Help with school appeal

[MrBloomEatsVeggies]

Very gutted that DS didn't get into his school. I'm planning to appeal, although I appreciate I'm unlikely to win. I'm going to appeal on prejudice grounds.

My 1st choice school is very hot on discipline, the school he has been allocated does not. I feel he will run wild at the school he is allocated (in fact, I'd say it's almost guaranteed). I'm putting this argument very, very succinctly on here, but these are the very bare bones of my appeal...obviously, on appeal day I hope to have more to say than that!

Does anyone think I have grounds for an appeal? Am I wasting my time? Or can I build an appeal case out of it?

All replies gratefully received. Also, I'm No.4 out of 9 on the waiting list, does anyone know the average length of time it takes to be offered a place, if at all.

I have to file an appeal pretty soon, and I have no idea what I should put as my case for appeal in my email (to start the ball rolling). Any advice there would be good too, if at all possible.

I know that everybody must be fed up with appeal talk now!! Really sorry, but am pretty stressed.

Giddypickle, many thanks for your advice, much appreciated and very helpful...thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

bubblecoral, it really is hard going isn't it, I'm lucky to have had such good advice.

southofthethames, that's good news. Unfortunately home ed isn't an option really, he would have to go to his allocated school and I will have to keep as close an eye as I can on him. I'm hoping against hope that my appeal works, or that he is offered a place before the end of the year. If not, I'm going to have to have a re-think.

I'm definitely not against moving him halfway through the year. I'll have to wait and see.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread, I'll keep it going (as I'm sure I'll have more questions ) and let you know the outcome of this rocky journey.

Btw Giddy, the letter states simply; Place not available.

It then says; If it has not been possible to offer your child a place at a school this is because the school is oversubscribed and all places have now been allocated. All applications have been considered against published admissions criteria and places have been offered to children with a higher priority under the admission arrangements than your child.

No, it simply means it is full up to PAN (15 in this case). This school has one infants class with 45 children and 2 teachers according to its website. That is an unusual organisation but, if true, means it isn't an infant class size appeal.

If it's a community school (ie admissions controlled by council and not by a church or foundation), they may have published their list of allocations for each school on the web -ie how many to fostered children, how many to siblings, how many to nearest distance (and what the distance was). Our council does this and you can also ring to ask the council if it's not online. it might be worth checking they haven't made a mistake, eg allocated a place to someone further away than you.

Just re-read the Ofsted report for our allocated school and am in a slump of despair!! Just offloading .

I'm printing off loads of stuff at the moment, and have had some fantastic advice on here and through pm's. I just don't think my case is strong enough. I suppose , by some miracle I might win, but I'm not feeling it if I'm honest.

Does copious weeping work? Because if that's the case, no problem .

Seriously considering pitching a tent in the village and saying I live there!

Sorry for my moment(s) of gloom, it just hits me sometimes. I do consider myself fortunate in that some people have no idea that such great help and advice are on these forums, and truly are going it alone.

southofthethames, am going to see the head soon, but she did say that 10 of the 15 places were taken by siblings. There must have been something in the air in 2006/7!! I will check for mistakes.

Or should I say 2005/6. Doh!

No, weeping doesn't work. The panel chair will be kind, I am sure, and offer you a tissue, but you'd do much better to marshall some compelling arguments for admission.

I'm kidding Panel, I will endeavor to stay dry eyed . It's the compelling argument bit that I'm finding difficult. I'm lucky in that class size shouldn't be an issue, as Prh47bridge found out for me, but I'm struggling to find a truly compelling argument.

I'm currently sifting through reams of paper.

Would it be better to request an appeal online or by letter? What kind of info should I send at the outset? If I have a letter from DS's nursery, when do I send that? Have I got to outline my whole case or just a synopsis? (hoping for a synopsis as I haven't really formulated a case (or what I hope will be a case) yet.

I know, MrBloom, but felt I had to give a serious answer because one of the bits of dud advice that's sometimes given on MN by well-meaning but misinformed people is "turn on the waterworks because then they'll feel sorry for you and allow your appeal". They won't.

Online or letter is up to you, I think. In your synopsis, give as full a summary of the main points of your argument as you can, even if you have to say "further details to follow". If you turn up on the day with a lot of completely fresh material, the appeal may have to be adjourned for the new material to be considered.

Ooh err. I'm a panel member (and occasionally chair) not a marriage guidance counsellor!

I do see what you mean, though.

The panel won't think any better of you because you do or don't have DH in tow. You don't get bonus points for having a supportive spouse with you, as that too is irrelevant to the appeal. Really, anything goes - the one no-no is taking a bunch of younger siblings who fight and knock water all over the table, as happened to me last year. You're quite right - the appeal has nothing to do with the [real or perceived] quality of the allocated school and if your DH is going to waste valuable appeal time by banging on about SATs scores, it won't help.

It's OK Panel, we don't need marriage guidance , we know each other very well, flaws and all. He would know exactly what I was getting at. He doesn't really want to go (not that he's unsupportive) because he wouldn't be comfortable in these sort of situations.

Actually, think I'll have that post removed, it did sound a bit mean!!

Can anyone expand on what 'pastoral care' actually means? I know it means the way the teacher's care for their pupils...but can anyone expand on it a little?