Primary Appeal - any hope?

[Brunocat]

I've got an appeal date for next month. My son didn't get our first choice place at the outstanding local school (365 yards away) He attends Pre-school there and is well settled. His birthday is at the end of August so he will be the youngest in the year and his speech is a little indistinct so the other children had to learn to understand him but now he has lots of friends. We were offered our third choice which is 1.9 miles away and pretty dire. We managed to get a place for him after re-allocation at a fantastic school but this is 5 miles away, double the size and on the other side of town.
The reception at our desired school has an intake of 23 and the rooms are big enough etc to accept more children. The problem will be when he gets to Yr 3 and they have mixed classes - if the school has to take more children in on appeal he'll be in a class of 35 and I'm worried that I can't argue against this.
Also concerned about secondary schools as the feeder school status means that he could ens up having to go to a sceondary school on the other side of town too rather than our local high school. know this a long way off but still concerned about it.
Does anyone who knows a bit more than me about appeals think there is any hope.

Your strongest grounds for optimism here is that (it seems) the Planned Admission Number is less than 30 and so this won't be an infant class size appeal. It's therefore open to you to argue - with as much supporting evidence as you can -that the 'prejudice' (ie disadvantage) to your son in not going to the school is greater than the prejudice to the school in admitting another pupil.

How does the combining of classes in KS2 work? You could ask the school for information on size of classrooms (this should be presented at the appeal anyway) and for records of class sizes in previous years - if there have been 35 in a class before, this may help your case. Be aware, though, that although the law permits classes of more than 30 in KS2, the LEA is likely to argue -and the panel may well agree - that 35 is simply too big and too detrimental to the education of the children in the class.

If this does turn out to be an ICS appeal, you would have to demonstrate that the refusal of a place for your child was an error or grossly unreasonable (in the sense of being perverse). Nothing you've mentioned here suggests that is the case - attending the pre-school and having indistinct speech (unless the problem is severe enough to be classed as a social/medical need) are not usually grounds for admission or for overturning the initial decision not to admit.

Thank you very much for your response. I agree that it doesn't look good and that at least I do have a place in another very good school. My son is also on the waiting list for our preferred school so it may be that we have to wait for a place to come up - at the moment we are number two on the list.It might be more realistic to get him in this way rather than on the appeal result.

23 is an absolutely awful number to have as an admission number. A lot depends on the size and number of the classrooms and how the school has decided to form the classes.
An admission panel is not allowed to interfer in the way that the school decides to operate. So if they say we have 4 classes with 35 in, then that is what they have and the panel has to make a decision based on that. That would probably be a no decision, but if it was we have 30 in a class and it was a big classroom then that is more likely to be a yes decision.
So you need to find out the class organisation and the classroom sizes if at all possible before the appeal date.
As panelmember says an important issue for you might be to discover what is the highest number of pupils that have been in one class, because that will hopefully give you something to argue for admission.
I would suspect that you have far more chance of putting together a good case for part 2 of the appeal to gain admission. So I would start off with, the school is only 365 yards away (which begs another question, why did you not get a place?), the school that you have a place at is 5 miles away (but be prepared to defend the reasons why you went for that school) and then talk about all the things that are good about the school, apart from it is good academically which will have no weight in any appeal.

Thak you very much for taking the time to respond - I will find out the class sizes and numbers and previous class sizes tomorrow.
We didn't get a place because there were 19 siblings this year so only 4 places were available! I'm a bit worried that accepting a similar school (alibit five miles away) may damage my case but that can't be changed. I'm going to focus on continuing the relationships he already has and, being an August baby, he would be disadvantaged by having any disruptions to his leanring eg: making new friendship groups and settling in a new building.

19 siblings for 23 places, that is really bad luck.
Accepting a similar school is not an issue for the panel, what will be an issue is selecting one 5 miles away. You need to have good reasons for choosing that one as opposed to the one 1.9 miles away. If they are really very similar schools then that is too the good because you can then say that you want a school with these characteristics, obviously the first choice is the one very close to the home but we are prepared to do the travelling to get what we want in a school if the appeal fails.

Accepting a place at another school won't reduce your chance of winning your appeal.

There is a popular view that if you refuse all alternative schools and turn up at the appeal saying "you have to give me a place at this school because otherwise my child will have no school to go to" you will win. This is completely wrong. Having no other school place does not give you priority for your preferred school and does not boost your chances at appeal. It's a very foolish manoeuvre because it can leave your child without any school place and it may antagonise the panel, who will think you are attempting to blackmail them. The panel will decide the appeal on its merits, and won't reject an appeal just because the parent has been manipulative, but there is nothing to be gained by appearing to be holding a metaphorical gun to the panel's head.

Thnak you for your messages - PanelMember - I'd never be so stupid as to reject all places! What I meant was that the school I've accepted is so outstanding that the appeal panel might not see what the problem was!

I know, Brunocat. I mentioned that not so much for your sake as for other people who may be reading and thinking of rejecting all school places in order to force the LEA's or panel's hand, which is a piece of spectacularly bad advice I've seen given out on MN more than once!

Admission has already suggested a line you could take (if the facts bear this out) - that you have had to travel 5 miles to find a school comparable to the one you're appealing for.