Primary school appeal help!

[joannejasmine2008]

Hi All

I wonder if anyone could offer me any advice for my primary school appeal I will be attending on Monday.

The background is that we applied for two schools near to our home address (both less than 1.5 miles away) and one school near to my parents address (they have looked after our daughter since she was six months old while I work full time and my husband works full time over three shifts ? days, nights and back shift). Our daughter also attends the nursery that attaches to the school next to my parents.

We were turned down for both schools near to home. Both have a PAN of 30 and we have been told that an appeal wouldn?t be successful due to this and there is no way this PAN can be increased.

The school near to my parents? house has a PAN of 106 but has four classes of 30 or under. In the past two years they have accepted 115 and 116, still giving a class size of under 30. The only issue is that, although all schools are in the same LA, this school is approximately 8 miles from our home address.

My parents are the only family support we have and our daughter has a very close relationship with them. My job is full time, 37 hours per week and I am unable to reduce any hours. My husband job is full time and he works three shifts; 7.00 am to 3.00 pm, 3.00 pm to 11.00 pm and 11.00 pm to 7.00 am so he is unable to pick her up or drop her off regularly.

We are currently trying to move to be nearer to this area not only for school reasons but to allow for our immediate family and support network to be close to each other.

Our daughter currently suffers from a speech problem and is difficult to understand. We have been told by her speech therapist that it could take a couple of years to sort out her speech properly. We have included this as part of our appeal because the teachers in the nursery are of course aware of this and are able to understand her, as are the children in her group (most of which would be in her class).

We are extremely concerned that if she had to attend a different school her speech and the other children being unable to understand her would cause her to be isolated.

We were invited to attend a school induction session for her, due to successful appeal. However, she was allocated a class number and I was introduced to her teacher. Since this date our daughter has also been taken from her nursery and introduced into the classroom along with the rest of her possible class (made up of children from four separate nursery groups) and spent time with the teacher.

Needless to say we are worried sick. We have also been told that all schools within a 5 mile radius of our home address are full and that there are ten appeals (including ours) being heard.

Any comments or help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hi everyone! :)
Im entirely new to mumsnet... But gladly came across this while searching sites for advice on school appeals. But I hav a hearing for my son's Infant Class size appeal for a VA school coming up and wondering if anyone could share some advise. My l'il man's been referring to this school as "my big school" for as long as he's had an awareness of going on to a big school. And it's hard coz the school is directly next to his current nursery though according to admissions it's treated as an entirely separate entity. It's just so hard to pin point facts and prooving the admission's authority was wrong... though I managed to dig out some numbers like 20:2 pupil teacher ratios, 4 out of 10 appeals won last year etc... But I was hoping more so to base my appeal on unreasonable grounds... Suggestions, experiences and advice all welcome and appreciated in advance.

As said before kng an ICS appeal will only take in consideration those points, if the LA got something wrong, the admission criteria is wrong etc.

IME a nursery is seperate from the actual school and even though you attended the nursery, it doesn't mean you automatically get a place.

If there is a higher number of children that meet the first set of admission requirements ie looked after children, children with special needs, siblings, then the distance criteria is last.

What are your actual grounds for the appeal?

joannejasmine - Assuming the appeal for the school near your parents' home is not ICS (it may be but it seems unlikely with an admission number of 106), this appeal would be decide on the balance of prejudice, in other words the panel will decide whether the problems your daughter will face if she is not admitted to this school outweigh the problems the school will face if they have to cope with an additional pupil.

The fact that they have gone well over PAN for the last two years should help. I would ask the authority's representative to confirm those figures in the appeal and use this to suggest that the school can cope with that many children.

If your daughter's speech therapist is willing to write a letter saying that your daughter will suffer if she does not go to this school it will be very helpful. It is important that any letter is clear that the therapist is giving their own opinion. If it says something like "joannejasmine tells me..." that will not help as it suggests they are simply reflecting your view.

You can appeal for the two schools nearer your home but, as tiggytape says, you should only win if there has been a mistake and your daughter should have been offered a place.

KNGemin - As tiggytape says, you may be best starting your own thread. You will get better advice if you tell us more about your case.

If you want to show that the admission authority is wrong you need to understand the rules. For an ICS case, the overall teacher/pupil ratio in the school and the number of appeals won in previous years are irrelevant. The central question is whether admitting your son will result in a class of more than 30 children in Reception, Y1 or Y2. The panel has to work with the existing class arrangement and teacher deployment. You may be able to show that they can comply by arranging the classes differently or deploying teachers differently but that will not win your case.

You say you want to appeal on the grounds that the decision to refuse to admit your son was unreasonable. That is very difficult to prove. Essentially you have to show that the decision was irrational - that no reasonable person could possibly make that decision. If the school has complied with its admission criteria you are unlikely to be able to show their decision is unreasonable unless there are special circumstances. For example, if they have a category for special medical needs and you submitted evidence that would place your son in this category but he was not given priority, you may be able to persuade the panel that this decision was unreasonable.

We really need to know more to be able to give proper advice.

Thanks for the replies! My stress levels continue to rise ? I was awake during the night for about 4 hours not being able to stop thinking about this!

Hi tiggytape

1. Daughter was offered a place at a school which were turned down because its even further away from us and parents
2. The school doesn?t mix the years ? there are four classes of less than 30 in each year. I?m not sure if it is an ICS appeal. Would this be stated on the forms as that or a more difficult to understand wording?!
3. I didn?t include medical evidence as part of the original application as she hadn?t been assessed by then. It was the nursery who put her forward for the speech assessment as they had worries. I included the information as part of my appeal form and will be supplying further evidence to support that today after a conversation with the therapist yesterday.

Should all schools in the same LA have the same admission process? Only the school that the LA offered her a place at is even further away from our home and parents. Surely if one school in the area have an open access policy then they all should?

prh47bridge ? I need to definitely find out whether it is an ICS appeal then I can work on my speech for Monday. They can definitely cope with an additional pupil as they have done this in the past and obviously set a precedent. The LA information confirmed the numbers of 115 and 116 in the two previous years.

Thanks again

Joanne

joannejasmine Very interested to find this as the case is very similar to my neighbour's case, especially re: the speech issue - see my thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1505248-To-ask-for-your-support-and-advice-for-a-distraught-family

Unfortunately they lost their appeal, hope you have more luck with yours.

Agree with Tiggytape. Just to add that, if the allocated school was not one of your preferences, the reason you got offered a place there is that it was the nearest school to your home that had a place available. Nothing to do with being "open access". They have a set admission number too and, if they were full, you would not have been offered a place.

As you have turned down the offered school you need to think carefully about how you will present this to the panel. Unfortunately most appeal panels have come across parents who think they can bully their way into their preferred school by turning down all other offers. If they think you are one of those parents they are less likely to give you the benefit of any doubt.

Also, as you have rejected the offer, you need to think about a plan B in case you lose the appeal. As Tiggytape says, the LA is not under any obligation to come up with another offer for you. If they do offer you another school it may well be even further away from home than the offer you have already rejected. So you need to think seriously about what you will do in that situation.

Hi

Thanks everyone for your responses - they are very much appreciated.

I am totally convinced that the appeal will be dismissed on Monday and now so so tearful that I can't even talk about it anymore. Thanks to all who responded and for clearing up the points that I questionned.

The hardest thing is going to have to explain to her that she won't be going there and trying to introduce her to a new environment.

Many thanks again
Joanne
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From the information you have posted I don't think this is an infant class size case. You should have the LA's case by now. If that doesn't use the words "class size prejudice" this is not an ICS case. If it is not ICS you have a decent chance of winning, especially given that they have gone well over PAN in previous years. As Tiggytape says, a letter from your daughter's speech therapist will help if you can get it. I know you haven't got long but contact them and see if they will help.

Whether or not you get the letter, give it your best shot. Give as much information and evidence as you can about your daughter's speech difficulties and why this means she needs to go to this school.

Good luck.

Hi All

Well after a very sleepless night last night and a very tense morning, our appeal was finally heard this afternoon.

The most fabulous news is that our daughter, along with the other 10 appellants, was accepted into the school as the panel upheld all appeals!

We feel fantastic and now we can talk openly about going to school with our gorgeous baby!!!

Thanks for the advice

Joanne
x

Hooray! What a very moving and satisfying thread to read. Well done all.