Primary School Appeal

[nabeja]

Help Please!

I have the admission authority's case. It says they are at full capacity for the year I applied for, it also shows they have one child over their PAN in the year above, all other years are running below capacity. Does it help to mention they can run over the PAN or not? They've included info that the year we've applied for already has 15 children on school action/plus, as is my daughter, does this weaken my case?

Desperately in need of advice!

Which county are we talking about? Feel free to PM me. This sounds like both the LA and the school are failing to meet their responsibilities.

It's Suffolk County Council.

Nabeja,
The explanation given is simply not good enough. The code says that in paragraph 2.24 that the panel must include the reasons for the decision, in paragraph 2.25 it says that the decision must be easily comprehensible so that you can understand the basis for the decision made and that the reasons must be clear, along with a summary of the relevant factors that were raised and considered by the panel.
That has clearly not happened all you have got is a bland general statement. I think that you need to insist that Suffolk County Council, who presumably organised the appeal, give you the correct information, so that you can form a reasonable judgement over the decision or that you will report the situation to the LGO. The alternative is to go straight to the LGO because my suspicion would be that you will not get any further information.

I must apologise for forgetting that this is not a Reception case. Suffolk do not have to operate a waiting list for other years. I suggest you keep applying regularly. They can't stop you doing that and, in the absence of a waiting list, it will give you a good chance of getting any vacancy that comes up.

And I agree with Admission that the reason for refusal is not good enough so this is probably one for the LGO.

Sorry - "not good enough" as in "not clear enough". They haven't given enough information.

I have spoken to Suffolk CC concerning the lack of information and they've said they have met their obligations and that I can only make a complaint to the LGO if it's concerning maladministration on the part of the appeal panel. As far as applying for the same school, they say I am only allowed to apply for the same school once in an academic year unless there is a significant change in circumstances i.e. change of address and as we've just moved, why we applied for the school in the first place, that means the earliest I can apply again is in September.

I disagree with Suffolk. Saying that 'the panel concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish that the prejudice facing your child outweighed the prejudice to the school and your appeal was therefore refused' is simply stating that you lost your appeal and does not meet the requirements of the Admission Appeals Code. Time to refer them to the LGO.

They are also wrong when they say you can only apply once in an academic year. I don't have the old Admissions Code (which still applies at the moment) to hand but the new code says "'Any parent can apply for a place for their child at any time to any school outside the normal admissions round" (paragraph 2.21). You can only appeal once in an academic year but there is no restriction on how often you can apply. Combined with the fact they don't operate waiting lists they are effectively turning in-year admissions into a lottery - you get a place only if you are lucky enough to apply when there is a vacancy. I suggest you refer this to the Schools Adjudicator as a breach of the Admissions Code.

prh47bridge,

If I did refer them to the LGO, this isn't going to change their decision and I wonder if it will just antagonise them unnecessarily.

I just want to be absolutely clear as far as the applications are concerned, I've checked the information on the Suffolk CC web site, it states

''If your application for a school place is refused we will not consider a further application for a place in the same school in the same academic year unless there has been a significant change in circumstances of the parent, child or school. Such circumstances might be a house move or a place becoming available at the school.
If there is no big change in circumstances, you can make another application for the following academic year but this will not be considered more than one term ahead of the date when you want your child to start school.''

Does this breach the Admissions Code or have they very neatly got around it by putting in the change of circumstance? Although quite how we are supposed to know when a vacancy comes up, short of phoning everyday, I'm not sure. They failed to mention the 'when a place becomes available on the phone'

If the LGO finds that there has been maladministration they will probably recommend a second appeal. They can recommend that your child is admitted without a fresh appeal but that is rare. Suffolk should comply with the LGO's recommendation. If there is a second appeal it will be heard by a different panel. You will not lose out by going to the LGO and it may result in a change of decision.

And yes, I do think that is a breach of the Admissions Code. Paragraph 2.21 of the new code is clear that you have the right to apply for any school at any time. Suffolk are attempting to make that right conditional.

The old admissions code says at paragraph 3.23 "Applicants must not be refused the opportunity to make an application" and at paragraph 3.26 "Admission authorities must not adopt procedures or criteria that disadvantage children who arrive in their relevant area outside the normal admission round". I think Suffolk's arrangements fail to meet these aspects of the code.

As you say, you have no way of knowing when a place becomes available at the school. As they are also not operating waiting lists that makes in-year admissions into a lottery where you can only win if you happen to apply at the right time. I believe that is a breach of the requirements of the Admissions Code.

If the Schools Adjudicator agrees that this is wrong they will make Suffolk change the way they operate.

We are currently in the slightly bizarre situation that whilst both new codes for admission and admission appeals came into force on 1st Feb 2012, the admission code is only appropriate for September 2013 applications. So we have to use the old school admission code but the new school admission appeal code!

In the old school admission code there is not as far as I can recall any specific statement the same as PRH quotes that is in the new code and is absolutely clear. However paragraph 3.23 says that Applicants must not be refused the opportunity to make an application or told that they can only be placed on a waiting list rather than make a formal application. That as far as I am concerned is saying you can apply any time you want and as many times as you want. Suffolk are breaking the old and new code as far as I am concerned.

Suffolk are taking what it says in the school admission appeal code about repeat appeals and turning it into being about school admissions which are two very different things.

The new admission appeal code is now in force as long as your original request for an appeal was made after 1st February and what I quoted in a previous post are the rules. Suffolk cannot possibly say that they have met the new code obligation for the confirmation letter. There is also any number of legal precedents by the LGO about the lack of information on admission appeal letters, as the need to give details is not new, it is in the old cade as well. You could try quoting LGO cases 10.004.884 (Bishop Vesey's grammar school), complaint 08.013.094 (Slough grammar school) and complaint 08.014.474 (Ravensbourne School, Bromley) at them as they all had faults around lack of information on the decision letter among other things and see what happens.

I do have to say I have real concerns over your appeal if the school was bringing a new set of classrooms into use after the Easter break and question what the panel did take into consideration. As such adding all the bits together I think a letter to the LGO is completely justified.

Thank you Admission & prh47 bridge,

I am going to file a complaint to the school adjudicator today concerning applications in Suffolk.

I have given admissions the opportunity to be a little more forthcoming with regards to the refusal letter, as I feel I'm working in the dark here. However if they don't reply in writing by next week I will write to the LGO, thank you for giving me cases to quote as I think I'm probably going to need them!

The newclass rooms aren't due to be used until september so maybe this has a baring on there decision but if they were going to disregard the question of the new classrooms it surely should have been made clear.

Hi All,

Just an update really. I have heard nothing from the LGO, is there a time frame for them to work to? The School Adjudicator has decided there is a case for SuffolkCC to explain themselves, however they were unsure if my complaint should be classed as an objection or a referal or if indeed I could do both but as my concerns were particularly about in-year admissions they are going to look in to it and I should be receiving a letter any day now. Can anybody shed any light on this situation?

Thanks

The School Adjudicator will work as quickly as possible but it is still going to be a matter of weeks and they ask for evidence off the LA which can easily delay the situation. So I am afraid that it is a matter of waiting, though it would do no harm to phone the SA and ask whether they have any timescale for an answer.

The LGO is normally pretty quick with admissions cases although they do have to wait for evidence from the LA. If you haven't heard anything at all I would assume your letter got lost in the post. Try ringing them. Don't be put off by the person who answers the phone - they are mostly good but they are generally junior staff and I have known them try to tell people that the LGO won't take their case. They should give you a reference number for your case and you should receive a letter within a few days telling you who will be dealing with it. This will give you full contact details.

Thank you, I shall ring them in the morning.

Hello All,
I am now in receipt of the authority's response to the schools adjudicators office, they start by discussing my application for a school and then the appeal I lost, one sentence is factually incorrect but should it even have been included? It isn't really relevant to the objection or referral.

Any way, they say in their letter

'' The council does not accept my reading of the latest Schools Admission Code as she does not also consider the Schools Admission Appeals Code, specifically section 5 (paragraphs 5.1 - 5.3), and the council's published Determined Admissions Arrangements follows this guildance.''

Now I've read this section and I kind of see where they are coming from but should the Appeals code be used in conjuction with the Admissions Code? It doesn't alter the fact that it diadvantages in-year admissions and the school adjudicators office felt it was sufficent to warrant an investigation. I need a bit of feedback as they are asking me to submit my views concerning the councils reply & I'm feeling a bit out of my depth!

Thanks

Complete and utter rubbish in my view.

These paragraphs in the appeal code say that you cannot appeal twice for the same school in the same academic year unless you have been allowed to apply a second time because your circumstances have changed. They do NOT say that you cannot apply a second time, just that you cannot appeal following the second application unless your circumstances have changed. The LA is attempting to say that because you cannot appeal, therefore you cannot apply. That is wrong.

And no, you don't have to use both codes together to work out how admissions work. Paragraph 2 of the appeals code on p4 states that the code applies to admission appeals. It does not say anything about applying to admissions. That's because it doesn't. Nothing in the appeals code in any way overrides or modifies the admissions code.

That's my view, anyway. I hope the Schools Adjudicator agrees.

Thank you prh47bridge, I really appreciate all the help.

I have to agree with PRH. there is little connection between the codes one is for admissions and one is for admission appeals.
The LA seem to be trying to move from the fact that they have not given appropriate information about the decision of the panel, so that you can establish whether they did make a reasonable decision, to one of you should not be allowed a second appeal because there has been no major change in your circumstances.

Hi,
I need opinions on admission please. I was recently made aware there was a space available in the school year we applied for (& lost our appeal for) so I contacted admissions, only to be told that the space has been allocated. Okay, somebody got in there first but because I wasn't allowed to apply unless there was a 'change in circumstance' could I argue that we were disadvantaged because of this policy? I'm still awaiting the decision from the school adjudicators office, so should I wait to see if they make the LA change this policy? It all seems so unnecessarily complicated!

Hi All!
My son Martin is starting primary school reception in September but we are absolutely desperate (I cannot stop crying!) because the schools we have applied for (we have applied to 3 schools out of the 6 max possible) have rejected his application and he has been granted a place in a poor (rated "satisfactory" by ofsted for ages) and sad school instead. We are so very worried because since English is not our first language; my son has speech delay (diagnosed by the NHS just after the school application was made) and therefore we have not included that information during the application process. Furthermore we know that there is a culture of bullying in that school because of some acquintances of ours have referred to us that their children are suffering it.
I cannot stop crying...impotent because of this unjust circumstances... we only have one son, 3 outstanding schools around, the closest one 0.4 miles from our house and we have been assigned a school in a different borough 1 mile away from our house that is not going to help Martin's development at all! And I will have to commute to a different train stations to pick him up.
I do not know how to write and appeal, I will be forever grateful if someone could please email to me an appeal template because my son would have some chances at least to have a future. I wish I could pay a specialist lawyer, but they cost so much..I cannot let this injustice occur without fighting because I am convinced Martin will be in disadvantage if we have to send him to that terrible place that the borough has assigned to him. This should not be happening, both my husband and I work so hard to give our son everything we could not have when we were children, why can we not have a place in our local school? We pay taxes and live with dignity. We have scaped the third world and just when we thought that this life was going to be different, we receive this blow.
Thank you

Apologies but my email is [email protected]

thank you!!!!!

Nabeja,
This is all about dates and what the schools says it does about waiting lists.
If at any time from when you originally applied to the point where you lost an appeal, a place became available, then the admission authority needed to establish who was top of the waiting list and then admit them. That could have been you or it could have been the other family. You need to establish when this admission happened, so you can define whether it fitted with your appeal or not.
You talk about a change in circumstance but that refers to the ability to have a second admission appeal in an academic year not to how many times you can apply for a place at the school. So the question becomes what do the school say about waiting lists for the year your child is wanting to get in or do they just expect you to keep applying for a school place. There is no legal requirement to keep a waiting list beyond the autumn term for reception children, so it is all about what is the practice of the school. Did they in effect offer the place when they knew you were looking to get a place, but even then if the other family had priority then they would have been chosen.
You are only going to find that out by trying to get another appeal by saying you believe that the school have admitted another pupil when it should have been your child, that is obviously a major change in circumstances, that the school disadvantaged your child.

Thanks Admission,
It was an in year application for year 4, the problem is that the LA refuses to allow a second application for the same school unless there is a 'change in circumstance' I am currently awaiting a ruling from the school adjudicators office concerning this. So I wasn't able to apply until a space became available but by the time I had been told there was a space the LA had already allocated the space. They don't hold waiting lists! What I'm trying to establish is would it be considered, that we were disadvantaged by being refused the chance to apply as & when we wanted, there for missing the opportunity to gain that particular space. Or do I have to sit tight and wait for the ruling.

I think that your LA is confusing admissions with admission appeals. under the 2010 admission code for In year applications it says paragraph 3.23 that applications made outside the normal admissions round must be considered without delay. It also says that applicants must not be refused the opportunity to make an application or told that they can only be placed on waiting list rather than make a formal application. It does not say only one application a year.

What the admission appeal code says is that there can only be one admission appeal per academic year unless there is a change in circumstance.

I would say therefore that you are being disadvantaged by not being allowed to request a place, especially if they say that they are not holding any waiting lists.