Giving reception appeal a miss, are Y1 appeals any more successful?

[WhoAreWe]

Hi..I was going to appeal for our 1st choice school but the stress was beginning to make me ill. We found a school that we much prefer to our allocated school..and have pretty much secured a place (undersubscribed).

I still want our 1st choice school but I'm cancelling my appeal for reception.

How do Y1 appeals work? Are they the same and will I be more successful, or are the odds the same? Thanks in advance

Should say, I'm thinking of deferring a year so that I have more time to think about appeals, and my DC has a decent school in the meantime.

you could stay on the waiting list for your preferred school without appealing. so if a place comes up (which they often do, especially in urban areas) and you're at the top of the waiting list you'll automatically be offered it. have you not got into first choice because you were too far away? and if so, what is the furthest distance they've offered & where do you live? ie, are you close to distance boundary - if so, you're more likely to be at the top of the waiting list if that makes sense. if you're going to appeal for yr1, infant class size rules still apply (the class legally can't go over 30 & you will only be admitted if the LEA has made a mistake basically), so no different to reception.

you can ask school/LEA where you are on waiting list.

If the school has 30 kids in the class it will still be an infant class size appeal, so same limitations. I guess you are on the waiting list? Infant class size does not apply for Junior school - might be better to wait till then if you don't manage to get an in year place?

sorry, am thinking & posting at the same time. you might find once your ds/dd has settled into the undersubscribed school you decide to stick with it. we were offered our 2nd choice (wow, 5 years ago) & then 1st choice a few days into term. we kept ds at 2nd choice (which i always knew we'd be offered as it's very close) & it was one of the best decisions we ever made.

Year 1 appeals work on the same basis as reception appeals. Infant class size regulations apply for both years, so if it would have been an ICS appeal at reception it will still be so at year 1.

Thanks Panelmember, how do you actually appeal at Y1, when do you contact the LEA?

And thanks to everyone else too

You can appeal once every academic year. If you want to try to get your child into year 1 for September, it's probably best to apply at the end of the preceding summer term, whereupon your application will almost certainly be refused and you can appeal. The LEA is required to consider all in-year applications as it gets them, but it might be worth checking whether they run to any sort of timetable (even though this will be for their administrative convenience and your application and appeal can't be rejected just because it doesn't fit the timetable).

Many thanks Panelmember. I'm guessing that all the information and reasons for appeal that I've gathered can be used in a years time? just wondering whether id be asked why I've waited a year?. The truth is that I'm so utterly stressed, I'm starting to feel ill over it, and I'd rather have a year to make a case than a couple of months. I'm in such a quandry over all this, I can't tell you. What would your advise be?

If it is an infant class size appeal it could actually be harder to win in a year's time. To win such an appeal you need to show that the LA has made a mistake of some kind. If they have made a mistake in dealing with your application this year that gives you the basis for an appeal. However, if you wait until next year you will then have made a new application for a place. The panel may be unwilling to consider whether or not a mistake was made processing your original application, in which case you would have to prove that a mistake had been made processing your in-year application which is highly unlikely.

However, if your appeal is not based on the LA having made a mistake it makes no difference whether you appeal now or later.

My best advice is to think some more about why you so much prefer this new school to your original first preference and why you are contemplating taking your son out of this school after a year. To be frank, disrupting your child's life for the sake of a place in a school you like much less is a (shall we say) interesting choice.

Your chances won't be any better if you delay for a year. If you're really determined not to appeal this year then of course you shouldn't, but it seems to me that it would have the advantage of bringing some clarity to the situation and - if you lost the appeal, which you probably will (and even more certainly if it's an infant class size appeal) - you would know that you were at the new school for the duration.

You can certainly use the information next year (althogh obviously you may need to update it).

And bear in mind what Prh47bridge has just said about the difficulty in proving any mistake in a fresh application. In that sense, you couldn't re-use this year's information next year, as (if you are arguing about a mistake in dealing with this year's application) anything that's specific to this year's application will obviously be overtaken by events.

Thanks Panelmember. The school it's replacing isn't my original 1st preference, it's my allocated 3rd preference. I didn't get my first preference (the school I want to appeal for). It may be that my DS settles in the new school, and of course, that will raise questions of it's own, and it's something I would have to give a lot of thought to, I wouldn't drag him out regardless. We'll just have to see how it goes really.

I suppose my problem is that it's tiny. Only 30 odd pupils. His catchment senior school has 2000 pupils. I just wonder how prepared he'd be for that, how much of a shock to the system it would be.

Sorry, I misread.

Anyway, I still think that these are issues which only you can decide and any 'advice' is superfluous. As far as transition to secondary school goes, I'm not sure that size of primary school has much to do with it.

Wow - I would love a school with 30 pupils! That sounds lovely.
I wouldn't worry about secondary - it's a huge transition from any primary anyway and you may well find that having attended a small primary has done great things for your child's self confidence which will help him with that.

There is nothing to stop you appealing for this year in writing. Whilst i would always advise that you go to the appeal hearing you do not have to. Just do as best a case as you can in writing and tell the LA that you are not attending. It will still get the same level of consideration as every other case where the appealant comes to the appeal but it can only be based on the written information in front of the panel.