Do I have a hope in hell if I appeal?

[PollyPants]

That's what I would like to know really and what it entails.

My daughter (4th born) has been refused our catchment lower school, she is the youngest of four. My middle (3rd) and eldest go to school via council paid transport to a nearby town and my second born is very severely disabled and goes to school 20 miles away. The third born went to the local school but will leave this year before the youngest starts, or would have started. But anyway, we have been refused a place.

The reasons for choosing the school are;

we have social service involvement because of our v disabled child who attends a very high level need special school 20 miles away, we need community support (and our friends) in order to be able to look after all our children. If I have appointments I am able to ask friends at the moment to have th younger one and I felt that could continue. I cannot afford childminders etc as I don't know when the appointments are, if my other child will be admitted to hospital etc and wehave no family close at all.

I don't have a car and cannot drive, the catchment school is the only school i can walk to given the transport restrictions adding to the others childrens schools

my daughter is classed as a young carer, she has emotional support off an advocate agency and part of keeping her emotional needs met I feel she needs to attend our catchment school with people she knows (her peers from pre school) and within a community which supports her. The school in catchment also knows the family's needs as we are known to them

The practicalities for me and her father are going to be a nightmare tbh with the school they have offered (which wasn't even preferred) and we are already at breaking point due to the nature of our family.

I am not sure whether I have put enough info really, but don't want to drone on needlessly

sorry that was a bit confusing the third born goes to the school now but will be going to school via transport next academic year. So i will have three lots of transport for 3 children and then the youngest to drop off miles away on foot (??)

we get transport due to being rural btw - god I am rubbish at this sort of thing, I am really sorry - hence asking for advice!

Polypants,
The answer has got to be, maybe, because really more information is required. If the school you requested is the catchment school, does the admission arrangements give priority to those who are in catchment? So could you say what the admission criteria are, what the published admission number (PAN) is for the school cohort to start in September and how far away it is. Then could you say how far away the allocated school is please?

How do i find out what admissions arrangements are? I have looked on the council website and it basically gives the place and then says that is your catchment. From memory from the other children it was looked fater children, catchment then sibling

what is pan?

the school is about, I don't know 15 minutes away on foot across a public bridleway (as I say we are rural) - I will go and google for you now :)

thanks btw

it's 1.6miles via car, but I cannot find how much it is by foot (and we will be going by foot as you could not safely walk that route anyway)

I feel like my daughter being made a social pariah because we live rurally

If you tell me the name of the school and local authority area I will look it up for you. PM me if you do not want to put it on the open forum.

are you sure that is okay?

Polly - admissions is the expert here. She will help if she can.

Okay I have pm you admission :) I do hope that is okay with you though

Okay I have been looking at this on maps and I think they have completely overlooked the fact it's much closer by foot via the footpath system 9which is bridleway and public footpaths) and offered us on distance away via car, not that that helps wrt the other school as that is further away!

so i think even though we are geographically closer, they have looked at distance away via car - does that make sense?? so we are most probably more in catchment than those that have been offered places

Polypants, #
Thanks for the PM. The lower school that is your preference has an admission number of 30. That is bad news as the chances of a successful admission appeal are reduced considerably because the school can only have classes of 30 maximum in infant classes under the infant class size regulations. What that means is that the only realistic way of winning at appeal is either to prove a mistake has been made or that the appeal panel finds that the LA as the admission authority acted unreasonably. Unreasonably in a legal sense is not what you might consider unreasonable but effectively a completely perverse decision not to admit.
When I look at the numbers admitted last year they did not reach 30. Also looking at what appear to be your next nearest schools, which seem to be a few miles away, they also were not full. So either you have been very,very unfortunate in having a massive local bulge in population or there is something wrong somewhere.
What I suggest is that you accept the offered school because it acts as a backstop. If you reject the offer then the LA can offer you any school anywhere, which for sure will be worse than you have now. Secondly you should tell the LA in writing that you want to go on the waiting list for the preferred school. As the allocations have only just been released there will be a couple of weeks before anything moves in the way of places being reallocated.
What I would also suggest is that you ask the LA for the reason why you did not get your preference, I can only assume that it is on the distance measurement as you are in catchment, so you need to get the distance from you home to the school and the distance of the last offered place. The distance is a straight line distance measurement, so you need to then look at whether this is realistic - there is a slight possibility that given the rural nature of the area that the wrong distance has been allocated.
Also given the rural location and the school knows you, I would go in and chat to the head teacher and office staff and see if they can offer any reason why you did not get a place or knwon of any places that are not being taken up

You should then appeal for a place at the school. If the distance is right then realistically the chance of success is low as an ICS appeal and you do need to think about how you will manage to get to the allocated school - if it is over 2 miles by road (which I would expect it to be) then the LA should be providing transport. However I would appeal on the basis of the decision being unreasonable given that the LA were well aware of the issues surrounding your family and the need for a local school, rather than a school requiring another lot of transport.
I will have to be honest and say this is one of those cases I hate, everything says you need to have a place at the local school given the family circumstances but under ICS regs you should not win at appeal. However maybe you will get a panel that is prepared to say the LA is being unreasonable because of distance and family circumstances, but it is a long shot.
You do need to accept that this will not be resolved quickly, places can become available at any time, even after September.

Polypants,
posts crossed and your post suggests that you definitely need to check the distance issue out with the LA admission office on Monday. The admission priority is definitely decided by straight line distance and it even in the LA book specifies the main gate of the school is used as the datum point at the school.

oh admissions that is so helpful, thank you so much.

What are ics regs though? and is it worth getting any of our available professionals on board?

I do think that if we take the other place our needs are going to increase as a family and the council will end up having to support us more. I cannot physically be in all different places at once, but you recommend I take it anyway during appeal? It's not a bad school, it's supposed to be better than our local one from what i gather but it's just the logistics of it all

how do i work out the straight line measurement? google isn't very helpful! :o

I could say it take 15 mins on foot via cows etc but I doubt panel will be interested It would take me about an hour and half to get to the other

i have worked it out distance wise

catchment school is 0.9m on foot, 1.6m by car (only by postcode and i think we closer to desinated walkway iykwim)
allocated school route is 1.95 miles by foot, 2.5miles by car

I have a friend who has a disabled child and prior to applying for schools they'd chatted with LA and hospitals and they said that as long as a letter from the consultants was provided they'd be happy to accommodate.

Of course this letter did not arrive till the day before the allocations were sent out!!! So she ended up having to appeal (think they gave her the nearest school but she couldn't have that one because there was no ramp and needed stairs to climb etc) and did get her preferred school which is nearer to work but not to home.

Good luck.

ICS regulations are Infant Class Size regulations. The rules are that classes where most of the children are in Reception, Y1 or Y2 should have no more than 30 children with a single teacher. They can have more if there is a second teacher. If admitting your child would cause the school to go over this limit your case is an ICS appeal. That means you should only win if admissions have been administered incorrectly and your child should have got a place, or the decision to refuse admission was unreasonable (which is interpreted as meaning irrational).

As the council uses straight line distance the distances on foot or by car are not really relevant. However, if the council has you further away from the catchment school than 0.9m there is definitely something wrong. There are some websites that will give you straight line distance from your postcode to the school's postcode. They won't be as accurate as the computer system used by the council but they will give you a rough figure.

What do the council have as the distance from your house to the school? That should be on the letter telling you that you didn't get a place. If it isn't ring them on Monday and ask.

I have put in an appeal and waiting list option on the councils website

and I will ring them on monday

wrt the other school if I accept it will that go against any appeal?

Accepting the other school will not go against you. Far from it. The appeal panel will expect you to have accepted the offered place.

why is that prh47bridge?

What may be useful information is to find out how far aware other dc live that were offered a place, especially if it is catchment and then siblings. If those children live further away from the school than you do it would then seem very likely they made a mistake.

At my dcs school the LEA made the mistake of accidently ranking a childs preferred school incorrectly so on appeal they got in so we ended up with 31 dc and 2 teachers for over a year until someone left the school.

the order of relevance was
looked after children
children in catchment with siblings at school
children in catchment
other siblings
other children

I have started to think it has been a mistake though. I haven't rang the council yet as I wanted to get my confirmation through the post, but I think it has been done on road length rather than straight line distance, but we will see :)

Thank you for all your help :)