Infant Class Size Appeal- LEA failed to predict massive increase in applications

[AbbyR1973]

Sorry- yet another appeal related post.

My son failed to get any 3 of our preference choices or the catchment school. Last year the LEA managed to accomodate all children within the exisiting places but this year there has been a big rise in applications and there were insufficient spaces in local schools to accomodate everyone. They clearly didn't predict this as they have hurriedly put on extra reception classes in certain schools. The schools they have done this in all have bad reputations and the nearest, which DS1 has been allocated to, is 3 miles away.

Meanwhile my first choice school has 45 children in the year group and then teach 3 mixed year1/2 classes (so it is infant class sized prejudiced from year 1.) This school had 60 places until 2005 when the LEA reduced them to 45 and took out 2 mobiles. They have quite large grounds and have previously had capacity to accomodate 60 children. There has been 2 big housing estates gone up locally which are both closer to the 3 schools in the area than I am because we live on the edge of the town. This new housing has inevitably put pressure on school places within the local area. The LEA wrote a document in 2008 discussing the future of local schools and preferencing a move to 1 or 2 classes per year group to move away from mixed year group classes which was seen as a disadvantage.

The LEA are saying they are not considering further places in my first choice school. My son is 12th on the waiting list and would have a place if they put in the 15 extra places. The reception class would be within legal limits and it would give a year to plan for year1.
The LEA are predicting the situation will be worse next year and year on year there will be rises in applications until 2020. Therefore inevitably they will need to plan for extra capacity within the local school system.

My son is expected to go past these 3 schools to get to the school 3 miles away. He will have no local friends to play with after school and my school run will become impossible. The school they have allocated to him is entirely unsuited to his needs.

I believe the LEA are being unreasonable in not increasing the availability of local places in local schools when there has previously been capacity.

Can I use this argument in this infant class size limited appeal.

With thanks in advance for any advice,
Abby

I'm afraid not. A school 3 miles away would be regarded as reasonable. Even if the allocated school was much further away, it is up to the LA to decide whether and where to add bulge classes. An appeal panel cannot make that decision for them.

Our LEA has a limit of 2 miles before they assist with travel arrangements, which won't solve the distance/friends factor, but might be worth considering.

But an appeal won't get you anywhere I don't think.

I sit on appeal panels, and to be quite blunt, were that argument put towards me I wouldn't find favor with it.

Why?

Because the LA have no duty to expand capacity to admit out of catchment pupils.

Do you mind me asking, did you apply to your catchment school?

SchoolsNightmare - the reason I am asking is, the OP put "My son failed to get any 3 of our preference choices or the catchment school" which seems to me to suggest, that the catchment school wasn't put down as a preference.

Most areas only allow 3 preferences, although some do still allow more, so just asking her to clarify.

Because if she did apply for her catchment school, and hasn't got any of her 3 other preferences, then she should be getting transport to/from school for her son.

Hi Thanks for your replies. It was particularly useful to hear from someone who actually sits on an appeal panel.
I didn't apply for catchment but it turns out that even if I had DS1 wouldn't have got a place as not all catchment were accommodated and we live on the borderline between 2 catchment areas and therefore effectively lose out to people who live closer to both schools.
The LEA have handled this admission round very badly and had wildly failed to predict the massive problem that arose. There are numerous unplaced children.
The reason I thought I might have a shot on these grounds is that there are 4 schools all within about a 1.5 miles an area with new housing going up. The other schools all have 60 places and are oversubscribed this school only has 45 places when previously had 60 so has capacity to expand. The LEA have previously acknowledged the concept of using nearby schools to alleviate pressure within the local school economy for non-catchment children by increasing the places in one of these schools to 60 about 5 years ago. New housing growth means that the population has once again outgrown it's school provision. There is insufficient space within the local school place economy to accommodate all pupils and the situation will only get worse according to authorities own predictions. Additionally their own strategic planning document for primary schools states that their preference is for intakes of 30 or 60 to move away from mixed year groups.
Alongside this the school proposed is essentially failing and they are planning to go from 20 children in reception intake to 45-60 across 2 classes. It has very poor results with no English Level 5 at KS2, high staff turnover, 8 exclusions per year out of 170 and awful behaviour problems. My son is very able with reading skills currently equivalent to year 1 although essentially self-taught. The school is totally wrong for him but you can see the win for the council and the school if they bus in out of catchment children and hey presto results artificially improve. He isn't going there and if nothing else comes up he will be home educated until a place becomes available at any of the 4 local schools. This is not what I want for him but on balance is the lesser of evils. Some parents I know in the same position are planning to keep children in nursery until places become available rather than send their children across town.
Sorry long post- I am one very stressed and upset Mummy.
All advice most gratefully received.
Thanks.

AbbyR1973 A few websites that have been recommended to me and have loads of useful information
www.ace-ed.org.uk/
www.childrenslegalcentre.com/ - look under free legal advice section and there is information about admissions and appeals

Good luck

As has been said, this isn't the foundation for a successful appeal.

The 3 winnable grounds for a successful infant class size appeal are

• error which has deprived your child of a place - but this means a handling error (mismeasurement of the distance to school, etc) not a policy or strategic error in not predicting a surge in demand and arranging extra classes
• admission arrangements which do not comply with the law or the admissions code
• decision to refuse a place is so unreasonable as to be perverse.

Appeal panels (on which I sit too) have to work with the admissions criteria and admission arrangements as they are. Only if they are obviously irrational or unlawful can the panel override them.

What the panel can't do, is devise a parallel set of admissions criteria to your liking or second-guess what the decision would have been on your application, had the admissions criteria been different. Nor can it order your child to be admitted to the school to punish the LEA for its supposed failures.

I had numerous 'conversations' with my LA, ward councillors and director of children's services via email with regards to our situation, very similar to yours... Without directly admitting to it, the council has basically said bulge classes are put where the schools are willing to accommodate them, not where they are actually needed. It is so frustrating as I said to them as it looks very likely my son will be educated in a portakabin, I would rather it is done in a school 0.2 miles away then one 2 miles away but they couldn't care less really.

SchoolsNightmare - I am and at your implication that one is either an expert or a member/chair of admission panels!

I am not very happy that DirectGov sends people over to Mumsnet. It seems presumptuous and just, well, wrong.

Angel - Having been a governor of a school that was asked to take a bulge class, I have to say that they do, in the end, have to go here there's room for them. The LEA will try to find schools in the areas with greatest unmet demand, but that will be stymied if the school does not have an unused room or the space for a portable classroom or if it is a listed building and cannot be adapted. Other considerations are outside space - there can't be a portable classroom if that will take up too much outdoor play space - and the willingness of the governing body. That said, my child's class is in a portable classroom and it's the best-equipped room in the school.

PanelChair I am in London where primary schools already sit on some fairly premium land and I have to say grounds are fairly limited anyway. Of all the primary schools I have seen in the area, I really don't think there's one school that obviously has MORE school grounds than others. The school my son has been assigned to has already taken 2 bulge classes for the previous two years and scheduled to take ANOTHER one for this coming reception and one of the classes will be taught in a portakabin. And it's not a huge school in terms of land, it might have a bigger area in that it is a double-storey 1950s building as opposed to a single-storey Victorian building but extra class will still end up in a portakabin. I don't have any objections to a portable classroom, my gripe is that I would rather walk to school than drive there every morning in peak hour traffic. And there is demand in my area as lots of parents I have heard of are now faced with a stressful car journey every morning instead of walking to any of the 5 primary schools we have in the area within walking distance...

Hi Abby

We're in the same position as you. Massive increases have meant that my son hasn't managed to get a place at any of our 4 preferred schools (one of which was catchment). Prh47bridge has given me some really good advice via PM (thank prh) and I've also ordered the book recommended on the appeals thread Here which I'm hoping will arrive this weekend.

In our case they knew last year that there was a problem and councillors have, via email, admitted to me that new houses in catchment and rise in birth rate was known but that the council have no money to deal with it. So that's okay then [sarcasm].

Best of luck.

Waspie I saw your other thread on AIBU about sending your DC to private school... Wow, that was almost close to a bunfight! ;) If it's any comfort, despite us moving into the area with the full intention of sending our sons to the local primary school(s) and integrating into the community, we are now seriously considering sending him to private school and have actually seen a private school we are very happy with but we remain undecided as we wait to see how long wait lists are for local schools. So you really aren't the only one having to consider that option.

Hi angel at least I like buns

We've just been told our place on the waiting list and we are 5th on catchment school and 8th on the other school which we really like and isn't a class size appeal so we may yet get a place at one of these.

If we had the money comfortably I think I would send my son to the prep school now that I have seen the fairly lacsidasical (sp?) way the council seem to treat children's education , but finding the cash would be a push and I would worry in case one of us lost our job. If you can send your sons to private schools and avoid this whole debacle I wouldn't blame you for an instant Best of luck with whatever you decide!

Angel - I'm also in London. I don't think I'm disagreeing with you, but it has to be recognised that the schools around which there are the greatest pressures, in terms of rising demand for places, aren't always the ones with enough room to put down a temporary classroom or a building that's suitable for extending/adapting. The scarcity of land also makes it very hard to find places to build new schools.

I agree, too, about the social and environmental value in walking to school, but years of being involved in local education has also shown me that (even if it were possible) if primary schools were made big enough that they could offer every child a place at the nearest school, there would then be complaints from parents that schools were 'too big'. That is often an argument I hear at appeals, where parents don't want the allocated school because they want their child to go to a 1 or 2 form entry school. They're quite entitled to that view, but it does show the divergence of opinion between those who want huge schools because then their child might get in and those who want something smaller.

PanelChair I don't for one think there is an easy solution. You get so many parents coming on the boards going 'Argh, my kids can't get into our nearest school!" and then you get the other half going 'OMG, they are going to put a bulge class in my son/daughter's school, the school can't cope!'. The reaction of the parent really depends I guess how whether your child is going to that school already. It's a bit of 'I'm alright Jack' mentality I guess.

There was supposed to be a 2-form primary school starting not far from us (which would make it the nearest school to us) in Sept this year but it's now been postponed to next year (if it ever opens!). You will think that will ease up the pressure a bit but they are also building a whole new development of houses/flats right by there so hey ho, I can see this all happening next week all over again... Just got a call from the private school we are very keen on for my son to go in and see them next week, which I think pretty means we have a space. Tried calling the council this morning to try and get an idea of where we are on wait list and yes, very helpful you lot are (NOT!). So in the absence of any 'real' choices, I guess it is looking more and more like private for us.

• decision to refuse a place is so unreasonable as to be perverse. What would come under this ?

Angel - Quite. The does often seem to be a 'pulling up the drawbridge' mentality about popular schools - once people have got their our own child in, they don't want the school to expand and admit the riff-raff.

Mossity - That is the third ground on which the panel can order a school to admit in an Infant Class Size appeal. What is means in any one case is up to the panel, but unreasonable is taken to mean (in lawyers' parlance) Wednesbury unreasonable, ie so unreasonable that no reasonable authority would have made that decision.

So would u say it would be unreasonable for my daughter (who is adopted) to attend a school where her extended birth family go?? In terms of safe guarding and child protection etc x majorheadche.com :-)

Mossity - I certainly think you could argue that the LEA's failure to act when you notified them of the risk of your child being at the same school as members of her birth family was unreasonable. You could argue too that their refusal to find her a place in an alternative school - in the light of the child protection issues - was unreasonable.

I can't predict what an appeal panel would decide on the day, because we don't know (a) what difference it would have made if you had been allowed to change your choices - do you know that you would definitely have got a place in one of your other choices? (forgive me if you have already mentioned this) - and (b) what the LEA's side of the argument would be. However, I do think it is possible that, if the LEA haven't made any alternative offer, a panel might think that it is unreasonable to expect you to take your child to the allocated school and, as the LEA haven't found you another place, you should have a place at your preferred school.