Appeal school has PAN of 45 and predjudice of 50......please explain?

[Winksclub76]

Hi,
Please could someone help me understand what LEA office has told me. I am planning to appeal to my first choice school (did not get into any of my choices and allocated a very poorly performing school).

The printed planned admission number is 45. The applications for places went as follows 1st choice 50, 2nd 68 and 3rd 55 (siblings 17). In the criteria siblings come before distance and the last place allocated was 0.61 miles, we were 0.65 miles (missing by about 64 metres! grrr)

LEA office has told me the predjudice for the places is 50 and I was 48th on the list for places. Am I wrong to think I should have been given one of the 5 places. Can I use this rationale as part of my appeal?? It almost looks like the school has saved 5 places for appeals.

Thankyou for reading.....would appreciate any feedback.

Yes, I've found the 2010 code. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Thankyou for the quote given SchoolsNightmare but I don't think it fits my situation. The PAN of 45 has already been reached, therefore there are no vacant places as such. I'm disputing that if the prejudice is 50 they could have given my child a place during the first round of amissions as we were placed 48th using the school criteria. I fully understand how the quote relates to the waiting list though.

Hi, I'm sorry to keep going on about things but below is how the school arranges classes. I have read they have had two large classrooms built in recent years. Does this explain why they have been able to take more children than PAN without causing prejudice. From what I've read in code, schools and authorities are reluctant to increase PAN's on a permanant basis but still allow schools to admit extra children.

?Class 1 - Reception (Age 4 and 5) - 1 Teacher
?Class 2 - Reception and Year 1 (Age 4, 5 and 6)- 1 Teacher
?Class 3 - Year 1 (Age 5 and 6) - 2 Teachers
?Class 4 - Year 2 (Ages 6 and 7) - 1 Teacher
?Class 5 - Year 2 and Year 3 (Age 6, 7 and 8) - 2 Teachers
?Class 6 - Year 3 (Age 7 and 8)
?Class 7 - Year 4 (Age 8 and 9)
?Class 8 - Year 4 and Year 5 (Age 8, 9 and 10)
?Class 9 - Year 5 and Year 6 (Age 9, 10 and 11)?Class 10 - Year 6 (Age 10 and 11)

The point of the paragraph quoted is it shows that places should not be held back for appeals. That is effectively what they are doing by saying that the PAN is 45 but there is no prejudice until there are 50.

LAs should not allow any school to regularly go over PAN. If they do that should be referred to the LGO as it suggest PAN has been set artificially low.

Classes 1-4 are all infant classes and have 5 teachers between them. That suggests they can handle 150 children without infant class size prejudice (i.e. an admission number of 50). The fact that there are Y2 children in class 5 as well suggests that they could go even higher before class size prejudice kicks in. Given that there are 2 teachers in class 5 it suggests to me that they could handle 180 children, which would give an admission number of 60. They wouldn't want to go that high however as it would lead to some very big classes higher up the school.

My calculations assume that both teachers in the 2 teacher classes are full time and spend all their time in the classroom. If the 2 teachers actually split the week between them they would hit class size prejudice on a lower number of pupils.

My suspicion would be that the classes with two teachers are actually teachers who are sharing and are part time but what you should do is try and find out how many pupils there are in each class especially 3 and 5. Maybe the school will give you that information for the current numbers in school. If it is 30 then they are job-sharing, if it is more than 30 then the school has been taking more than 45 in the year groups.
If the school only has 10 classrooms then the reasonable number of pupils is 10 x 30 = 300, which then suggests only 43 per year group, whereas the PAN is 45 and the LA are in effect admitting the school can take 50 per year group. There is something missing in the information that you have and I suspect it is that there are more classrooms than the 10 they are using.

Admission - Yes I will find out how many pupils in ech class and if the teachers are job sharing. I'm pretty sure there are only 10 classrooms as I have been round the school and also it states 5 classes in Keystage 1 and 5 classes in Keystage 2 in the prospectus.

Prh47bridge - Yes, it certainly looks like they have the capacity to take more children.

However.....My husband is arguing a different point to me, (which isn't going down well, he is less emotive than me), he thinks that the 50 places I refer to as being the 50 prejudice are also known as the net capacity. He thinks the school is legally allowed to offer 45 places as it is 90% of net capacity which is the minimum that can be offered. Therefore his point being that although the school can potentially accommodate 5 extra places the school doesn't have to necessarily offer them as it is legally offering 90% of net (45). He thinks they haven't made a mistake and are acting within law as the school is simply offering the amount of places agreed and although it is the minimum figure not the maximum.

I am now confused as to whether it is worth sending a letter demanding a place. My husband thinks that it will just be down to appeals and the waiting list, but I am worried that as previous advice has suggested that there may be stronger appeals than ours as our daughter has no social or medical issues,
just will be extremely disadvantaged if sent to the (awful) school allocated. My colleague at work pulled her daughter out due to drunk parents and (uncontrolled) dangerous dogs at gates, her child's poor progression and attainment and constant peer absences affecting teaching in classes.

Our strongest argument is distance (missed out by 60 metres) and that last year we would have got in without problem. For childcare and walking to school her grandma lives 0.3 miles away and as she is quite an able child (school allocated struggles to progress able children, Ofsted) and needs a school that offers teaching and extra -curricular activities to challenge her. My daughter also attends stage school and we chose desired school for it's focus and strong involvement in the performing arts. I fully understand that these are quite weak reasons and would struggle to win at appeal. I am really very worried.....

I have just read through all the posts again and come to the conclusion that I will write a letter as prh and admissions suggest> It's worth a shot despite what my husband says, at least I know I have tried every angle then.

Your husband is wrong although it is understandable. If you don't know all the intracacies of admissions it is easy to misunderstand the way things work.

The school has a calculated capacity based on the number and size of classrooms and the size of the non-teaching areas. That is the capacity for the whole school, not just one year. It is expressed as a range where the lower figure is 90% of the higher figure. The actual net capacity will be set somewhere in the calculated range and is a single figure. The 90% figure refers to the calculation of the maximum and minimum calculated capacity. It is not applied to the net capacity.

PAN is usually one seventh of net capacity for a primary school. However, PAN can be set higher or lower than the figure indicated by the net capacity. The PAN does not have to be set at a level that will cause infant class size prejudice if more children are admitted. However, what they can't do is set the PAN at 45 but then say there will be no prejudice until they get to 50 children. If there is no prejudice, PAN has been set too low. As SchoolsNightmare says, they cannot set the PAN at 45 with the intention of admitting 50 children.

It would be interesting to know the official net capacity of this school. If it is 350 that would tend to confirm that the PAN is being set artificially low.

The comments made by the LA suggest the "real" PAN is 50 but they hold back 5 places to be allocated on appeal. They are not allowed to do that. Your strongest argument, in my view, is that they are incorrectly holding back places in this way. If they refuse to give you a place without going to appeal you need to get that in front of the LGO as soon as possible. You may have to fight to get it there as the LGO won't normally take admissions cases until there has been an appeal but in this case you can argue that you could be disadvantaged if appeals take place before the LGO looks at the matter.

If the school only has 10 classrooms then the reasonable number of pupils is 10 x 30 = 300, which then suggests only 43 per year group, whereas the PAN is 45 and the LA are in effect admitting the school can take 50 per year group. There is something missing in the information that you have and I suspect it is that there are more classrooms than the 10 they are using.

I think the organisation of years 4, 5 and 6 is the key here. If you look at years R to 3 they all have one full class and one part class for each year group. This would suggest a PAN of 45 e.g. Class 1 = 30 YR, Class 2 = remaining 15 YR + 15 Y1, Class 3 = 30 Y1. However, year 5 is only split between 2 mixed age classes. This leaves years 4-6 split between 4 classes, which would make class sizes of 33/34 if years 4-6 were full to a PAN of 45.

It might be that years 4 to 6 aren't full and this is why they are organised in this way but the only way to find out would be to ask for the number of children in each year and a break down of the numbers in each class.

Thanks Bluemoon,
I too thought that It depended on the numbers in Keystage two. You have explained it clearly.

prh- It does sound very complicated and it is difficult to estimate the capacities without the figures....the school has published that it's capacity is 315 (could this be the net).

I have now composed a letter to head of admissions. I'm not sure if I feel comfortable threatening with the LGO but if that's what it takes to get results then I guess I have to.

I have been wondering what I will do if they come back with the response that although the prejudice is 50 they do not have to admit any further pupils. It seems wrong for the LA to publically release the information, that there is only prejudice at 50 (I was told several times), and not act upon it.

Yes, the figure of 315 they have published will be the official net capacity. That would point to an admission number of 45 which is what they've got. You should ask the LA for the calculated capacity. That will be a range. It might be 315-350 which would mean they have set the net capacity right at the bottom of the calculated range.

Well I've sent the letter to LA (with read receipt). Not sure I'm comfortable with the reference to refer to the Local Government Ombudsman if not resolved soon, but guess it needed some sort of clout. I just hope it doesn't put me in an unfavourable light. At the end of the day, like many other parents out there, I want to do everything possible to get my child a good education, in a school she will be happy at.

Winksclub76,
If it is any comfort the reason I said you should complain to the LGO because I see second hand at appeals, the problems that result from parents trying to be too nice about things. Regrettably some LAs have a tendency to ignore parents whilst it suits them and they need reminding that parents not only have rights but know how to exercise them. It is not so much being hit with a big stick as a prod to do what is right.

Yes, thankyou, that does make me feel better. Especially when you put it like that.

It turns out it is most certainly an 'Infant class size appeal ' I am realistic now that my chances of getting a place at the school will be down the waiting list.

The 'calculated capacity' of the school is 318 and last year no appeals were won. It has been explained to me (altho i'm not quite sure I fully get it) that the normal predjudice is applied to the whole school as in past years there has been undersubscription. They have not been admitting above pan as I suspected and I have had an apology from the admissions team if the information given led me to believe this was the case.

I have been informed that all information about how the school is organised
will be included in my appeal pack.....but i'm not sure now if I will appeal.

Thankyou so much prh47bridge, admission and SchoolsNightmare your advice has been invaluable.

Their explanation of normal prejudice being applied to the whole school as in past years there has been under subscription is hog wash. They have realised that the prejudice level of 50 is a time bomb waiting to go off in their face and are now busily burying it as deep as they can.
I would suggest that you still raise it at the appeal, if for no other reason than to cause embarrassment to the LA, I am sure the panel would love an explanation as well!

Should I still appeal then, even though ICS?

Is it possible that one of the cohorts above your DC - this years Year R or 1- is a small cohort with 5 "empty" spaces.
PAN is 45 but they "could" have an additional 5 KS1 pupils.
All 5 of those starting year R in sept 2012 may cause problems in future tho as a bulge travels up the school.

I would agree with SchoolsNIghtmare here, it is for a school appeal panel to hear what is said by the LA presenting officer and to ask questions as to exactly what prejudice at 50 is supposed to mean. It is not as though it was an off the cuff remark, from your original posts a number of the admission office staff said the same thing, so it means something to somebody. If you had that in writing that would be a gem to put in front of the appeal panel. Also the latest conversation you had where it was explained away, is that in writing? If not you urgently need to contact that person and tell them you need to the information in writing. It is quite likely that the presenting officer will not be somebody in the admissions office and if they know nothing about it, then they can and will say they know nothing at appeal. It will be put down to mis-communication between you and the admission office.
I would suspect that half the appeals I will do this year, which are infant class size cases will have all the personal circumstances in the appeal why the child should be admitted but the parents will not have realised that the only way of winning at such an appeal is prove a mistake. They simply will not have read the information supplied for the appeal. So I would definitely appeal based on this 50 prejudice issue, because you will at least be mounting a reasonable argument for admission based on a mistake by the LA. Let the appeal panel make the decision but be realistic that your chances of success are low.