the panel who will have to decide what it really means. As a panel memeber I would not be too impressed by an arguement that we measured to the right gate it is simply that this gate is no longer used. That is a nonsense, it must be to the gate used by the reception children.

Second step is to establish where exactly you stand on the waiting list. Obviously if you are 45th on the list, no matter what gate you measure to it is not going to get you a place because there are 44 others in front of you. If however you are in the first 5 then the measurement could become critical.

Third step I would say is to assume that you will not be successful at appeal and decide how you are going to handle that. I would look carefully at the possibility of your reception child going to another local school and get a school place organised. Moving all the children to another school may not be a sensible move given that your eldest only has one more year to go.

Thanks for all the comments. the last person who got into school was an out of catchment sibling who lived 0.787 miles from school-we live 1.09 miles and I found out we are about 5th on the list at the moment. This could change drastically once all offers have been accepted/declined-I know that 2 families in catchment "forgot" to apply to school, so we will be at least 7th once they do the next round of placings in May. It was a really difficult decision rejecting our offer place-it is a very good school and very local to to us, and it was originally my first choice with my eldest son. But it is in the opposite direction to the school my boys are at present, and it would be impossible to do both drops roughly on time. TBH with regards to the school gate thing-they have measured it incorrectly as the criteria states that it should be the entrance used by the children, and this entrance was last used about 3 years ago. The entrance we do use will bring us to about a mile from school, so it would not have made a difference in the first roound of admissions, but may make a difference in the second round. I spoke to the LA today about the gate issue, but they did not seem very interested. Do lots of tears help at an appeal . Not funny I know but this whole thing is so stressful!

Also, does anyone know if the school or PTA can give a letter to support your appeal?

Catchment children without siblings do get priority over siblings out of catchment-sorry not sure if I made that clear.

I also wondered what would happen with regards to the school gate issue. If they changed everyones distances, I am not sure it would help too much, but if they looked at our case individually it may help.

Tears don't generally help at appeal hearings. They will get you sympathy and maybe even a cup of tea if you are lucky, but that's about it. It won't go against you, though. Panels no that appeals are stressful.

The appeal panel cannot order the LA to change the waiting list. Their only power is to accept or reject individual appeals. However, if it becomes apparent that the panel think the wrong gate is being used the LA should give serious thought to changing, otherwise if a case comes up where the child involved in the appeal would have been admitted from the waiting list if the correct gate has been used they are likely to lose.

The LA must be consistent about which gate is used for measurements. If they remeasure for Snips they must remeasure for everyone. There is no way they can use the distance from the "correct" gate for Snips and compare it with the distance from the "wrong" gate for everyone else.

Snips - The school ought not to give you (or anyone else) a letter of support, as it's supposed to take a neutral stance. Besides, if they do give you a letter saying (in effect) they are willing to break the law by admitting your child as the 91st pupil, the panel is unlikely to be persuaded by it. A letter from the PTA would be entirely irrelevant. As has been said several times, the scope for winning an infant class size appeal is very limited. Essentially, you have to show that the LEA has made an error. Tears won't help - especially (again) if the panel interprets them as manipulation.

Admission - I'm interested that you think that the measurement must be to the gate the reception children actually use. We have several split-site schools where the measurement is to the KS1 building, not to the Foundation stage building, on the argument that that is where the children spend most of their compulsory school time. Do you think that's wrong?

Panelmember the distance is measured to where the admission criteria says it is measured to. I have assumed that in this case, given the comments, that it says that it is measured to the main entrance gate. If that is not being used then it is clearly not correct to use that as a measuring point.

I have certainly done appeals where there has been an issue over which gate can and should be used. There is law about the need to apply common sense to decisions over how things should be measured and about different gates. That is why i would always prefer a datum point on the school building as a better more controlable measure than the more general main gate.

To be honest I have not come across the arguement about reception / KS1 buildings before. However if the admission criteria specifies that the distance is measured to the KS1 building then I would see that as being perfectly legitimate. I guess however that this is not what it says!

Tears are well known at appeals and that is not in most cases deliberate, it is because the parents care so much and get so wound up.
All panels will symphasise with the situation but Panels will not be swayed by tears. I do take a man-size box of tissues to every appeal for such occaisons.

The admission criteria does say that the measurement should be to the gate that is used by reception children, and we had a new gate about 3-4 years ago, and it seems that they have never amended where they measure to. The old gate is not used at all, and KS2 use a different entrance altogether.

When we appeal, is it ok to mention both the gate situation, and also the difficulty regarding the siblings?

thanks so much for all your help-it is so useful

The gate thing is, I think, tricky. There clearly is a problem in that the admissions criteria don't do what they say on the tin - they don't measure to the gate that the reception children actually use. Against that, the same fixed point has been used for measuring all the applications (it seems), so the argument that the fixed point should be moved from one gate to the other doesn't really affect you any more than anyone else.

Equally, the admissions criteria allow for the possibility that out of catchment siblings won't always get a place. It's at least arguable that you signed up for that when you placed your oldest child in an out of catchment school - that you either knew or should have known that subsequent children would be a long way down the priority list and wouldn't be guaranteed a place.

By all means mention these issues at appeal but you need to be realistic about your prospects of success. This is (I think) an infant class size appeal, so your scope for winning is extremely limited.