Experiences after winning school appeal

[demsy]

We recently won a class size appeal for a reception place for our daughter in September. I was just wanting to hear from anyone that's been in our situation and what your experience was like with the school afterwards? I've seen a few comments on here that teachers have been quite hostile to parents who have successfully appealed and am just wondering if that's the general reaction?

My kids schools always have successful appeals, it never makes any difference. Well except maybe flagging up that you really want your child at that school, which is a positive thing. The head at the senior school often congratulates parents.

I cringed every time I met the deputy head who had represented the school at the appeal; I don't suppose he even remembered me. He certainly didn't associate my dd with the appeal in any way. They have busy lives, it's all water under the bridge. They make the best case they can the time, and then they move on.

Our school were 100% supportive of our appeal (our DD already had a sibling there) and of the appeals of the other 2 or 3 parents with siblings who didn't get a place in the normal allocations round.

The Head submitted a letter for consideration by the Panel stating that the school would be able to accommodate children over PAN without any difficulties - at the appeal, the siblings were all allocated places along with a few other children who had also appealed for the school.

The school have been really positive about it all and congratulated us on the outcome. I think it depends on the school and how open they are to taking children over PAN (have to say that ours was not an ICS appeal though).

I won an ICS appeal in June this year for a reception place in another borough. I had heard "out of borough" zillion times talking to teachers and other staff. However, the head teacher seemed very happy, congradualted me and was very positive about it. On the other hand my child's Key person at the nursery did not seem so excited. Before the hearing she had told me that she knows another child appealing who has a very strong case. and also said that additional pupils will cause disadvantage for the class.
Other teachers in the nursery did not say anything, ( I was so happy about it and was a bit pissed off by seeing no one cared).

Honestly I do not care, becasue the judgement was not theirs, and if I or you could prove to the panel that our child would be more disadvantaged if not admitted, then they would do the same thing for their own children in the same circumstances.

I have recently won an ICS appeal and the head congratulated me but then started worrying aloud about what the school would do. I took her in some flowers as she had been very supportive (i honestly do not think that anyone thought we would win).
Generally the atmosphere has been ok (i have an older child there), but for some reason i do feel some negatives vibes. The bursar was a tad rude. The truth of the matter is we won; the school can legally have over 30 in a class for one academic year and there is bound to be some movement.
I don't feel bad!!

There is no need for any parent to feel bad for trying to do the best for their child. Any infant class size regs case is almost always down to a mistake by either the school or the LA so if the school staff want somebody to blame they should be looking in those directions rather than somehow blaming the parent for it. Of course if all else fails you can always blame the panel for being incompetent, useless or biased!

Thanks all, I spoke to the school today and they were very pleasant. My daughter has her settling-in session next tuesday so I shall see if I'm met by a scowl or a smile from her teacher!!!