primary appeals/admissions experts please can you help?

[shelley72]

please can you tell me exactly on what grounds you can appeal against the decisions that have just been sent out as i have jus come back from toddler group and have been given lots of pitying looks about our DS school and told that i should appeal...

to which i replied 'on what basis?' we applied out of catchment, they have admitted a class size of 30, distances seem fairly accurate in our case. i think that we were just too far down the list. DS has no SEN / medical need (or we would have put this in our original application). but, (this lady said) none of this matters, she also didnt get her first choice and is so going to appeal against this - their preschool sorts it all out for them, she is shocked that her DC didnt get a place at school x as they go to school x's atached preschool. I said that I didnt think it worked that way, and thought that you couldnt appeal just becasue you didnt get what you wanted??? or am i mistaken?

obviously we would have liked choices 1 or 2 (and are indeed on the waiting lists for both) but we cant appeal just becasuse we were offered choice 3 can we? or can we?

thanks

You can appeal just because you didn't get the school you wanted but it sounds like it will be an ICS case as you talk about a class size of 30. That means you can only win if a mistake was made. Going to the attached pre-school generally does not give priority for admissions.

You can appeal even if there is no evidence of a mistake. Your chances of success are very low but you may strike it lucky.

Shelley, to be clear the pre-school can do all the sorting out that they want but actually it should make absolutely no difference to what happens at appeal. The appeal if it is an infant class size appeal will only be successful if a mistake has been made. Everybody can huff and puff as much as they want but it will not make any difference if the rules are kept to.

in our area attending the attached nursery is irrelevent when applying for school place, which i think is a shame. Maybe the school places should be allocated from nursery rather than reception. Ds3 made a couple of lovely friends in nursery that didnt get into the reception class after a year together at nursery.

I do think that the admissions booklets and the appeals information that is available from the LEAs could be more explicit about what grounds there are for an infant class size appeal.

The info which came with my place offer says that ICS appeals will only be successful if the LEA has made a mistake, OR the decision made was unreasonable. Every single parent who hasn't got their first choice of school thinks the decision is unreasonable, so will seize on those words. So much time and money could be saved if the LEAs set out in their letters 10 scenarios which would not be grounds for an ICS appeal, (e.g. childcare issues, parents' ill health, special educational needs (other than those covered by the admissions criteria), religious preference (ditto), only school within walking distance, unsuitable/poor allocated school, all nursery friends attending different school etc etc etc).

My SIL didn't get her first (and only ) choice and her immediate response in her text to me was 'I'll be appealing of course'.

Hope someone can help please.

My daughter didn't get into any of our 2 preferred choices. 1st choice (community) or 2nd choice (voluntary aided). We were offered a school (community) and was astounded that the LA believes that a 7 mile (14 return) commute for a 4year old child is acceptable,especially since information that was provided via email to my friend from the LA that there were other schools in our area that had places available. Today I have learned by telephone that there are now no places :-/

We are on the waiting list for these two place and fairy high up (for now) but I can't pin my hopes on hoping that someone declining their offer.

So what I'm trying to say is do we have grounds for appeal at the fact that there were other places available within our area at the time of our offer being made?

Many thanks in advance.

M

Forgot to say we have declined the offer of the school 7 miles away.

MonsterMissy - There are many reasons why children who hope to attend a school don't attend its nursery. Why, really, should children miss out on a place at their local school because (say) they went to a parents' workplace nursery and children from further afield have filled the nursery places? Most children very quickly make new friends when they start school and keeping nursery friends together is not, in my view, a sound basis for school admissions.

Simply123 - Were there really only two schools to which you could apply? The way it works is that, if the LEA can't offer you a place at any of your preferred schools, it will offer you a place in the nearest school with a vacancy. Those schools will often be farther away and less popular than other schools in the vicinity.

You can appeal for any school you want, even if you didn't originally apply for it. If it is an infant class size appeal, though, your chances will be slim. If you can show that at the time your offer was made your nearer school had a vacancy, that might convince the panel that you should have been made an offer there. However, it seems quite likely that the vacancy your friend was told of has been created more recently, when somebody subsequently turned down their place, so you would need to get to the bottom of that.

If you have read the many other appeals threads, you will have seen that naming only one or two schools does not boost your chances of getting a place at those schools. Likewise, turning down a school place does not oblige the LEA to offer you an alternative and does not increase your odds of winning an appeal (possibly the opposite, if the arguments are finely balanced, the panel thinks you are trying to blackmail them and does not give you the benefit of the doubt).

Sparkles281 - I understand your frustration, but parents have a legal right to appeal and although many appeals fail, they do at least ensure that the arguments have had a decent hearing. And sometimes, serious errors and unfairness do come to light.

Simply123, sorry you haven't got a satisfactory offer. There may well have been other schools with places available, but also other applicants who were higher up the criteria for those schools. Waiting list places are filled according to the exact same admissions criteria. Did you only apply to two schools? Were they ones which you believed you had a good chance of getting into based on the criteria? Couldn't you have had a 3rd choice closer than 7 miles?

Could I ask a question here? I recently relocated to a completely different part of the country. I was 3 months into the area when I applied for schools and not only did I not really know the area, I just didn't grasp the whole application process - ie distance from postcode to school. However I live in rented accomodation and have to move again in the next 8 weeks. My son was offered a school in special measures and with an inadequate ofsted report 5 miles from where we live. There are 4 schools (2 of which I chose) within 1500m - but the new criteria was that they reduced the distance - hence not being offered a place at these schools or the other one I selected. If I were to move next door to the preferred school - would the appeal be heard slightly differently as I am now within the criteria. I understand that my son will probably go up to number 1 on the waiting list - but I am unclear if this would aid any appeal.

I accept that the appeal process is a lot of paperwork, from both sides, and the rules are what they are.

But no way will my son go to this school he was offered - inadequate I could live with if the teaching was improving, but its just not - according to the OFSTED reports and supplementary reports.

You are muddling two things - place on waiting list and appeals - and possibly a third, catchment area/distance to school.

Waiting lists are held in the same order as admissions priorities. If something happens that moves you into a higher admissions category - such as moving much closer to the school - that will move you up the waiting list too.

You say that the "new criteria ... reduced the distance". Do you mean that there was a formal catchment area and its size has been reduced? Or do you mean that places are awarded according to distance from school and this year the distance at which the last place was awarded was smaller than in previous years?

The purpose of the appeal is to decide whether you should be given a place at the school. If you win the appeal, your child gets a place. Where you are on the waiting lists makes no difference. You could be 99th on the waiting list and still win the appeal.

Is this going to be an infant class size appeal? If so, don't bank on winning. If being close to the school puts you at the top of the waiting list, that may be your best hope. Even so, you would do well to look for other schools that might have a place for your child.

Turning down the school you've been offered won't boost your chances at appeal.

Thanks for the advice - probably could have worded it better - but you both got the gist!

Will the admissions dept declare if the classes are up to 30 or not - ie per Schoolsnightmares response on Infant Class Size Appeal.

And they reduced the distance awarded from the school due to over-subscription.

I am viewing a private school next week, but I really would rather wait until grammar school for that, alternatively I have thought about home-schooling or similar then reapplying next year - as I'm aware that he doesn't legally have to go yet - but quite frankly he is already writing and reading - scary really!

The number of places to be filled - the Published Admissions Number - should be in the schools admission booklet, online.

Thank you :)

Panelchair thanks for you reply.

There are 6 schools in our small town. 3 Community were we fit all criteria. 2 Voluntary Aided CE were we fit some or most of the criteria (both have different criteria) we are
C of E but we don't attend church. Also 1 Voluntary Aided RC fit most of the criteria but are not catholic. The other 2 closest are in the next small village (we are on the boarder).
So we choose the closest to us that fit our preference and distance.

I was wondering how I appeal on a school that I haven't originally applied for? On what ground?

With regards to the vacancies, the LEA wouldn't know at this stage whether any places have been accepted or declined as the school will not have pass on this information until Monday 30th when all offers have to be in.

Yes I have read with great interest (wish I would have know this was here before applying)the other appeal threads and didn't think it would cause too much of a problem of only naming 2, but we live and learn.

I appreciate the fact that turning down a offer of a school doesn't oblige the LEA on finding an alternative or increase my chances at an appeal that I understand.

Blu - thanks :-)
Is it not the case that if the places have been offered at those schools could only be for late applicants or people just coming into the area rather than people declining other schools and then getting an offer of the next school with availability, as this wouldn't show until after Monday 30th when all offers are sent back for the schools to the LEA?

Yes only applied for 2 (please see above on Panelchairs comment) and yes felt we had a good chance of getting in as the first is just less than a mile away and fit the criteria and the second is again just under a mile away and fit most of the criteria only we don't go to church.

Sorry this is so long.

Hope it makes senses as it way passed my bedtime.

Thanks again in advance.

M

Your grounds for appealing for a school to which you did not originally apply are that the council has been unreasonable in allocating you the offered school as it is 7 miles from home and, at the time the offer was made, there were places available at the appeal school which is closer to your home.

Thanks for your replays :-)