primary school appeal

[brasso1057]

HI there,

I am new to this site and I am wondering if anyone can help me,

My twin daughters are due to go to shool in sept 12. They have been refused two of my preferred schools, one of which is in my village, and have been given a school that I am so against them going to for the following reasons.

The school has recently been turned into a special learning school. This means that one third of the school are not from our village and come from our surrounding area. Me and my partner are both serving police officers who actually deal with the surrounding areas on a professional level. We have both unfortunately already had contact with parents whose children attend the school.

I am absolutely petrified that this will cause friction with the parents and as a result my daughters will get bullied. My daughters are both bright and I am scared this friction will have a knock effect with their education. My daughters school life should be some of the best years of their life, I dont want to go to school events and be scared of comments made by people we have come into contact with. I also dont want them coming home upset that they have been taunted and bullied because of my profession.

An extremely important factor for our family is that we need to
minimise/eliminate the risk of any disclosure of our home address to these parents who make their journey to & from the allocated School.We live on a direct walking route from the surrounding areas to the school we have been allocated. This would clearly cause serious security/safety issues for our family.

I have appealed the decision and we will be attending the appeal hearing however I am wondering if it is even worth appealing and if it is a good idea to get a solicitor on board.

Any advice would be very much appreciated
Thank you

Normally I would say that your case needs to be about why your daughters need to go to your preferred school rather than why you don't want the allocated school. However, in your case I think you have good reasons for not wanting the allocated school.

Did you include the information that you are police officers on the application form and explain which schools you need to avoid?

It is certainly worth appealing but I wouldn't get a solicitor on board. Most know little or nothing about admissions, even if they specialise in education, and I know of many cases where solicitors have antagonised the appeal panel by their approach.

This is one of those cases where panels normally have a great deal of sympathy for the situation. Well certainly when I am on the panel they have been.
But you are talking about twins and therefore need two school places extra. A key consideration is going to be whether the appeals are infant class size cases. If they are then the only two criteria that will get you a place is that a mistake has been made in the allocations or that the LA have been unreasonable in not offering you a place at the school you preferred.
From what you have said it does not appear that a mistake has been made. The second criteria is an unreasonable decision, which actually in legal terms is a completely perverse decision.So the first question has to be were the LA aware from your form the reasons why you had specific preferences?
Obviously if the appeal is not an infant class size case then the appeal is about your reasons for needing the places and that is where I would expect any panel to be sympathetic.
I would not recommend a solicitor as there is no question that a personal appeal is more effective, especially with the information that you are giving. It would strengthen your case if you could give some facts, obviously without naming names, about the number of potential problem families there will be and the kind of issues that have been dealt with.
If you would prefer, please feel free to PM me if you feel this more appropriate.

thank you very much for your answers,

I did specify that I did not want them to attend the school they have been issued a place. I included a very long report on the initial application which explained our situation in a lot more detail and what the safety issues were.

I would suggest that they did not even read this report as when I spoke to the lady who dealt with it she knew nothing about my situation and advised me to appeak the decision.

Thank you for your advice on the solictor we will attend the appeal on our own and put our case forward.

It would be an infant class and I am aware that they are full. This is why I wasnt sure if it would even be worth appealing now as I keep hearing that there is nothing they will be able to do. I am slightly annoyed that they didnt even read my initial report and alloacted them the school I was so against but I guess I just need to find a solution now.

Thank you

In that case, I think the LEA's apparent ignoring of your statement helps you, because you can try arguing at appeal that their insistence on giving you places at a school which you had already explained would be unsuitable is perverse.

Given that you gave the information with your application I agree that you have a good case for suggesting that the LA has acted unreasonably in allocating a place at this school.

I agree, get an appeal on the go. The form specifically allows you the opportunity as a parent to explain your preferences. Whilst most explanations do not actually have any credence against the admission criteria, in your instance I would expect that the LA should have at the least given it some consideration. The response of the admission office would clearly indicate that this did not happen and therefore this may be one of a relatively rare number of cases where the LA is being unreasonable in their allocation of places.

Thankyou ever so much, I have been wondering if there is any point appealing but with your comments it has made me more positive, thank you