LA's statement to refuse admission at appeal

[izzy1020]

I have received the LA's statement for refusal of admission to the school we are appealing to get my son into and was wondering if any knowledgable people could help me.

It is for a year 3 appeal. The school has a PAN of 60 per year, however they are saying that the net capacity is 409 ( range is 367 - 413). Currently have 418 on roll. No classes are currently above 30.

Their statment for refusal starts with the phrase that it 'believes that admitting more pupils would prejudice the efficient provision of education and the efficient use of resources'.

It then states that the maximum figure of the capacity range is lower than the 420 pupils it has when all years have reached AN. The school has great difficulty accomodating class sizes larger than 30 as space is inadequate for pupils and necessary furniture.
They go on to say that although class size limits only apply at ks1 going over this figure in ks2 is highly undesirable. This is due to exceptional demands on staff. It then states that the demand on teachers' planning and prep is very heavy due to increased assessments and marking.

It ends with them saying that the council is concerned by the potential effect of numbers increasing above the AN on the schools ability to maintain the current high standards of acheivement.

the school is rated Outstanding across the board, has been since 2006 and was again in 2009.
The number on roll in 2006 was 429, the 2009 ofsted goes onto say that "exceptionally high standards are sustained demonstrating the school's excellent capacity to improve further and to build on its long history of success." To me surely if numbers going above PAN were as damaging as the LA claim the school would not have acheived the highest rating again.

Sorry it is long but any help would be appreciated greatly.

The first thing to say is that if the school genuinely offers no religious education at all it is breaking the law. The national curriculum, which must be followed by all schools, includes religious education. In Primary School this must cover Christianity and at least one other principal religion. Also by law every school must have a daily act of collective worship of a wholly or mainly Christian character. Whilst a lot of schools ignore the requirement for a daily act of collective worship, I do not know any that ignore the national curriculum. If they do they would be in serious trouble.

Turning to your question, your biggest problem is likely to be your 4 year old. I can't say for sure without knowing which schools are involved but it is quite likely that any appeal would be heard under infant class size rules. That means an appeal would only be successful if you could show that a mistake had been made and he should have been admitted if the LA and school had followed the rules correctly. For example, if he was placed in the wrong admissions category that could form the basis of a successful appeal.

Appeals for the older two will be a little easier in that you don't have to show that a mistake has been made. Assuming there isn't a mistake, appeals for these two will be decided on the balance of prejudice - the panel will have to decide whether the prejudice to your sons through not being admitted outweighs the prejudice to the school through being forced to admit an additional child. A lot will depend on the strength of the case to refuse admission. Sometimes the case is so weak that almost any appeal will succeed, sometimes it is so strong that no appeal, however deserving, will succeed.

You certainly shouldn't be talking about the relative standards of the allocated school and the appeal school. We all know that some schools are better than others but appeal panels have to act as if all schools are equal academically. Transport and childcare arrangements don't generally make a successful case. However, you might be able to make something out of the distance involved here. The panel may feel that 5.5 miles is quite a long way to expect a child to go to primary school. You can also argue that your children's social development will be damaged as they won't be a full part of their local community, nor will they be a full part of the school community.

You can raise your preference for a religious education but I wouldn't make that the only grounds for your appeal. Some panels may be very sympathetic to such a preference but others may think it is irrelevant.

I understand your concerns about racial prejudice but this is another area where all schools are presumed to be equal. If your sons were actually attending a school and suffering from racially motivated bullying it would be something you could include in an appeal for a transfer to a different school but that isn't the situation here.

I would recommend taking a good hard look at your preferred school and find as many features of that school as possible that are missing from the allocated school and would be of benefit to your sons. If, for example, your children are musically talented and your preferred school has a school band but the allocated school does not, you could use that as part of your case.

To just follow up on what PRH has said, I would check the admission number for the two faith schools that you have expressed a preference for. All infant classes are restricted to 30 by the infant class size regulations, they they apply for your reception age child but not the year3 4 children.
If the admission number is 15, 20, 30, 45,60,75 or 90 then the infant class size regs almost certainly apply. Being realistic, given you are looking for a place what will be for an in-year admission, the only possibility for a successful appeal is a mistake by the admission authority which is very unlikely. As such the only possibility of getting a place at either of the two faith schools is via the waiting list.
I would also ask the LA for confirmation that you cannot get places in either of the two schools for any of your children. The probability is that the admission authority have simply looked for a school that can take all three children, not 1 or 2 of them. If you could get a reception place at one of the schools I would take it and then appeal for the other two places. If you have good religious connections you should use them to put in front of the appeal panel letters of support for admission from head vicar etc.

Thank you for your response! A few questions: Would it be helpful to know the schools involved or is that inappropriate for a forum like this? What is an "LA"?

It looks as if the reception placement for my 4 year old is full at both of the CoE schools that we would prefer to be at. It has been suggested that we call the head of schools that we would like to attend and go a meet with them personally this week before term begins. Would this in fact be helpful? We would be open for our 2 older boys to attend the CoE school and then continue to work to get our youngest into the school over time. What is your opinion of this? It is our older boys social and emotional transition that we are most concerned about. We do in fact have a letter from the Vicar and will have a letter in hand from a US clinical psychologist stating that the placement in a neighborhood school for social and emotional reasons is needed. Will this be of help? Although I understand the national curriculum includes religious education, the disparity between the emphasis on the individual websites concerning this is quite large between the CoE schools and the assigned school.

I do not think there is a technicality that we will be able to use in order to win an appeal. But I do know that there are multiple factors that will benefit my boys education in the CoE schools (music, sports, other clubs etc) that the placement school does not offer.

Should we wait to 'accept' the offer of the placement school until we have made appeal? I am working on the documents now and will hopefully be able to scan and email them before we board the plane tomorrow!

Again, thank you for your input. Any additional advise would be very welcome.

Also, we do in fact have "good religious connections" is a letter of support sufficient for this appeal? Is there anything else that we could do on this front?

Prh I understand that this should not be our total appeal only a portion. The balance should be enumerating the reasons why the CoE school would benefit my sons both in terms of proximity, various musical and sporting options and the emotional and social benefits from going to school in the community where we live. And while distance is not a sufficient appeal factor in itself, is it relevant that we will not have a car and that the bus stop is .5 miles from our home and .5 miles from the school - I am concerned about this in the winter particularly.

One more question! How do we find out the admissions numbers for the CoE schools?

A lot of questions to try and answer!
It is probably of benefit to go to the schools to meet the headteachers so that you can get an understanding of the situation but in reality it will make no direct difference to getting a place at the schools. The reason I say this is that it is the Local Authority, which would I assume be Cambridgeshire County Council, who actually be responsible for allocating places at the schools. Cambridgeshire County Council have presumably already indicated to you the school 5 miles away where there are places for all three of your children.
A reason for talking to the headteachers, especially about the reception place is that it is not unusual for places to become available in September in reception as parents find alternate school provision. Another reason is that for obvious reasons Church schools like to have pupils and parents who are strong supporters of the faith. Whilst this may not be directly pertinent to the admission process, it may be of help in ensuring that you are not "forgotten about" when it comes to any palces becoming available.
It is probably best if you do not indicate the two schools concerned on this open site but I have no problem with you sending me a private message naming the schools. All school details and the admission number for the school is in a booklet provided by Cambridgeshire County Council which comes out every year. This will be on their web site but are not necessarily the easiest thing to find.
An appeal for any school and the school you have been offered do not have any direct connection. Given that you need three places in three year groups in one school I would be tempted to accept the places at the school offered, so that they are available to you, whilst at the same time potentially registering an appeal for the 2 CoE schools.
It will be relevant that you have no transport both in terms of the appeal (though it is upto the panel members how much emphasis they put on this fact) and it terms of the fact that if you end up going to this school 5 miles away, then Cambridgeshire County Council will have to provide appropriate transport to the school for your children.

It can be helpful to know which schools we are talking about as it is then sometimes possible to give more specific advice. It is up to you whether you want to post that information in a public forum. If you don't want to do that, you can send a private message to myself and/or Admission - click on "Message poster" to the right of our names in the messages we have posted.

LA = Local Authority, in other words the local council that covers your area and has responsibility for education. Frequently also referred to as LEA (Local Education Authority).

Meeting with head teachers won't directly get you a place. The system doesn't work like that. However, it can be a good thing to talk to the head for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is that you may pick up information which will help you at appeal.

If there are places for your older boys at the CofE school I would go for it. Provided they give sibling priority that will mean your youngest will be at or near the head of the waiting list, increasing your chances of getting a place for him. Whether or not he would end up with a place would then depend on how many children leave.

The letter from the vicar and the letter from the clinical psychologist will help but it is impossible to say how much. It will be up to the appeal panel to decide how much weight to give that evidence.

I would be careful about placing too much reliance on disparities between what schools say on their websites. It may be that the CofE schools really are much stronger on religious education but equally you may find that there is very little practical difference.

The factors you mention (music, sports, etc.) are good and you should definitely bring those up in your appeal.

I would recommend accepting the offered place. It gives you a fallback in case your appeal fails. It also avoids giving the impression that you are trying to force the appeal panel to admit your son - unfortunately all panels have come across parents who believe that the appeal panel must admit their child if they reject the offered school. If the panel think you are trying to take that approach, effectively blackmailing them, you are less likely to get the benefit of any doubt.

When appealing for a CofE school a letter of support from your religious connections may be helpful. Equally the appeal panel may decide it is irrelevant. It can't do any harm to put such a letter in your evidence. I can't immediately think of anything else that would be helpful in this respect.

On the distance question, you may not be aware that you are entitled to free transport to and from the school for your sons given how far it is from your home. That may well take the form of a taxi picking them up in the morning and dropping them off in the evening. The panel will be aware that you are entitled to free transport. I would therefore avoid getting into the details of how your sons would get to and from school and concentrate on the potential damage to their social development. Having said that, it may be worth finding out what the LA will provide.

The admissions number for the CofE schools should be in the council's admissions booklet which you will find on their website. If you can't find it the council will be able to give you this information. They are required to answer any questions you reasonably ask to help you prepare for your appeal.

In making the appeal, do I need to submit an appeal for the 2 schools I am asking to be considered? In other words, do I submit two different appeals at the same time?

If reception is full-I understand there is no flexibility in these numbers - do I still submit an appeal for our 4 year old?

The schools that I would like our boys to be a part of say that they have strong TA support in their classes. Is this something to bring up in the written and face to face?

You appeal separately for each school. You do not have to submit these appeals at the same time.

I would still appeal for your 4 year old. You won't lose anything by appealing and you may strike it lucky.

I would check what "strong TA support" actually means. It may not be any different from the allocated school. You can bring it up but, if you do so, you need to explain to the panel why your sons need this support more than other children.

I will respond to your PM fully this evening but given what you say there about distance I don't think you can raise that as an issue in the appeal. If the 1.5 miles figure from Google is a safe walking route the panel will consider that to be a reasonable distance to expect your children to walk to school.