Appeal help please.

[Leons]

Hi
sorry if this is a bit long.
Our son has not been offered a place at our first choice primary school, and we are devasted. It is a catholic school attached to our parish church. We attend mass every sunday, and have done for many years. It is an oversubscribed school, 45 children are admitted, and distance to school is the reason he has not received a place. We live about 900m from the school, some years this has not been a problem as there are families on our road with children at the school, and many families even further away.

The admission critieria is baptised children (which he is), family practising at attached parish church (one parent is the requirement, both my partner and I attend). Priority is given to siblings, (he is our eldest, I believe this year 36 places allocated to siblings,out of 45 places), those who attended the nursery class (same criteria). Then it comes down to distance. He also did not get a place at our second choice catholic school, where he attended nursery (as he did not get a nursery place at our parish school either and there is no appeal allowed for nursery...although one family did appeal and were given a place), but we are out of parish for that school and its further away, and also did not get a place at our 3rd choice catholic school, again out of parish and even further away than 1 and 2. So no real chance expected with 2 or 3 but we want our son to attend a catholic school.

Each year the school has admitted more than the published number of 45, normally each year ends up about 52. A couple of years ago final intake expanded to 60.

We are appealing, and the basis of our appeal will be purely that it is our parish school, we are a practising catholic family and our son should attend the school attached to his parish. We have written support from our priest and also another member of the community. We are so attached to and active within our parish, that our children attending the school to me is just the next step, a natural progression for our children in their catholic upbringing. Our son loves going to mass, its part of his normal weekly routine. I really believe that we will not be able to continue in the parish, if our children are not also attending the school with everyone else. I believe our son will become ostracised from the other children on Sundays because he is not forming the same bonds during the week in school, not being invited to birthday parties etc. My son will be disadvanted by not going to this school. My husband wants to move out of london over this.

Has anyone had a similar appeal and won? Any advice anyone can offer would be so gratefully appreciated. I know of cases where admissions criteria hasnt been strictly adhered to, such as the nursery appeal, can I use this without actually naming the families. I dont begrudge these families a place for their children, but as the headmaster said to me, we have done everything right, yet we have been badly let down. As it is a catholic school, its va, so appeal will be via the school and not the Education Authority.

thanks all for reading.

The rules for appeals are the same regardless of whehter the appeal is organised by the school or the LA.

The first question is whether this is infant class size. With a PAN of 45 it would be if, say, they have 2 classes in Reception and then 3 classes covering Y1/2. However, if they have 2 classes in each year it is not infant class size. If your figures for the number of children admitted in previous years are correct either they are making a lot of mistakes or the appeal would not be infant class size (or the school is simply ignoring the rules).

If it is infant class size you should only win an appeal if a mistake has been made, e.g. your son has been placed in the wrong admission category. On the other hand if it is not infant class size the appeal panel will have to decide whether the prejudice to your son from not being admitted to this school outweighs the prejudice to the school from taking an extra pupil.

Are there any features your preferred school has which are missing from the allocated school and which would be particularly useful for your son? If there are that would help to bolster your case.

The fact that the admission criteria haven't been adhered to in the past doesn't really help you at appeal, particularly where the non-adherence affects the nursery rather than the main school. It would be more interesting to the panel if the admission criteria haven't been followed for admissions to the main school this year, i.e. some of those admitted should not have been ahead of you on the admission criteria. However, that seems unlikely. It looks like you have been unfortunate with the number of siblings.

The high number of successful appeals this school seems to have makes me wonder if they don't fight appeals too hard.

I do hope you are successful Leons - I know how devastating it can be for a child if his friends at church/nursery make it in and he doesn't, feels like one is being judged/in a contest - they are only 4 (or 3+) and they can't do anything to influence the outcome. Then again, lots of siblings is often to be expected in Catholic schools! Their past history with appeal outcomes is a v hopeful factor. Let us know it turns out!

Thanks both.
The class figures I have for previous years, are from other parents. I will find out from school the actual figures. Our appeal will be heard early June. Another stressful 5 weeks to go.

PRH47 Bridge - You ask about features which I would be particularly useful for our son. Our preferred school has very high academic standards/results, performs brilliantly in sats, which I know isnt to be taken at face value, alot of prep in the months before hand does contribute to this. I know from parents with past pupils how good the teaching standard is throughout all the years. Our allocated school has above normal number of students where english is their second language, also above normal number of students with learning disabilities. This school has a good oftsted too, but I just dont feel its right for him. It was our 5th choice school, but really hoped we wouldnt get down as far as 5th choice!. Our son is very bright, and im not being precious in anyway, I know we all like to think or hope our children are very bright. His carers at his creche over the last few years have told us this time and time again. His current nursery teacher has told us this too. We want a good academic school for him where he will be challenged and where he will flourish. I dont want him to be ignored or left trundling along because he is doing ok. I feel this would happen in our allocated school. Especially as he gets older, some boys do need more of a challenge or they will get bored with school work. He needs more of a challenge, we can see this already. Lots of people tell me he will do fine at whatever school he goes to because he is bright, but I want him to do better than fine, or at least have the potential to do better than fine. As well as our wanting a catholic school, can I use this in our appeal?

thanks again

Unfortunately things like the academic standard of the school won't help you. Appeal panels aren't allowed to take that into account. And I certainly wouldn't mention that the allocated school has an above average number of students with English as a second language or with learning disabilities. That definitely won't help your appeal.

I understand your desire to see your son stretched but again it isn't of itself good grounds for a successful appeal. Ideally you need to find something more concrete.

I agree with everythign prh47bridge has said. In particular, do not comment on the pupils in your allocated school with EAL or learning disabilities. Perhaps this isn't what you intend, but what the panel will hear is "I don't want my child to go to school with foreigners or children with disabilities". At best, this is immaterial to the appeal, at worst it makes you sound prejudiced.

Just to doublecheck in case I misread - is the allocated school a non-Catholic school? Perhaps if it isn't, you could mention that this factor is important to you - can I ask panelmember and prh47bridge, am I right? That it is important to you to have a school that supports your faith? Because then you could mention that this is an area that the allocated school does not provide.

I agree with prh47bridge and panelmember - don't mention the other schools' pupils who have learning disability or English as a foreign language, and don't say "my preferred school has better teaching/better results than the allocated school" - anything that could be interpreted as disparaging the allocated school is a no-no.

There's nothing to stop anyone from saying during their appeal that they particularly do/don't [as appropriate] want their child to attend a faith school. The problem still remains, though, that if the appeal is an infant class size one, it will hinge on whether there has been some sort of serious error and not meeting the parents' preference in providing/not providing a place at a faith school isn't an error as such. So this argument isn't likely to sway the appeal panel.

There may be more scope at a non-infant class size appeal, where the arguments are all about the balance of prejudice, but I still doubt that this argument on its own would be conclusive. A panel might take the view that parents who want to bring their child up in a faith can still do so without a place in a faith school and parents who don't want their child to have a faith-based education can withdraw their child from RE and so on.

On the whole, I think it would be a better strategy to look for other reasons for wanting the preferred school which more clearly relate to the arguments about prejudice.

SouthoftheThames is right about not disparaging the allocated school. In the first place, it's immaterial. The appeal is about why the child should attend the preferred school, not why s/he shouldn't attend the allocated school. Secondly, the argument goes nowhere - no LEA or panel is ever going to say 'you're quite right - your child is so clever/talented/deserving that s/he can't be expected to go to a failing school/school with children from deprived backgrounds', which (overtly or reading between the lines) is the objection that some parents have to their allocated school. I understand that few parents feel enthusiastic about their child attending a failing school, but these schools don't close to new admissions and if there is a shortage of places across the LEA the LEA won't want those places to go unfilled. Lastly, appeal panels work very hard to decide each case on its own merits and can't be swayed by how much (or little) they like the person making the appeal. (That's why the advice sometimes given to turn on the waterworks is unlikely to succeed - panels know that parents find the process stressful but cynically and deliberately trying to manipulate the panel isn't a good idea). Even so, it's not wise to make statements to the panel that could be interpreted as insulting, derogatory towards other parents and their children, or discriminatory.