Mistake made when allocating place, chances of successful appeal ?

[runforthesun]

Hi, hoping someone can help with this, received our offer today, it was the 3rd place school. I had rang preferred school months ago checked and double checked criteria and we should have got a place, rang school this morning and they said that when info was passed over from LA they did not indicate that daughter was baptized catholic which was second on the list of criteria.

The lady I spoke to indicated that a mistake had been made as this hadn't been taken into account even though we had provided baptism certificate etc and she confirmed it had been received.

We have now been put on the top of the waiting list, but what if everyone accepts their places, can we appeal ?, even if we do appeal how can we win if all the places are allocated ? Sorry for the ramble and hope this makes some sense, but I just feel like an injustice has been done as the most important factor doesn't seem to have been taken into account.

Thanks in advance.

Go for the appeal, you have nothing to lose. You can't know what else is going on but surely others will be appealling that have been offered a place at the school you want and wanted a different school. Not everyone accepts places.

The problem is that you might win your appeal but not get a place due to the legal limit on class sizes. So you'd still be top of the waitinglist...

I'm sure one of the admissions experts will give more detailed advice, but yes, definitely appeal. If you win the appeal, you will get a space even if there are 30 in the class. They have to go over the legal limit in this case.

if you can prove they made a mistake you should win your appeal, irrespective of class size. The book 'how to win your child's school appeal' is very useful. Good luck

sorry should have said, if you can prove they made a mistake, and if they had not made that mistake then your child would have been offered a place, then you should win the appeal.

Thanks for the info, will appeal then, I'm really annoyed as I made sure all the paperwork was submitted correctly and on time, which was no mean feat for me and it appears the most important piece of info hasn't even been considered.

I'm just concerned by the class size limits and due to numbers we may still miss out, hopefully it won't come to appeal as I've been stressing out all day as it is !!

Thanks again.

the appeals panel have the power to admit 31 to the class despite infant class size regulations. I think you sand a very good chance of winning your appeal :)

Thanks Jackie, you sound like the voice of reason wish I'd posted earlier instead of bending dh's all day.

oops ear !!

You should not have to appeal. As they have admitted a mistake the Appeals Code says they should automatically offer a place to your child even if it takes the class over the class size limit. However, many LAs ignore that and make parents go through an appeal.

Assuming you do have to appeal you should win provided your child would have been offered a place if they hadn't messed up - it sounds like she would have. The only circumstances in which your appeal might fail would be if a lot of people had been affected by mistakes, in which case the panel would have to sort out which ones to allow in.

Thanks bridge, who would I be best taking this up with?, the LA as they didn't pass the info on, or the school as they don't appear to have cross checked the LA list against the documents and additional forms I provided ? This is all new to me and a bit of a minefield !!

I would lodge an appeal as most LAs seem to make you go through the process anyway. The letter you received giving your offer should tell you how to do that. I would also take up the mistake with the LA. It sounds like the school is its own admission authority so they may refer you to the school but I would still start with the LA as they made the initial mistake.

Brilliant, thanks.

The key to this is getting the LA to admit in writing that they received the supplementary information on time and that they did not take this into consideration. Please do not leave it to the appeal hearing. When it comes to the appeal the school as the admission authority have to present the case not to admit and they could quite justifiably say that they put you in the right criteria based on the information they had. It would then be up to you to prove that you did get the supplementary information in on time. The LA will not have any official presence at the appeal.
Normally that supplementary information goes directly to the school, so did you send it to the correct place? There is also a question mark in my mind whether the school as the admission authority have carried out their responsibilities correctly as they should have been ensuring they had all the supplementary information to allow them to agree who was in which category and construct the admission criteria order. Your post suggests that the LA were putting everybody in admission category order which is wrong for a faith school, it is for the school to do that.

Just as an asides, but it is relevant to your situation - at our school (school A), the LA made a mistake in their leaflet which indicated that certain streets were in school A catchment.

They were not, they were in school B catchment. Due to this, I think about 8 or 9 children were allocated school B. The parents complained as they were well within the top criteria for school A (as specified in the leaflet) - some having moved into that catchment specifically based on the information supplied.

What happened was that the LA admitted the mistake, school A had to provide places for those children, and based on that they also opened up a few other spaces for children who didnt get their first choice (school A) We have ended up with 43 children in reception - but this is good - they had to divide the class into two, and the LA funded the extension and mods required to furnish the new space and have one extra teacher and TA.

We have no clue however whats happening next year as School A can't expand any more - it was only ever meant to have one class per school year, so they may have to stay in the same rooms for Y1 and Y2 - they still havent told us whats happening with the teacher situation.

There's some misleading advice here.

It is not possible to win an appeal but still not get a place. If you win the appeal, your child is admitted. That's the end of the matter (except in the tiny, tiny number of cases where the appeal is later overturned and a fresh appeal is ordered).

As prh47bridge and Admission have said, if you can present clear evidence that a mistake has been made depriving your child of a place, you should get the place without going to appeal. Your child would be an "excepted child" meaning that the infant class size limit of 30 would not apply (assuming this would otherwise be a class of 30).

If the LEA or school insist you take this to appeal, then again you ought to win but it does depend on there being clear evidence of an error made by the school or the LEA. If you were at fault for sending the supplementary info to the wrong place (and in my LEA it would have gone to the school, not the LEA) then that's a very different scenario.

We had this with ds1 - applied to local catchment primary but were rejected on distance grounds - letter stated that we were out of catchment and that we were 33rd on list.

We were in catchment but some numpty one in the LEA had looked at our postcode and decided that we were outside.

Anyway long story short, contacted school who said "LEA made mistake", contacted them and ds got place straight away. I was also told it took them over the class size rule but that they would have to recruit and additional staff member to cover. Didn't matter in the end as someone mover away before Sept.

Afaik if its Lea mistake they have to give your dc a place and deal with any problems it causes and that no appeal from you is necessary.

Strictly speaking that is true, Whojamaflip, but it seems that many LEAs still insist that the matter is taken to appeal. I imagine it suits them, when explaining why an extra child has been admitted, to be able to say "the child was admitted on appeal" rather than have to admit to having made a mistake.

Thanks for replies, in late from work, posted a long message and lost it!! aagh !

Basically handed in supplementary forms with copy of baptism certificate and birth certificate at chosen school, they have a file with dd's name on with these documents. When I spoke to school yesterday she said that when LEA passed over names etc they omitted that dd was baptised catholic, I would have thought school would have cross checked names against documents held to confirm that you met the criteria, each criteria mentions being baptised catholic, as this wasn't taken into consideration her application I doubt would have even been looked at.

We are in the parish for the school and based on allocated places last year, 35 went to children in the parish then the last 10 went to children with brothers/sisters at the school and the remainder baptised children from other parishes.

I have been trying to get hold of admissions officer at LEA but he is off, but when I speak to him tomorrow I was going to ask him for the breakdown of how the places were allocated, basically if any were allocated to brothers/sisters, or children from outside of the parish I will know for sure a mistake has been made.

When I spoke to the school though, the lady there said she should have had a place however I didn't get that far with her.

I just wrongly assumed we would get a place no problem, had paperwork through now (as applied online) and appeal info says that we can appeal on the basis that "The child would have been offered a place if the admissions arrangements had been properly implemented" If we have to appeal going to use this.

If anyone else reads this thanks !!

Runforthesun,
This is a very simple situation. It is a faith school and as such is the admission authority. You did what was requested and sent the supplementary forms to the school and they have that file on record. Unless you were late in sending that information it was the responsibility of the school as the admission authority to agree where your child should have been on the admission criteria list. They did not do this because for some reason they relied on the list provided by the LA (who should not have been supplying a list).
As such you application has not been processed properly and therefore is a case of maladministration. What you have to prove is that the supplementary forms were with the school by the cut off date and secondly you then need to get the school / LA to establish whether you would have got a place if you were correctly positioned on the admission criteria order.
If that says you would have had a place then in theory you should be admitted straight away but probably they will want you to go to appeal and prove the situation.