Appeal - missing info

[Yvonne99]

We are getting ready for primary school ( reception) appeal. Catholic school. Criteria:

1. children in care who are baptised catholics
2. children baptised catholics who live in parishes: X, Y, Z

they did not go below the second criteria this year.

We are in criteria 2.

Last year they had 26 baptised children from the 3 parishes so they took some kids from the further criteria. This year they had 38 applications for the 2nd criteria. We do not live so far to go below the line, we believe.

We have just received appeal documents from the diocese and I think some info is missing.
First of all we did not get a guidance notes as it says in the covering letter!!! How could that happen? Is that something we shall point out???
We got few pages of "stage one" which include: statement for non-admission, minutes of the meeting of admission panel, copy of admissions policy. And few pages "stage two" which is a copy of our appeal letter.

Stage one takes place at 10am and all appellants will be present. What is that going to be about? Do we need to go?
Stage two for our daughter is at 3pm - am I right that it will be the individual hearing and discussion?

Now, I thought they will send us a map of parish boundaries. I spoke to school and they said that diocese will send us that with the appeal documents.
Secondly as distance has been used to allocate places we expected them to show how this was applied to our application compared to those offered a place. Can we get that before the hearing?

The letter says that they used distance from school as per details received from council - who shall give us more details - school or council?
We need to check the parish boundaries as well as there are some areas closer to school that we are but they belong to other school.

How can I prepare for the hearing if I do not have all above info and where can I get it? Thank you :)

Just to be clear - you already have good copies of the parish maps?
And the school have provided a copy of what they use to determine admissions?

Not sure if this helps your case. Hopefully someone else will see this and comment.

I have got maps of two parishes directy from the churches. I wanted to compare them to what the school provides me with.What I saw were unclear ( Pale) maps and boundaries of my parish are not there at all:(

Bump - admission is around, so hopefully she will pop back to this thread.

Yvonne - I'm not sure if i understand - you got the original maps from your parish and you do you want to compare them with the ones that the school has given you?

Their data is obviously badly flawed but the bottom line is whether the process has been correctly carried out and if not whether it would have disadvantaged you by not getting a place which you would have been entitled to if the process had been correctly carried out.
The fact that the maps are rubbish is not in itself an issue it is whether the rubbish maps caused a problem or not.
It might be worth asking a question now of the school, which is whether any pupils from parish X have been offered places at the school. Obviously if none have that suggests some slight of hand is in operation. I don't expect that they will give you an answer but of you say this is a line of enquiry that you will be pursuing at appeal then they wil have to answer the question then. By giving them good notice of the line of enquiry they will have no excuse for not answering the question.

AngelEyes - Yes I have got maps of two parishes ( ours and parish Z, which is the furthest one). I am looking for a reason/mistake why we did not get that place.
Our parish is in the middle ( all of them together form a rectangular shape - Parish X where the school is located is on the left then, in the middle there is our parish Y, to the right is parish Z ). Never before they had enough kids from these 3 parishes under criteria 4.2 so all kids got a place.
This year they are saying they had 45 children.
Our Parish Y is a poor council area and we are migrants. That school is an outstanding school with fantastic results.
Parish Z is a posh area with lots of private schools around. Some parents admitted they can no longer afford private schools so they would be applying for that school.
What is more there are areas nearer the schhol than we are but they belong to other schools.
I was hoping to compare schools maps and parish maps to see if they might be different by any chance. If they are going to pin kids taken they easily can stretchthe boundaries...

I want to be sure they took only children from the 3 parishes and their decision was based on distance.
I am banging my head against the wall as I am not able to check anything:(

That lady who I saw today said that these are the only maps they have and these maps were used while making a decision on admission. If my parish Y was not showed there hwo could they make it right?

Admission - caould you please give me an advice what shall I do now? Our hearing is next Monday. Shall I write to the school ( what?) make a complain ( where?) or wait until hearing and say ( what?)

Bump

I would ask the question in writing of how many pupils were offered a place from parish Y of the school. You will not get an answer before Monday but it will mean that the school cannot avoid answering the question on Monday as they have had plenty of time to get the information together.
From what you say in any admission category, given that the deciding factor is distance, one would expect the vast majority of pupils in parish Y in that admission category to live nearer than anybody in parish Z, so why not ask how many in parish Y and parish Z in each admission category with the furthest distance.