Refused Place at Preferred School

[Pippa5000]

Hello,

My son is currently in reception and we're moving to a new schools district so we're an in-year application. We filled in the application form but our first choice of school has been declined and we've been offered another school.

The facts are:

The preferred school we want is around 1 mile away and we're well within catchment.
The preferred school had a roll of 60 for 2011/12 but they have allowed a further 7 pupils in so now have 67 in reception in 3 classes.
The preferred school is planning to have 3 classes in Year 1 for 2012/13.
The offered school is over 4 miles away and would be a real pain to get to.

We are going to appeal and I'm thinking that because there is clearly space for my son at our preferred school and that we are in the catchment area then our appeal should succeed. In fact I really can't see how they would refuse our appeal as aren't they legally obliged to give us our first preference if they have space?

Am I missing something here?

Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks,

Pip

I don't see why they can't argue that by admitting your child, and going up to 68, they would be prejudicing future arrangements for ks2? After all. For every extra child that is admitted, they are making it harder to get back down to optimum ks2 class size by the end of year 2....

I don't know how many ways you want me to say no!

If the children were excepted they would not need to run 3 classes in Reception and they would be able to argue future infant class size prejudice. From everything you have told us these pupils are not excepted and therefore they cannot argue that they need to lose 7 children by Y2 (which may not happen). It might be easier for them if that happens but they can't make an ICS case out of it in that way.

If the pupils were excepted it would be a different matter, but in that case I would not expect them to be running 3 classes in Reception and your appeal would be ICS.

Apologies if I'm going round in circles! It is all quite confusing.

prh47bridge, you note "If the children were excepted they would not need to run 3 classes in Reception and they would be able to argue future infant class size prejudice." Just to clarify, the authority has told me that the 7 children are excepted currently. And then Admission noted that they will not be excepted in September.

That is not consistent with what you have said before!

If these children are excepted this is an infant class size appeal. However, it then raises the question as to why the school is running 3 classes in Reception. There is no need for them to do so if the extra children are excepted. From September they will need 3 classes as the children will no longer be excepted but that doesn't mean they can admit another 23 children and have 3 classes of 30.

On Thursday you said they had created a bulge class and admitted extra students. That would make sense with the fact there are 3 classes in Reception. If that is the case these are NOT excepted children and this is not an infant class size case, which agrees with admissions saying it is not ICS.

pippa,
I think that you need to get a definitive statement from the LA in writing over the exact status of the 7 pupils now and in September as they go into year1. I would say in your letter that you need this information so that you can mount your appeal based on this statement.
We can tell you its this or that but at the end of the day, the LA has to come and argue something at appeal, which stands up to scrutiny. You cannot possibly mount an effective case if the information keeps changing every time you speak to people within the LA. Incidently you need to be asking the admission office as it is them who are applying the admission code etc.

Thanks both, I've emailed the authority for answers to all these questions regarding the status of the students. Hopefully I will get some definitive answers.

My understanding was they were excepted students and then they created a bulge class to deal with them. I guess this was there choice.

When I spoke with admissions they said that these extra 7 were taken in at the normal admission round. Reading exactly what an excepted pupil is then it is unlikely they actually are excepted. Anyway I will get some definitive answers shortly I hope.

Pooka, you appear to work at the school in question. You note that the borough offered an extra 7 places. I presume this was at the usual admission time with the other 60?

As for the potential problems for yr 2 then I am not yet sure how this plays out in any appeal. It may not count for much according to others on here.

No - just a parent. So not certain of reasons why additional places were offered. Just what had heard.

I haven't a clue what argument the lea might make or whether it would be valid. From a parent's perspective and what I know about the school building and set up, I can see why the lea (and the school to an extent) would be concerned about taking on additional pupils in the 67 year group.

My point about ks2 is that the school have one spare room. If the lea is not funding an additional teacher for ks2 because the infant class size regs cease being applicable, then the year group of say 67 plus cannot be taught in the current classroom set up because there would be two teachers, and two classes of more than 33 which would not fit into the classrooms - they can hardly have the extra kids in neighbouring classroom without a teacher! The classrooms are not large enough.

So from the school perspective I would imagine that the concern would be that they would need to fund an additional staff member from to supervise/teach the extra class because the only way would be to carry the 'bulge' all the way up the school. So it would really mean the school having to pay for 4 years of extra teaching staff.

Would only really be doable if the lea were to stump up cash for teacher all the wy through.

I dont know anything about the ins and outs of how this would pan out at appeal... It may be irrelevant.

Are you saying it is same school???