Advice with school appeal please!

[grasstulip]

Another appeal request for information!

I have been unsuccessful on gaining any of my three ranked schools for a reception place and infact have been offered a place in a school that does not even appear in our top 10 nearest schools as per local cc website! The school offered is just under 4 miles away and although I have appealed, from reading the other posts I believe distance does not come into it?

My main reasons for appeal are based on the massive affect this will have on my family, as follows:

1. Distance - a 20 minute bus ride plus 0.5 mile walk, or 30 minute car drive when have use of car
2. Childminder in place cannot collect from allocated school
3. I am a working mother and would have to review working arrangements in order to get child to school but work are not flexible or in favour of this and could potentially mean a change in jobs and loss of income
4. Currently has a place at the nursery where we want to go (although I know this has no bearong on admissions process)

I am on the continuing interest list and believe I am in 4th position, although I think every one will accept their places, even though it is a double form intake (60) it has a very high sibling quota this year.

I have also been told that due to distance the council will have to transport my child to school daily and I just find it hard to believe that this is the case, as I happen to know the type of costs involved with school transport and chaperones etc...

I have also applied for another nearer school as the which I did not include in my first application but am able to do so at this stage, which is very close to my house. Reason I initially didnt was because it is a faith school but now faced with the impact on my family life from having a school so far a way wil have, this would be better......

Does anyone have any experience in this area, and know if I could be successful at appeal? Or if being 4th on a waiting list means a realistic chance of a place by september??

Thanks

Thanks, how do I get on waiting lists though?? We are at the first stage of the continuing interest run and I have been automatically added to the schools that I applied for. The one I wanted is 1000 metres away so is one of my nearest schools - infact there are 10 nearer schools - so can I just ring round the schools and add myself to their lists and on top of the council admissions or do I need to wait for the CI runs to complete......

The continuing interest list is another name for the waiting list. If you are uncertain as to whether or not you are on the list for all the schools you want you can check with your council. If you have applied to any faith schools you may need to check directly with them but I would always start with the council.

Thank you, our council at this stage will only let you go on the list for the three that you originally applied for with the exception of a few schools which take new applications at this stage.

As there are so many schools much nearer to me that I could go on the list for I assume I just have to wait for the council to do there stuff first.

I am not very hopeful in that from what everyone is saying it looks like I have no real chance - I just cannot believe the council would rather pay to transport my child to school everyday rather than place us in a school nearer! There is obviously excess fudning in education!!!!

Thanks for your help

Pying for transport could be a child bus pass - fairly cheap I'd have thought - note its your child that gets free travel, you still have to pay!

And it's a statutory obligation - not a funding choice.

My heart goes out to you - I know how frustrating the school application process can be. My friend was offered a taxi service to take her DD to and from a school but as titchy points out, transportation is a statutory obligation once you are over a certain distance. You mention a chaperone in your original message. I have to say that accompanying the child to school is usually down to the parent or someone you pay to do it - LA won't usually pay for someone to escort your child on public transport or in a taxi. In addition where I live bus passes are free to those in full-time education or under 5 so there is no cost attached for the LA.

It really is outrageous that they expect a four year old to have to travel so far before school even starts! In order to use the bus (and we would have to on certain days) we will probably have to leave the house about 1 hour and 15 mins before schools starts at 8.50 in order not to be late! They have stopped the local little buses that used to run past the school in the early mornings, so we have to walk the remainder of the way from main stop (up a steep hill with a buggy for other child) - just feel sad for little one to go through all of that before even getting there!! Its not like we live in a rural area or anything - I counted 10 nearer schools as per our CC website!! Still, not much I can do about it now I suppose other than keep on waiting lists and keep calling around!

Any appeal with an intake of 60 is going to be an infant class size appeal, so the only way that you can at appeal is to prove a mistake was made that would have meant that you would have been offered a place if it had been done correctly or showing that the LA as the admission authority were unreasonable in not offering you a place. The legal definition of unreasonable is a perverse decision.
From your posts you do not seem to think that a mistake has been made, so any appeal has to be on the grounds of the LA being unreasonable. That is going to be very hard to prove but I would say that panels are becoming somewhat more "irritated" at the way parents are expected to go large distances to a school and the effect on kids, when actually there is a problem with the LAs ability to find suitable local places.
It is a very long shot but I would appeal on the basis that there are at least 10 closer schools (need to document this of the LA website) and that the allocated school is a major problem in terms of time and in terms of the 0.5 mile walk with 4 year old and a pram up a steep hill - maybe photographs of the steep hill plus detailed bus timetables to show how long it will take. Maybe you will get a panel that will ask the LA what they have done to resolve these issues and why none of the nearer 10 schools can offer a place to you.

Thank you, that is really helpful - I will get my camera out. There may even be more schools nearer as when you type in post code it only comes up with the top ten and the school I have been issued does not appear so for all I know it could be further down the list!!

Anything is worth a try!!!

Appeal panels should not allow appeals simply to 'punish' LEAs for their failure to increase capacity in primary schools but, as Admission says, you may find an appeal panel that is willing to do so, particularly if you can show that this school is only your 11th (or more) nearest.

Have you joined other waiting lists? That could help persuade the panel that you have taken all reasonable steps to find a suitable and local place for your child.

At this stage I am unable to join waiting lists other than the ones via the county council as it is the first stage of continuing interets being run at present? Do I just ring round and add my name?

I am on three waiting lists presently??

Has anyone ever known anyone win an appeal on distance without proving a mistake has been made?

Also - any tips on how best to present the appeal on the day or any good material I can read up on? I know I will be a nervous wreck!!

Thanks

You are extremely unlikely to win on "distance" unless there's a mistake. Nobody will dispute that you live near the school - the issue is that laces were filled by people who live nearer. The infant class size rules are strict on the limited grounds for allowing an ICS appeal.

But how can it be justified to not offer me one of the ten nearer schools?? The school allocated is not a particularly popular school and therefore alawys has spaces, but I cannot understand that people who are able to walk there easily are allocated schools nearer to me?

Does anyone know where I can view an appeal document examples or presentations for the actual hearing??

I think you don't understand how allocation is done. The schools that you refer to that are nearer you were presumably ranked by these people and not by you. If the schools that you ranked were filled by people nearer then you wouldn't get a place. Unfortunately you then will only get offered a school that still has spaces after allocations have been made.

I haven't explained myself well! Sorry. If some people have places but live further away than you to a school that you both ranked, perhaps they have a sibling link or a medical need?

Yes, that is exactly how it works. If the LEA cannot offer a place in any of the schools named on the application form, and all the other nearby schools are also full, the place that is eventually offered could be miles away in an unpopular school. That is why the admissions experts on MN always advise using however many preferences the LEA allows - anyone who leaves some preferences blank simply increases their chance of getting a place in a school they don't want.

As I (and others) have said, anyone appealing simply on the grounds of distance is unlikely to win, least of all in an ICS case. However, OP may find that the panel agrees that being offered a place in the 11th (or whatever) nearest school is unreasonable and so sticks its neck out for her. It's still unlikely, though.

Thanks again for the advice - and I did apply for my nearest schools with the exception of a faith school. The nearest is 1000 metres and other follow shortly after that and I end up with 4 miles!!

I have looked through previous years admissions allocations and a few years back noted that they had 61 one children? Despite only having 60 places, so from this I gather that they can go over?? Is it worth mentioning that at appeal??

I have rang council and all other closer schools and got on to waiting lists where I am able to......

The council told me I am number 3/4 for my first choice where he is currently at nursery, I am number 14 on my second choice and number 23 on my third choice!!!!

Two ther schools have accepted me on there lists now but these are both faith schools and all the others I have to wait and go on at the 2nd CI run.

On reading the admission code 2012 it says something about a school accepting an additional pupil as an excepted' pupil and will then become included when class sizes drop within the year?? Do you know anything about this??

Yes, the 'excepted' pupil is one who has been admitted on appeal (or with a statement naming the school after the admissions round or via the fair access protocol or in a very few other circumstances, set out in the code). If you win the appeal, your child will be 'excepted'. That means they can be the 61st pupil but no other child will be admitted - unless they too are excepted - until numbers drop back to within PAN.