Please help- place withdrawn!

[StellarforStarofAfrica]

DD has had her place withdrawn for our 1st choice school, on the basis that her foster sibling won't be starting in their nursery until January, and not September.

They have just picked this up now due to an internal audit, and for the last 6 weeks, we've been telling her she's going to the school attached to the nursery she's been attending.

I am devastated. Not only has she missed the first appeals date, she is now probably at the bottom of the waiting list, all because of an admin issue at the admissions office.

The admin officer I have spoken to was very lovely, and explained all the protocol to me, but I am still fuming! Ther is NO WAY she is going to go to the school they have allocated her, she wouldn't last a week there, so it's either get through to first choice on appeal (I have no idea how likely this is) or home ed (gulp) which I have no idea of how to do.

Has this happened to anyone else? If so, how did you get through it?

Sorry this is a bit of a stream of consciousness, but I am really shocked and upset.

tethers, I didn't know that to be honest- I didn't state that DFD was her sibling for the reason of getting DD into the school, more to say that I had applied for DFD's nursery place there as it was so good and DD had loved it.

I applied for DFD to go to that nursery as I applied for DD to go to that school, iyswim.

TBH, the sibling rule wouldn't apply in nursery anyway, so it's academic. I will be very interested to see what the LEA say- I suspect, like others, that someone's head will roll for this...

Oh my god, it's an "Allocation error"

The place should neve have been offered in the first place. She categorically stated that I had not put any misleading information or misrepresented anything on the form.

I think I'm going to cry. She refused to reinstate the place at the moment and is talking to her boss about it in the morning.

I quoted the LGO case to her and she asked for the reference number

I have to go and e-mail her all my numbers now so she can call me tomorrow!

You guys rock x

Make sure you confirm tht conversation in the email - its your passport to a place!!!!

Brilliant news.

Fingers crossed for a good outcome tomorrow.

In my LEA a foster sibling would count as a sibling, as long as it was a formal, recognised fostering placement rather than something informal done to facilitate a school admission. But, even though sibling priority for school admissions works in our LEA for younger and older siblings, nursery admissions are treated separately and a younger sibling in the nursery would not confer any priority. So, in my LEA, OP would never have been offered a place for YR on the strength of a foster sibling in the nursery.

But all that is by the by. OP was offered a place and LEA took far too long to spot the error and withdraw the place. OP is right to challenge this, citing the LGO case that's been mentioned.

Tiggytape - I suspect it's often the case that people in schools and LEAs aren't well acquainted with school admissions law or the relevant codes. Some of the reports on MN of what people have apparently been told by schools/LEAs are quite alarming!

Tiggy how does it sound promising? I'm gunning for the OP here and want to hear positivity for her!

Brilliant!
Thehouse - not tiggy obviously, but the difference between the place being withdrawn after this amount of time, and not, is whether the offe was made based on false information supplied by stellar. And they have tol her this is definitely not the case.

Woohoo!

So, she kept saying to me "places can be withdrawn if a mistake is made" to which I replied, "yes, but within a reasonable amount of time- 6 weeks is not a reasonable amount of time" and she said "We have to operate within the school admissions procedure and the LEA guidelines"

I just said that I hadn't made the mistake or lied, so surely the legal precedent set by the LGO would override this?

She had been in a meeting with nice admin lady for 1 1/2 hours apparently, according to the staff member who took my last call...

Yikes! They're probably whacking one another round the office by now!

Good luck Stellar. Fingers crossed for you!

"We have to operate within the school admissions procedure and the LEA guidelines"

Exactly! They do, which is why you're almost certain to have your place re-instated.

I just love a happy (almost, don't want to jinx it) MN ending

I think I can more or less guess what the LA will come back with, it will be one of two things.
They will quote paragraph 1.50 of the 2010 Admission code which says they can withdraw a place where it was offered under co-ordination by the Local Authority, not the admission authority, in error. What that means is that if the school is their own admission authority like a faith school they agree the admission criteria order as the admission authority and then pass it to the LA as the co-ordination group to administer the actual allocation of places. If somehow the LA mess up in the allocation of places and offer to someone who should not have been offered a place then they have the right to withdraw the place. However if it was the admission authority that messed up, then they cannot withdraw the place. In a community school the LA is both the co-ordinator and the admission authority and therefore they cannot withdraw the place.
The alternative is that in the new 2012 admission code in paragraph 2.12 it does say that an admission authority can withdraw a place offered in error, which is a significant future change in admissions. However for admission this September, the relevant law is that in the 2010 admission code. So if they quote the 2012 code write back and tell them that this is not the relevant legislation.
I would also up the anti and tell them that they either re-instate the place within say 7 days or you will refer their disgraceful behaviour to the LGO and then do so if they still will not change their mind. The legal precedent set by the LGO certainly does trump any LA guidelines and I would challenge them to find something in the 2010 admission code which says they can withdraw a place offered other than the very limiting conditions in paragraph 1.50
Don't suppose that they have also told you that you have an automatic right for your application for the school to be reconsidered (and presumably rejected) and for an appeal.

Gosh admissions you're white hot! That all sounds very hopefull indeed!

Argh, I left one of DDs names in there- I copied and pasted it from word.

Repost

So I am sending boss lady the following- do you think it's ok?

Sorry to be emailing so late, I hope you get to see this in the morning. I was just writing this in order to clarify my understanding of what we spoke about earlier.

• You have informed me that DD's place was withdrawn as it was allocated in error, and that there was no incorrect/misleading/untruthful information on the form.

-DD was offered and accepted her place on 13th April 2012, a full 58 days (8 weeks and 3 days) before we were informed the place was withdrawn.

• I have requested that as the place was withdrawn on the basis of a mistake, and we were not informed within a reasonable amount of time (a few days), that her place at x school is reinstated as per the legal precedent that has been set (LGO 99C01876).
• You informed me that you were not in a position to do this for me today or guarantee it would happen, but that you needed to speak to your supervisor tomorrow (13/06) and would call me at some point during that day.
• You informed me that should the place not be reinstated, I have the right to make an appeal, although this would not be heard with the main body of appeals. You also informed me that you believed that DD?s appeal would not be disadvantaged due to the ?lateness? of it, which is what I was concerned about.
• You also informed me about the appeals process and that the appeals panel does not work on the basis of fitting a certain amount of children into a certain amount of places.

This is what I am sending her- the main points of quite a lengthy conversation. She did go through the appeals procedure in quite a lot of detail, but I have omitted this as it's a matter of process.

I am holding onto my notes I made from admissions post (thank youx) for tomorrow when she calls me, but basically if she doesn't say they will reinstate immediately, I will be asking them exactly why and telling them they have 7 days to right it beofre it goes to the LGO

thanks, tiggy- I wish!

I have a horrible feeling they are going to fight me :(