School admissions and appeals - some general advice and tips

[Panelmember]

In case this helps anyone, here are some tips and suggestions for anyone not happy with their offer of a school place and/or contemplating an appeal. This isn?t an exhaustive list and I?m sure other posters will be along with other points:

1. Check why you were refused a place at your preferred school(s) ? the letter/email from the LEA should provide some explanation.

2. Check that there are no obvious mistakes in the decision: was your child placed in the right admissions category? was the distance between your home and the school(s) measured correctly and so on?

3. If you have been allocated a school that was not named on your application form or is outside your catchment area this is not in itself a mistake. Where a child does not get a place at any of the schools listed on their application form, they will be allocated a place at the nearest school with a vacancy.

4. You can join as many waiting lists as you like. Stories are rife on MN at the moment of LEAs restricting people to a certain number of waiting lists or to the waiting lists of the schools they originally applied for. If they do this, they are in the wrong and you must insist on your rights. If all else fails, refer the matter to the Schools Adjudicator and ask them to intervene quickly.

5. The LEA should be able to tell you (if not today then very soon) which local schools (if any) still have places.

6. If you decline the place you?ve been offered, any other school the LEA offers is likely to be further away (although most LEAs will not make any further offer unless you specifically ask for it). If you decline the place you?ve been offered, this will NOT, though, give you any higher priority for another school or increase your chances of winning any appeal.

7. You can appeal for any of the schools you applied for ? or any others ? but if this is an infant class size appeal (ie where the school admits in classes of 30) you will win only if you can show that there was an error which deprived your child of a place or the decision to refuse a place was so unreasonable that it should be overturned. Only a very small minority of infant class size appeals therefore succeed.

Useful sources of information and advice are the school admissions code and admissions appeal code (available on the Dept for Education website) and the Advisory Centre for Education. There are several people on MN with experience of admission appeals who will help as best they can with individual queries.

Thank you for taking the time to reply and yes that was my case. Thats reassuring to know anyway, up to yet, both appeals are in, we're on the waiting list for one school but not the other and we're waiting for a reply to the email I sent about going on the waiting list for the other (though I might send one through the post too). I will email the schools adjudicator tomorrow and get their views too, but I would have thought that seeing as DS2 already has a sibling in the school there shouldn't be a problem about going on the waiting list, but hopefully I will find out more tomorrow. Thank you PM

My daughter has not been offered a place at the RC primary school that we chose as our first choice. She has however been offered our secind choice which is also RC. Can we appeal against this decison. WE have been attending he church for years and she currently attends the preschool

Abrefi - Every refusal of a school place attracts a right of appeal. You can appeal against not getting your first choice but remember (a) if this is an infant class size appeal you'll need to show there's been an error (such as placing your child in the wrong admissions category) (b) attending church is often not enough on its own to qualify for a school place, other factors like distance to school may also be important and (c) attending the pre-school is rarely (if ever) a guarantee of getting a place in the school.

I share Panelmember's puzzlement at the advice from the Schools Adjudicator. It goes against what I and the other admissions experts on here (and, indeed, experts I have come across elsewhere) have always understood. If it were me I would go back to the Adjudicator and say something like this:

It is true that the Admissions Code does not state that local authorities are not permitted to limit the number of waiting lists a child can be added to, but neither does it say that local authorities are allowed to do this nor is there anything in the code that implies that parents are not permitted to place their child on as many waiting lists as they want. Indeed, since one of the goals of the code is to increase opportunities for parental choice, limiting the number of waiting lists a child can be on would seem to go against the spirit of the code.

Local authorities are clearly allowed to limit the number of schools parents apply to as part of the normal admissions round but that is not the situation I am asking you to look at.

Consider the following scenario. A parent names schools A, B and C as preferences for the normal admissions round. The child fails to get in to any of these schools and is instead allocated a place at school D. The parent asks to go on the waiting lists for schools A, B and C but also finds that there is a reasonable chance the child may get in to school X which they would prefer to school D. The parent therefore applies to school X. This application is clearly outside the normal admissions round so clause 3.23 applies. This requires the authority to consider the application without delay, which requirement appears to be unconditional. If the application is refused there is an automatic right to join the waiting list for school X. However, the child is already on the waiting list for schools A, B and C and the authority has adopted a policy of limiting children to three waiting lists. There are therefore two ways the policy can be applied in this situation:

• the authority refuse to consider the application for school X until the child has been removed from one of the waiting lists. This would seem to be a breach of clause 3.23.

• the authority refuse to add the child to the waiting list for school X unless the parents remove the child from another waiting list despite the fact that this is an automatic right when an application is refused as per previous rulings by the Schools Adjudicator.

I therefore cannot see how the authority can limit children to three waiting lists without breaching the Admissions Code.

I would also note that, in case reference ADA/001835, the determination (dated 28th September 2010) states in paragraph 23, "However I would observe that there is nothing to prevent parents seeking a place at a school outside the standard admissions process. This would, of course, be treated as a 'late application' and parents may be less likely to obtain a place at a preferred school than they would had they applied to that school in the normal round of admissions; but, if the application is refused, there is an automatic right to join the waiting list for that school." Your ruling that the authority may limit the number of waiting lists to which a child can be added appears to contradict the position taken by the Schools Adjudicator in this determination.

I understand that it has generally been understood that local authorities may limit the number of preferences parents can name as part of the normal admissions round but, once the normal admissions round is over, parents can apply to as many schools as they want and place their child on as many waiting lists as they want. Your ruling goes against this understanding.

In light of the above I would like to request that you reconsider your ruling.

theres loads to take in there prh47bridge, and i'll read it again in the morning with a clearer head and not so tired eyes. You and a few others are worth your weight in gold...i'm sure everyone would agree with me there. goodnight.

prh47bridge - I have emailed back your reply to the schools adjudicator and will await their reply. Thanks.

Would anyone be able to help me with grounds for an appeal please? Here is our situation:

We live between 265-650m from 5 primary schools. School A - 265m away - is where DS goes to preschool at the moment. School B is the next closest (395m) but isn't a great school, School C is next (500m) and is a RC school. School D is next (520m) and is a good school, probably the most popular in the area. School E is 650m away and on the up.

Our application was as follows:
Choice 1 - School A
Choice 2 - School D
Choice 3 - School E

We didn't get any of our preferences - all were oversubscribed - and were allocated School Z, a not very good school in a completely alien area, a 2.5 mile car ride away. My worst case scenario was always that we'd get School B - I wish we had now!

There are 40 schools nearer our house than School Z, but on the letter the LEA said:
'There has been an increasing requirement for places in some areas of B. The Council has worked to increase the supply of places and this year supply and demand are about equal which leaves very few unallocated places across the city.'

So clearly what has happened is that demand for preference schools has meant we have been bumped further and further away from our home, falling down a black hole and ending up on the other side of town.

I understand the class size appeal info, although the LEA states that very few, if any, appeals have been won. From a legal perspective, doesn't a piece of legislation become null and void if the appeals process is never successful?

I am considering appealing on the following grounds:

(c) that the decision was not one which a *reasonable admission authority would make in the circumstances of the case.

What does ?reasonable? mean in the context of Class Size Appeals?
Paragraph 3.25 of the School Admission Appeals Code, which came into force on 10 February 2009, states:-

?In order for a panel to determine that an admission authority?s decision to refuse admission was unreasonable, it will need to be satisfied that the decision to refuse to admit that particular child was ?perverse in the light of the admission arrangements?, i.e. it was ?beyond the range of responses open to a reasonable decision maker? or ?a decision which is so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question could have arrived at it?.

**

I cannot believe that someone looked at our case, and was unable to offer us any of the 40 schools closer to our home than the one we've been offered. I believe the allocation system to be too blunt for the following reasons:
:: What if a family nearby was within the catchment for two or more of their choices, and this crossed over with one of our choices - why wouldn't a 'logical' person look at this and allocate this family their second choice in order for us to get, say, our third choice? This seems far more logical to me than sending a child 2.5 miles away!
:: I understand that the system for allocating places is to remove the preference ranking (1,2,3) and to put all who gave School A as a preference into a pot, and pull out the nearest 30 (or whatever, given siblings etc). Where someone falls into two or three, that's when the preference kicks in. What I've said above re not giving someone their first choice in order that someone in a 'black hole' can go to a local school should be added to the selection criteria, otherwise the 'black hole' families would never, ever be in with a chance of getting any preference - might as well not even bother filling in the form as the end result is the same.
:: I know that if I was the family being given second choice despite falling into the catchment for first choice, I would not be happy, but this is why the criteria need to be amended to explain this, as they do with faith schools - Eg, currently living near a faith school would NOT put you higher in the queue than a Christian living further away. Adding a similar caveat for those living in 'black holes' along the lines of the faith schools would solve this. Is it not prejudicial AGAINST those who aren't religious but live near the school anyway??
:: How does it not defy logic or not fall into the 'outrageous' category that DS can see School A from his bedroom window? (I will photograph this and send it as evidence to the appeal)
:: Given that there has been a massive baby boom in this area in the past 5 years, so much so that the midwife clinic I attend had to shrink down the area they cover as there was so much demand, have the Council been negligent in not addressing the demand for school places sooner?

Another question - do letters of support from local councillors hold any weight in appeals? My councillor has offered to write one for me as he believes the council has had its head in the sand over this.

Any help that can be offered would be great, as I feel I am floundering in the dark on this one. I'm just so upset that we are an ordinary family who have lived in our house for five years now, always played by the rules and yet we've been screwed by the system. I thought friends who rented houses near the schools they wanted were being terribly unfair to those of us who have submitted to the system - now I think they were sensible!

It is not the case that infant class size appeals are never successful. They are difficult to win but that isn't the same thing. You can win if you can show that a mistake has been made or that the council has acted unreasonably. In this context the courts have ruled that "unreasonably" means "irrationally" as per the paragraph you have quoted from the Appeals Code. However, no appeal panel is going to agree with you that your council has acted irrationally. Obeying the law is not irrational.

Your first four points are basically a complaint about the way the equal preference system works. Where a child has places at their first and second preferences the Admissions Code requires the LA to offer the first preference. They are not allowed to offer the second preference just so that another parent gets one of their preferences. As the Admissions Code is a statutory document it has the force of law so no appeal panel can admit on the basis of these arguments.

Your point about the council failing to plan properly may be true but it does not give an appeal panel reason to admit your child to your preferred school.

Letters of support from local councillors carry no weight in appeals, I'm afraid. If it is an infant class size case the only question the panel will consider is whether the admission arrangements comply with the Admissions Code and have been correctly administered.

You should make sure that they have placed your child in the correct admissions category for each school and that they have measured the distance from the correct address. If they measure the shortest walking route or similar you should also make sure the route they have used is actually the shortest. If they have got those things right you are unlikely to win an infant class size case.

You will stand a better chance if it is not an infant class size appeal. In that case you should base your arguments around the reasons why your son needs to attend the preferred school. Be positive about the preferred school. Don't be negative about the allocated school.

If the distance to the offered school is more than 2 miles by the shortest safe walking route you are entitled to free transport for your son.

In my view you should accept the offered school so that you have a place if all else fails. You should make sure you are on the waiting list for your preferred schools and any other schools you would find acceptable. You can, of course, appeal for your preferred schools and I would always give that a try, even if you think the appeal is likely to fail. You might strike it lucky. But please don't present the arguments in your post to an appeal panel. They won't help you and could alienate the panel.

Ok, I am really confused! How do I appeal NOT on infant class size? I thought infant class size was the only way you can appeal.

Reasons why I want my son to attend the school:
:: He has had a very successful year (to date) at preschool there. He loves his school, is very proud of it and talks about it non-stop.
:: For two years previous to this, he was very unhappy in a private nursery, so to see him blossom in school has been amazing. The school has been excellent for him and his development - I'm worried that taking him out of this environment will have a detrimental effect.
:: He is one of the youngest in his year - birthday end of July so isn't four yet, and will only be 4 and 5 weeks at the start of term. I think continuity of environment is very important for all, especially for the very young ones who tend to struggle somewhat in the early years.
:: In addition to this, boys struggle more than girls, so as a very young boy he is already at a disadvantage when compared with his peers. I believe continuity of environment and peer group would be beneficial in minimising this impact.
:: I believe that schools have a central role as "community glue" and should be the focus for all of the young families in the area. Distributing children outside their neighbourhood, especially at a young age, stops them identifying with their home patch and other children living there. Both my son and I have made good friendships with local families, and feel a part of our local community.
:: My younger son is a baby - he starts nursery at the nursery 70m from the school, which is also the location of the school's breakfast/after-school club. I cannot practically drop my older son at a school a 2.5mile drive away, then come back to my neighbourhood, and then travel into the city to work, and be expected to do the same in the afternoon. Besides, we only have one car and my husband uses it - whether or not we are entitled to free transport makes no difference as there isn't enough time to do all these drop offs and get into work.
:: We would like to join in with the council's walk/cycle to school schemes, which is only really practical for a local school.

Is this the sort of thing I should be focusing on?

You have no choice as to whether it is infant class size or not. That is a factual question. If, when full, the school would have some classes with 30 children in Reception, Y1 or Y2 it will be an infant class size appeal because admitting your son would cause them to breach the class size limit. However, if they are operating with smaller classes it is an ordinary appeal and you have a much better chance. What is the admission number for this school? Do you know how many classes they have in Reception, Y1 and Y2? If you are unsure, let me know which school we are talking about and I'll see if I can figure it out. PM me if you don't want to post the name of the school here.

The reasons you give are all good and understandable. The problem is that none of them give the panel a compelling reason why your son has to be admitted to this school. A lot of children don't get into the school where they went to preschool and a lot of children don't get into their local school. If you want to use these arguments you need to show that your son would be affected more than other children, ideally supported by expert evidence - not general articles about the subject written by experts but a letter written by an expert who has examined your son and expressed the opinion that he needs to go to this school.

You can make the point about the logistical difficulties of getting your son to school but it is unlikely to make any difference, I'm afraid. Many parents put forward this kind of argument and appeal panels can't usually take it into account. By the way, I'm not sure why you say that free transport makes no difference. If you take advantage of that you won't need to drop your older son off or collect him from school.

It would help if you could come up with some features of your preferred school that would be particularly beneficial for your son - facilities they have which the allocated school doesn't, for example. That would strengthen your case.

If this is an infant class size case none of these arguments should result in a successful appeal. The appeal would then hinge on whether or not a mistake has been made. As I said previously, you need to check that they put your son in the correct admissions category and that they measured the distance from your home to the school correctly.

If it is not an infant class size case you stand a better chance but a lot would depend on the strength of the school's case to refuse admission, which will be about the problems they will face if they have to admit an extra child. Sometimes the school's case is so strong that no appeal can succeed. On the other hand sometimes the school's case is so weak that almost any appeal will succeed.

I am afraid that I have to agree with PRH and giddypickle, nothing you have said so far is overwhelmingly good enough reason to admit.
As giddypickle says you need a plan B which must be to find out from the LA which schools nearer to your home have a place, which you would be willing to accept and get that place organised. I would be tempted to ask for a place at school B and see what happens, given it is next nearest after school A
Then you can concentrate on issues around appeals. If you are only 265 m from your first preference and apparently nearest school you must establish why you did not get a place at this school and where you are on the waiting list. How many places are allowed at the school for reception year will dictate whether any appeal is infant class size or not So what does the letter from the council say about the reasons for not getting a place for school A and how many places were allocated?

Hello again
Well, the reason we didn't get any of our options is that we live too far away from the schools we put on our form. I don't think the council made errors in calculating these distances so we have no grounds to appeal on that. all were massively oversubscribed so would all be class size appeals.

How do I go about getting expert advice on assessing my child and how this particular school meets his needs? He is 3 and 10 months so I cannot say whether he has particular problems with language etc - seems a little early to judge.

I was told today that the school we've been allOcated is actually 1.9miles away so we wouldn't be entitled to free transport. I find it hard to believe that forcing a child to walk 3.8 miles a day while already in the very tiring new world of reception Would not be detrimental to his energy levels, attention span etc.

A local meeting today has revealed we are one of 29 families in the area all of whom missed out on any of their three preferences and were given one of three schools this distance away. I think we have a good case to put to the council to demand emergency local provision for September - none of us are prepared to ship our kids out across town.

Is it possible to mount a joint appeal as well as individual ones? Does anyone have experience of this?

Hello, what a mess the current application system seems to be creating. We too did not get offered any of our DD1's three preferences. We were allocated a school 2.4miles away. However, our local school has a PAN of 60, but only has 12 classes operating, they plan to increase this to 18 but there are no details anywhere of how/when etc. It is a brand new school so presumably they built it for 18 classes, so is underutilised. We are going to appeal and have found schools in nearby villages that have places that we would be happy for her to go to, but obviously the first choice is still the main preference. We are 12th on the waiting list for first choice. Does anyone think we stand a chance on appeal or on the waiting list? I'm kind of thinking she isn't going to go to 1st choice now, it is heartbreaking as she attends the pre-school there and loves it. We live in a fairly new build area so there tends to be a fair amount of turnover in housing. Not sure if this helps though as you can then slip down the waiting list! All the schools in our area are massively oversubscribed and they have already added 2 bulge classes in nearby schools but we didn't get offered either of those. Any advice would be very much welcome.
Here is hoping that waiting lists do work and those of us that really want a particular school get it, one way or another.

BettyButterknife - You cannot mount a joint appeal. However, if several parents appeal for the same school it is likely to be a joint hearing in which all parents are together for the first part (discussing the problems the school would face if they admit extra children) but separate for the second part (discussing the problems faced by the child if not admitted). The appeal panel has to consider each case separately in deciding the outcome. They cannot treat the appeals as a block where either all succeed or all fail. The panel does not have any power to order the council to make emergency local provision.

I'm afraid the fact that the allocated school is less than the statutory walking distance away means you are unlikely to persuade the panel that this is too far for your son to walk unless you can produce medical evidence that shows it will be more difficult for him than for other children of his age. Many children of his age will face similar journeys to school in September, particularly those living in rural areas.

yesitsme2 - I'm not going to try and predict whether you will get in through the waiting list. It all depends on how much turnover there is.

As for an appeal, with an admission number of 60 it will be an infant class size appeal so you will have to show that a mistake has been made in order to win. You don't seem to be suggesting that they put your daughter in the wrong admissions category or that they got the distance to school wrong.

You say the school has 12 classes operating. A primary school typically has 7 years (Reception and Y1-6) so do you mean 14 or are they doing some mixed year teaching? You don't seem to be entirely sure whether or not the school currently has the extra classrooms you mention. If they actually exist you could argue that the admission number has been set artificially low and that the school could actually admit 90 children. I am not convinced that this would persuade the appeal panel but it may be worth a try. However, if the extra classrooms haven't been built this argument definitely won't fly.

BettyButterknife - I agree with all that Prh47bridge has said. Even in an infant class size appeal - which this will be, whatever your views - the test for unreasonableness is extremely stringent. It might be worth double-checking why you could not be offered a place in any of the 40 nearer schools - there may be some evidence of a mistake there, which might give you a claim to a place in one of those schools - but, as Prh says, there is no legal basis for 'gazumping' another child to give you a place in one of your preferred schools and what you are arguing for here is a wholesale rewrite of the Admissions Code. By all means start a campaign for that, but an appeal hearing isn't the right venue for it. If there's a need for a bulge class in your locality, get in touch with your councillor now and start a campaign for that too.

Two further points which I might have added to my original suggestions are

1. Appeals are about the correct application of the admissions criteria as they are published or (far less often) about whether those criteria are compatible with the Admissions Code. There is nothing to be gained from arguing "my child would have got a place if the admissions criteria were entirely different" unless the admissions criteria you are complaining of are clearly in contravention of the Code.

1. Where schools have an attached pre-school, admission to the pre-school rarely (if ever) guarantees a place in the school. The pre-school and school will have different admissions criteria and a child in the pre-school not getting a place in the school is not (on its own) evidence of an error. An appeal based on the fact that the child attends the pre-school is unlikely to succeed.

Bettybutterknife,
PRH is correct that an admission appeal panel has no powers to push the local authority to find more local school places. That is definitely the province of the local politicians and MPs. Is there a local election in a few days time? If so 29 local families all beating down the doors of the local candidates may just have an effect. It certainly can not harm.
I do not see anything in your posts that suggests that you have a strong case to put to a panel, even if it is not an infant class size case, so to me you have to firstly make the most of any other possibilities that are more local as a school and secondly keep battering away at the local council that they have to do something about the lack of school places locally.

Thank you very much for your advice. I am currently asking what their distance was as we live across a footbridge, they are supposed to measure as the crow flies so I want to check they didn't use the driving route as that is much longer. On checking, the school has 16 classrooms, they provide 2 classes at R, Y1 & Y2 and one class currently all through junior years. They have two nursery classes. The total capacity is 482 (52 of these nursery places) but are currently operating at a total capacity of 270. I am going to include this information in my grounds for appeal.

Thanks for the figures. I'm afraid that suggests that they are not keeping the admission number artificially low.

With a capacity of 430 after removing the nursery places an admission number of 60 would be correct. They currently have 4 years with 1 class per year and 3 years with 2 classes per year. In a few years time there will be 2 classes per year in juniors and, if all the classes are full, they will have 420 children in the school. Add on the nursery children and there will be 472.

There is clearly currently a lot of space in the school which would allow them to take additional children but unfortunately that doesn't help you. That space will fill up naturally over the next 4 years. If they were now to create an extra class in Reception and admit 90 children it would give them a problem in a few years as the school would then have too many children to fit in the classrooms.

I would still include the information in your appeal. If it were me I would still give it a try but it looks like a long shot.

If they are supposed to measure as the crow flies I would be gobsmacked if they have used the shortest driving route. The most likely source of an error would be if they have measured from the wrong address or to the wrong point on the school.

Thanks for all your advice. I guess we will be appealing solely as another way to make our case known and to express our dissatisfaction with the situation.

One more question - the deadline for returning the forms is 10 May. Is it possible to return them, saying we will be appealing, but not to return the grounds on which we will appeal until 7 days before the hearing? This has been suggested to me.

You should give an outline case now but you can add to your case later if you want. Don't leave it too late, though, or the appeal hearing will have to be adjourned which won't endear you to the panel. The way appeals are organised is designed to stop either side ambushing the other and to allow the panel to familiarise themselves with the cases before the hearing.

I want to do a Freedom of Information request to find out whether any appeals have been successful in my LEA and on what grounds. They take 20 days.

Good luck with that. I expect the answers will be that yes, appeals have been successful but it would be too expensive to find out the grounds for the successful appeals.