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.

Have found out this morning that we did not get our first choice primary school for DD. Am really disappointed.

We live just outside the catchment area but DS attends this school (currently Y3) and has done since reception. There were 34 applications for 20 places in reception - the LEA have confirmed that we are first on the waitlist but I think there is virtually no chance of anyone dropping out to move her into an automatic place.

Some out of catchment siblings have got places but not all (based on distance).

We have decided to appeal and would appreciate any advice/info from Mumsnetters to help with this process.

The current KS1 classes all have more than 20 children in them (25 in Y1 & Y2, 21 in Reception), many of these children have come from out of catchment. We have also been told that whilst the PAN is 20 children, the IAN is 22 - apparently the numbers are normally the same or the PAN is higher, not sure if this would be relevant to our case? The school is just about at full capacity in terms of overall numbers though.

BTW the allocated school and DS's school are two miles apart so it will be impossible to be at both schools on time to collect the children. DS is really upset that DD has not got a place - they are very close - know that DD will also be very distressed if she can't go to the same school as DS and all her friends from the nursery.

Any advice/support gratefully received - eg do we have a good case for appeal?

BettyButterknife - I think Prh47bridge's prediction of what will happen to your FOI request is spot-on. What do you hope to gain from this information? The fact that a previous appeal has been won or lost doesn't do anything to help you, except (at a stretch) if there are so many appeals (by which we would probably be talking about scores or hundreds) all won on the same grounds, which might just - again at a stretch - add weight to an argument that the admissions criteria are irrational.

Pinwick - My quick reaction to your post is

1. You need to establish how the classes in KS1 are arranged. If there are 30 children per class (although the maths here doesn't seem to add up) then this is infant class size, with all that that entails. If this isn't infant class size, you have more grounds on which to argue your case.

1. Admission and PRH47bridge are more au fait than I am with arguments about PAN, because my LEA always admits in multiples of 30. You need to ascertain why the Indicated and Published Admission Numbers are different - I'm guessing it's because the classrooms are large and are physically capable of holding more than the PAN, but you need to get this confirmed by the LEA. Anyway, this doesn't necessarily help you because - if children are indeed taught in classes of 30 - the infant class size regulations say that there can be no more than 30 children with one teacher, and the LEA will be arguing that even if there is physical space to accommodate a 31st child there is no money to employ a second teacher just for their sake.

1. I'm assuming that out of catchment siblings are low on the oversubscription criteria. Especially if this is an infant class size appeal, the odds of your winning your appeal are not strong. I understand your point about your child being in the nursery now, not moving on to school with her friends and not going to school with her brother, but the LEA will be arguing that that's the way it goes if you place your older child in an out of catchment school and that first priority has to go to local children.

1. On the school run difficulties, the LEA will be arguing that many families face this problem and overcome it by using a childminder or sharing the school run with another family.

1. You're making a lot of the fact that there are children in the school from out of catchment. Obviously there are, including your own child, but that doesn't mean that every out of catchment sibling has to be admitted. You mention that some out of catchment siblings have got in, based on distance. It is frustrating for you that you just missed a place and are first (for now) on the waiting list, but there's nothing in your situation which suggests that the oversubscription criteria are unfair or have been wrongly applied (although you might want to double-check that the distance to school has been measured correctly, as it is pivotal to your situation).

1. On the whole, I think your best hope is in establishing (if you can) that this is not an infant class size appeal. In that case, you might find (although I wouldn't bank on it) that the appeal panel is sympathetic to your situation and decides to admit. If, though, this is ICS, your chances of winning the appeal to me seem very low unless you can point to some error such as miscalculating the distance to school.

Can anyone tell me if the LEA are obliged to tell you how far they measured your house from the school and the furthest allocated child at a school? I'm wondering if I have grounds for an infant class size appeal, but LEA say they can't provide this information.

Hi Panelmember - many thanks for your reply.

The classes are arranged by year group, taught in separate class rooms. There are 3 classes in KS1 - the published admission number for each separate class (Reception, Y1 & Y2) is 20 pupils per class - so I don't think it is an infant class size appeal - there are no classes close to 30 children in one year group in the whole school.

On the oversubscription criteria, it is as follows - 1. Children in care 2. Children in school catchment area 3. Out of catchment children with sibling at the school 4. Out of catchment children - so DD is in category 3.

Thanks again.

Hi. I just answered on your other thread. Para 1.31 of the School Admissions Appeal Code (which you can find via the DirectGov page on school admission appeals says

Appellants

1.31 An appellant may be a parent or, in certain circumstances, a child (see paragraphs 12 to 15 of the Introduction). In circumstances where a child has a right of appeal, that right is in addition to their parent?s right of appeal, and the child and their parent may appeal separately, or they may do so jointly. Appellants are appealing over a matter that is very important to them. Admission authorities must give appellants appropriate guidance and information before the hearing to enable them to prepare their case for appeal (see paragraphs 2.3 to 2.11) and, having regard to the Data Protection Act 1998 and Freedom of Information Act 2000, must respond to any reasonable requests for information about the school or the admissions process that the appellant may think they need to help them with this preparation. Appellants are entitled to question the presenting officer during proceedings. The role of the appellant at the appeal hearing is a particularly difficult one and this needs to be taken account of at all times by the panel.

The bit I've put in bold is the bit that helps you.

Admission and Prh47bridge - Did you know that the DirectGov page links to this topic on MN?

That last one was for TheGhostfPoshlyManor.

More on waiting lists - I've just been told in no uncertain terms by my local admissions team that we can only be on three waiting lists at one time and that this is a country-wide thing.

Pinwick - Aha. I thought there might be some mixed-year classes. This is better news from your POV. It's not an ICS appeal, so go for it!

Anyone any experience of CofE admissions appeals ?

Background, have DD1 in Yr1 of said school, based on a 3rd preference basis on application at the time. DD2 has not been offered one of the 30 reception places for this september, nor 2nd and 3rd preferences.

School admissions policy prioritises church attendance over siblings and distance to school (0.5 miles). We could not provide a clergy reference as we attended the 'wrong services', which incidentially is not explained in either the school prospectus or the clergy form. Churches in town are well known for patchy to say the least application of the 12 month criteria. It is also accepted locally that our own church does not record attendance consistently.

Someone at school let slip we were 31 on the list, missed out by one place. Another reliable source has told me of a family being offered a place far away from the school with no church papers and they themselves cannot understand why they have been offered a place.

Now l know gossip and hearsay are only clouding the issue and l need facts .. but on this basis, if that family have been incorrectly offered a place (which they are not accepting by the way) and l was number 31, l would have been offered a place in the first round.

Therefore an appeal based on whether a mistake has been made would be sound. However l want access to the info on the 1-30 offered places to prove/dis-prove the rumour. Have been told by county school could provide if they wanted to before appeal lodged, but do not have to until l lodge appeal. Bit difficult to word appeal form without having access to the data first ?

l also cannot rely on being near the top of the waiting list for reallocated places not accepted from the original 30 offers, as families on this have started providing clergy references to strengthen their positions. This then relates to some churches being more flexible in the town with giving them out. The school admissions board will reallocate according to the waiting list prioritised by criteria met, so l could get bumped, making appeal more crucial.

Any advice on how to play it appreciated.

MissAnthrope - You've no doubt seen that that has been much discussed here. Prh47bridge and I take the view that there is no clear legal backing for that policy. Another MNer sought advice from the Schools Adjudicator and was told that there is nothing in the school admissions code to stop an LEA from limiting the number of waiting lists that a child can join. It seems to me, though, to be just as valid to say that there's nothing in the code to stop you from joining as many waiting lists as you like. Prh47bridge set out very clearly (earlier on this thread or on another one, I don't recall) the logical contradictions in the LEA position and in the Schools Adjudicator advice and suggested that it was worth challenging it. Prh47bridge even suggested a for of words with which to query the SA advice (which may have been an off the cuff remark by a junior official rather than a considered opinion).

In any event, it is by no means a 'national thing'. My LEA allows anyone to join any waiting list, without any limit, and I'd be very surprised if they were the only LEA to do so.

Pinwick71 - With one class in each year I agree it is not an infant class size appeal. That means the question as to why they have set PAN lower than IAN is interesting. It suggests the PAN may be artificially low and they could actually admit another 2 children each year without problems. On the other hand it may be that some of the classrooms are too small to take more than 20 children so, although the school can in theory hold 22 children per year, in practise it would mean mixing year groups together.

The fact that all three of the existing KS1 classes are over PAN is definitely something to bring up at appeal. It suggests that the school can cope with more pupils.

You say the school is pretty much full up to capacity. It would be worth finding out the calculated capacity. This will be two figures - a maximum and a minimum. The minimum is always 90% of the maximum. The official capacity will be somewhere in this range. If it is at or near the bottom of the range you can use this to suggest that the school isn't really full.

I wouldn't make too much of the transport difficulties. Appeal panels cannot generally use this kind of problem to justify admitting a child and Panelmember has told you how the LA are likely to respond.

Given the oversubscription criteria, you need to check that no children in category 4 have been admitted. If they have it means a mistake has been made. Even without a mistake I think there is a reasonable chance that an appeal panel will choose to admit your child.

Panelmember - No, I didn't know that. Interesting. Perhaps we should start charging for our services

MissAnthrope - Your LA is talking rubbish. As far as I can tell most LAs allow parents to be on more than 3 waiting lists. Hopefully we will soon get a determination from the Schools Adjudicator on this issue.

CheeseMeisterGeneral - The problem you've got is that this is all, as you say, gossip and hearsay. If all the information you have heard about being 31st on the list and this other family getting a place to which they were not entitled you have a case. However, if all this is true and you are currently at the head of the waiting list you want them to get on and reject the place so that your daughter will get it. Equally, if all this is true you should win an appeal.

I think you also have an argument related to the fact your church doesn't record attendances properly and particularly the ruling on attending the "wrong" services. They cannot exclude certain services unless they tell you in their admission arrangements that these are excluded.

You can put an outline argument on the appeal form and say you will be providing further details later.

CheeseMeisterGeneral - I seem to have run out of steam when typing the first paragraph of my response to you above! I think you can figure out what I meant to say, though.

CheeseMeister - Very quickly as I'm trying to check out of this thread for a while!

Generally, the grounds for arguing that there has been an error are where the error concerns your own child's application. Here though you would be arguing that the 'church affiliation' criterion is applied so erratically that the admission system has become unreliable and you cannot be sure that your application has not been disadvantaged in some way. That's certainly an arguable case, but I think you may be hampered by the fact that (see quote from the appeals code a few posts above this) the school isn't obliged to give you information about other pupils if this breaches the Data Protection Act. I think your best approach is to go through the relevant admissions criterion almost word for word, picking out the bits about "attends regularly" "over the course of 12 months" "in the parish" or whatever it may be and ask (a) how each of these things is evaluated and (b) is the school satisfied that for each place awarded under this criterion, each of these requirements has been met and there is clear evidence that it has been met?

On your own application, I am puzzled by the suggestion of attending the "wrong services" in that my experience is that schools and churches don't designate particular services as the right or wrong ones to attend, so long as applicants are regular members of the congregation. Can you say more about this?

If you produce evidence to suggest that the whole admissions process is a shambles (which is what you seem to be suggesting) this is something which could be referred to the schools adjudicator.

Prh47bridge - It does occasionally cross my mind that some law firms would be charging £100s an hour for advice which we willingly give out for free! I suppose it's a compliment of sorts that DirectGov links here.

Prh47bridge & Panelmember - many thanks for your helpful comments, we will definitely be appealing for a place for DD now!

Panel member - to clarify the clergy form states that the parent has worshipped regularly at a church, regular defined as being at least once per month in the previous 12 months from application.

Other CofE schools in the same Diocese state 'sunday service'. My school does not clarify which service at all.

My church uses the child's sunday club register to measure attendance as sunday service. This does not therefore prove parental attendance as you can attend on your own. They also take the register at sunday club inconsistently.

We attend 6-7 church services throughout the year in school time ie: harvest festival, easter, xmas, end of year etc etc, these apparently are not 'acts of worship' although they take place in church, with prays, hymns and no clapping. Also services such as xmas eve which fall outside 'sundays' no sunday club takes place and therefore no evidence of attendance.

We have also attended weekly toddler group in church, this is also not included.

So its not just a case of being known at church, but ticks on a clip board for child attendance, when the form asks for parental attendance ??

And don't get me started on other church's more flexible approaches to measuring your attendance.

Right. Just had another conversation about waiting lists again and have been asked to email my local council with a couple of names of LEA's that do allow you to join waiting lists for schools to which you did not initially apply so that they can look into it.

Can anyone please give me the name of their LEA to pass on as I feel like I am being accused of lying

CheeseMeister - So, have I understood correctly? Have you been going to church at least once a month for a year and taking your child to Sunday school in that time? If you fulfil the published criterion relating to church affiliation (or however the admissions criteria describe it) then you have clear evidence of an error. However, I do think that a common sense interpretation of "regular worship at a church" is one of joining the congregation at services that are part of the regular weekly programme attended by the church's own congregation. I don't think it matters what day of the week that is, but I would be very surprised if attendance at the school's own services which are held in church but are not open to the general congregation (such as harvest festival) were to count as part of the regular church attendance but, then again, if this is not defined anywhere it's something of a grey area. To be frank, attending 12 services is not a huge imposition, and counting the school's services as part of that 12 seems rather cheeky to me and I doubt any appeal panel will look kindly on it but, again as I said, if the admissions criteria say nothing on this point you may just possibly be able to bring it in, to suggest you deserve the benefit of the doubt. Attending toddler group really has nothing to do with it and I wouldn't mention that as evidence of anything.

I don't want to debate the whys and wherefores of how places at faith schools are awarded or how each church measures attendance but I am trying to suggest how you could if you chose present your case. Relying on gossip will get you nowhere. This is an infant class size case so the odds are against you - you need to show that an error has deprived your child of a place. As far as I can see, you could attempt to do that by arguing (a) that you fulfil the criterion for a place on the basis of church affiliation or (b) that the criterion is applied so erratically/inconsistently that it can't be relied upon. Neither of these arguments is guaranteed to succeed at the best of times, but if you're arguing on the basis of your attendance at harvest festival and other school events and/or toddler group, your chances are even less promising.

Thanks Panelmember. I appreciate your honesty and advice.

yes l go to church, no not as often as l should
l genuinely thought attendance included 'all services'
so yes the attendance criteria has grey areas as it is not explicitly defined
school services aside the church has no record of my going to church as often as l have
sunday club is no measure of parental attendance
other churches in the town are being too leniant in their interpretation of the attendance criteria

I agree with Panelmember that most panels will take the view that school services aren't "real" services and therefore don't count. However, if you did manage the required 12 services without counting school services that would be the basis for an appeal. The problem will be proving it, although showing that the church doesn't keep proper attendence records may help as it means they are likely to get it wrong for parents who are marginal, i.e. attend roughly 12 times a year.

Can I ask a question please. Sorry if it has been answered previously.

If a school is found to have not followed its own church admission policy and an appeal is made and WON. Would that mean that an offer to another pupil would be recalled??

I am just concerned as my son has been given a place in my ds1 school but the sibling link comes after all church links. A colleague went on the church link admission criteria and has not been given a place.

No an offer cannot be recalled. YOur son has a place and if your colleague wins at appeal they will just need to make a new place. If you were on the waiting list you would move down one though.

Many thanks x

pinwick71 The school you want sounds like our school in many ways (but it is not the same school!)

The school is CofE voluntary aided and is therefore it's own admissions authority, until the 2009 intake split classes existed, the PAN was and still is 20, before 09 there were 2 classes for Yr R and KS1 (with year one split between the two classes) but then they got planning and funding to build a new reception class room. This was the year my dd started, the new class room was due for completion January 2010 so they used the IT room as a class room so they could have the separate classes from September (there is however still a split class in KS2, it is not a straight mixed class situation, too complex to get into but that along side the Yr1 class room being small means that a PAN of 30 is a no go).
The school is one of the best in the county and is always heavily oversubscribed however normally all catchment siblings and children would get a place as it is a small village and the catchment is also not heavily populated however for the 2009 intake the numbers in catchment were much higher then normal, a mix of high birth rate and an outstanding in all areas ofsted bringing more families to the village and for the first time ever one child in catchment failed to get a place and non of the out of catchment siblings got a place.
The catchment child and the 4 our of catchment siblings appealed for a place at the school. Due to the new class room and no longer having mixed year classes the school didn't have a problem with taking these children it was that they couldn't admit above PAN in the first round. I am not sure how the appeal hearing is structured but one of the families told me in simple terms that all those who appealed where admitted without having to go through to the second stage of the hearing as the school did not make an argument against admitting these children. My dd ended up with 25 in her reception year class (a child with a statement was admitted late), the largest class in the school but it was absolutely fine, no problems at all. Unusually 3 children left after reception (there is next to no movement at this school normally, you get a place you hand onto it hard, it is a wonderful school!) but because the class was already above PAN these 'spaces' were not filled even though there is a waiting list of sorts however early this year a child from out of catchment with no sibling link was admitted on appeal, the school as far as I am aware also did not fight this appeal and it had already been proved the class functioned well with higher numbers then the PAN. This is a long winded way of saying that you could stand a good chance, if the school is its own admissions authority I would speak to the head and/or the chair of governors to see what their opinion is on taking extra children, you may find like at our school they are not adverse to it but are restricted by the PAN.
I have to say though I was surprised when the PAN for 2010 and 2011 remained at 20, the information says this is related to the NET capacity of the school but I thought that would have changed with the new class room, if our school put up a fight against an appeal I would think that the would be a case to say the PAN is set artificially low, they took 3 over PAN last year as well on request from the LEA who were having a shortage of places in other areas of the county. I will be applying later this year for ds, him getting a place is not in question but I will be interested to see if the PAN is changed, I personally would prefer if it wasn't, I love the small class sizes and the Y1 class room is very small (but has good out door class room space) but I would hate to see children failing to get a place who were in catchment or had siblings further up the school, could be interesting!