Dr letter help

[Afsana1]

I need to a dr letter about my post natal depression and just need some help with what to include. Any help would be appreciated. What I have thought of is that dd needs her friends at this difficult time and also my sister lives near the school who she stays over there with a couple nights a week to help me out. I need this family support. Thanx xxx

OK, so from your contribution on another thread about appeals, you mean you need a letter from your doctor to the appeals panel, confirming that you have PND and that, in his professional opinion your dd would need to attend this particular school in order for you to receive the support you need? Might be worth making an appointment to see the doctor and make it absolutely clear what you want him to write.
Although you also need to find out if parental health issues can be taken into account for admissions.

Thank you clam

I think you can legitimately word your own letter as long as it is backed up with a letter from the GP verifying that you have PND and your family needs support. That way you won't have to tell the GP what to include, which she or he might not agree to.

In your own appeal explain that you have a serious medical condition. Explain that mental health problems have severe physical implications (as they might not know this)
e.g. chronic exhaustion means you need access to the nearest school
severe confusion and chronic stress at day to day tasks means you can't get a child to a school on time if it involves a bus journey, for example
you are currently too ill to provide full time care for your child and rely on family who can help out as they live near this school, but whose input would be compromised if your DD was at another school.

(Incidentally, it might help to say that you had help wording the letter. Some people are so witless about PND that they think a logical, well-worded letter is evidence you can cope. So explain that friends helped put your points across.)

Explain that DDs' close friends are at this school/live nearby and that it is critical for her development that she has contact with friends and other families who are not in a depressive state, for her own emotional development to be healthy. If you have a good health visitor or GP - get them to add a note to this effect.

Very good luck with it. PND is vile. I hope you get over it soon.

Thank you so much for understanding racing heart. I'm just scared that when I talk about it I might get too emotional also I don't want them thinking I'm a bad mother.

No, it won't be enough for the doctor's letter to say "Afsana has had PND and the family requires support".

What appeals panels look for, when the parent mentions that there is a particular social or medical need for the child to have a place at the preferred school, is confirmation from a health care professional (or social worker, where appropriate) that that is the case and that the preferred school is better able to meet those needs than any other school. A doctor's letter that mentions the health problems but does not say that in that doctor's professional opinion the child needs a place at that one particular school is not enough.

As clam says, you need also to check whether your LEA takes account of parents' needs or only those of the child. If the admissions category for social and medical need only covers the child's needs, you will need also to spell out the implications of your health issues for your child.

Is this an infant class size appeal? If it is, and you are raising the issues about your health for the first time now, it is unlikely that the panel will allow your appeal, as the LEA can't be blamed for not acting on information it didn't have. You need to ask the LEA how you can get your application re-categorised as social/medical need and therefore get moved into a higher priority group on the waiting list. Most LEAs have a panel (not the appeal panel) that adjudicates on this.

Lastly, nobody will think you are a bad mother. People on the panel are quite likely to know about PND (they may even have had it). They will be sympathetic to your situation. Even so, there are very limited circumstances in which panels can allow an ICS appeal - as I'm sure you've already been told, they will be looking for evidence of an error which deprived your child of a place, admission arrangements that are contrary to law or the admissions code or a decision that is so unreasonable it is immoral or perverse.

Panel chair it is not a primary appeal it is a junior appeal for year 3. Thank you

Then from your point of view that's all to the good, as you will be arguing about the relative prejudice (disadvantage) to your child in not being admitted and to the school and its existing pupils in taking an extra pupil.

Hang on, I'm confused. I've just seen on a different thread that you were appealing for another school but were refused on religious grounds. Is this likely to be the same appeal panel and if so, might they not ask you why you were appealing for a different school if this is the one you are so keen on (for the reasons you state)?

I haven't (as far as I can recall) seen the OP's other threads.

It's quite common for parents to appeal for more than one school - if parents dislike the school they've been allocated, they often appeal for every school they applied for where they didn't get a place. Appeal panels know that and will decide each appeal on its merits - they don't reject an appeal just because they know a parent has other appeals on the go, just as they don't reject an appeal if they have information that the child may get a place via the waiting list. Each appeal turns on its own merits.

What I think would be tricky here would be appealing for more than one school and simultaneously arguing that each one is the only one that meets the social/medical need - clearly that would be somewhat contradictory and a doctor's letter saying that "Afsana's child needs a place at School A" will look bizarre at an appeal for School B.

Appeal panels don't usually have the same members for every school, but it is possible that one member could be hearing appeals for both School A and School B.

Basically I was not given any of my 3 preferences. The school I appealed against first was my 2nd preference and it was a cofe school and the one I am appealing against now is my 1st preference and is community school. The school I have been allocated is 3.8 miles away from me this is the reason I have appealed against those two schools.

On my first appeal I did not raise the subject of my pnd as I thought it wouldn't help. But I have since spoken to ace and they said it would help my 2nd appeal.

As I said, appealing for more than one school is not a problem in itself. You need, though, to tailor what you say at each appeal to the particular reasons you want your child to attend that school.

Given that the Appeal is for a Y3 place (not reception) then you are in a different position to reception places as it will not be an ICS Appeal.
But I think you need to put a bit more background as appealing for a place in a Junior school i.e. Infant/Junior transfer may be different depending on whether your child is transferring from separate Infant and Junior schools or if it is a primary school.
If your child is at a linked infants school and has been turned down for a place at the corresponding Junior school, then you may be able to win an Appeal on the basis that offering you a school 3.8 miles away is unreasonable, even without other factors such as PND. If you are attempting to move your child from an infants school to a different (non-linked) Junior school then children already at the Infants school may have priority over children living nearer to the school who are at different infant schools.

My daughter is in an infant school but the junior school I am appealing against is the neighbouring school it is right next door to it. It is not my catchment area but neither was the infant school. I'm just trying to gather info before my appeal date comes. Thank you for your advice xx

Have looked up the criteria for Infant/Junior transfer in my LEA and the policy is that if the PAN of the infant and junior schools are the same then a child attending the infants school automatically gets transferred to the Junior school. If the PAN of the Junior school is lower then the priority is Looked After children, SEN, children who have attended the paired infants school for 3 years of infant education, siblings, distance. There is no social/medical category in my LEA. This gives children who have attended the paired infants school priority.
My only other idea for your Appeal is that as well as the social/medical issues you have described for your Appeal, you need to add the educational benefits to your child of transferring to the partner Junior school. Good paired infant and junior schools will work hard to develop links between the 2 schools and to help transfer from Y2 to Y3. There is educational evidence that if a child transfers to a completely different (unlinked) school at the start of Y3 then their academic levels can decrease. Therefore your child would be disadvantaged educationally by being moved to another school. Hope this helps your Appeal.

craymum Can you link to the educational evidence about transfers to unlinked junior schools?

Even if there is evidence (I've never heard it mentioned before) that children do better if they go to their paired junior school, that is evidence about the generality of children, rather than about any particular child. The LEA is likely to argue that, whatever the evidence about going to the linked junior school, the education of all the children at the school is likely to suffer if class sizes go above 30 (and I would hazard a guess that there's evidence somewhere to back that up too). The appeal panel will (i expect) attach more weight to evidence that is specific to the child whose place is being appealed for.

Hello - I have been involved with the governing bodies of several paired infants school and seen assessment data to show there is often a "dip" during Y3 and hence the importance of managing the transition carefully. Some recent examples of research are on the attached links KS1/2 Case Studies and an example of good practice would be Managing the KS1 to KS2 transition.
Yes I would recommend a letter about your medical condition but you do need the medical professionals to state how this effects your child and that the current school community (including both the infant and junior schools) is in the best position to support your child .

But there are many primary schools who would assert the same dip in Year 3, although it's a contentious issue. I don't think it's anything that can be attributed specifically to paired infant/juniors and, although I've only skim-read your link above, it seems to be talking in general terms about transition. I'm not sure the OP would get anywhere using this as a basis for appeal.

With the pnd I believe that when it affects me it obviously affects my dd because I can't care for her and then rely on my family to help her out. It's just difficult in explaining how it affects her. I think I won't be able to explain everything properly.

To go back to PanelChairs post, the medical professional needs to write that in his/her professional opinion childsname needs a place at juniorschoolname because mothersname has PND and without the family support she is already receiving at infantschoolname the child's education and social well-being would be seriously affected. I don't think it has to be a long letter.
clam the evidence is that the "dip" in Y3 is lowest in all-through primary schools and that other types of schools have to work very hard to make up the difference. Hence the need for close links between infant and junior schools. The OP would not have this problem if child was at a primary school as they wouldn't have to re-apply for a KS2 place and would automatically stay at the same school.
The critical thing is that this PND has occurred at this particular time, which is a significant transition in her child's education, and the impact this is having on the OP and her dd at this time.

Thank you crazy mum I'm seeing the dr on thur so hopefully I will speak to him. Xxx