Admission / Appeal Question

[kazra1]

Hi,

I hope someone on this forum can help.

Has anyone been able to successfully use one of these forms during a primary school application when it was contributed to, by people working at the school itself?

We had an appeal for a primary place and this form was objected to because it supported our case and because it had school contributors it was not permitted.

We have now been granted a 2nd appeal by the LGO due to irregularities and mistakes during the initial appeal and now want to see if it is possible to introduce this form in anyway.

Thanks for any help on this matter.

P.S
Any advice on a 2nd appeal would be very much appreciated.

People might be better able to answer your question if you say which forms you are talking about! However, even if other people have used such forms it doesn't help you. Appeals don't set precedents. Just because someone else has been allowed to use such a form does not mean your appeal panel should accept it.

Kazra,
I am also a bit mystified by what exactly you mean by this form. What did people at the school contribute to it?

Since the OP hasn't come back yet, looking at her other threads I think she is referring to the pre-Common Assessment Framework form and the full CAF form.

Pushed Post too early!

As I understand it the OP submitted these forms as evidence to her first appeal but the panel refused to consider them on the grounds that the school had been involved in filling in the forms and therefore it amounted to the school supporting the appeal.

prh47bridge has it spot on.

There were some procedual issues over our application which resulted in not all of the information reaching the admissions panel (this was an applicantion on medical and social grounds).

When we appealed, we submitted additional medical evidence from doctors, health visitors, a child psychologist, a physician and also the Common Assessment Framework form which was completed by staff at the school(I am not sure anyone else can do this).

The local authority objected to the Common Assessment Framework form because they claimed it supported us and was written by people associated with the school, ironically the appeal panel did not consider ANY of the new evidence we provided because it was not available at the time of the original application however we feel very strongly that had our home authority followed procedure then they would have had all of the documents from the outset.

I am guilty of not explaining myself too well however I was trying not to contaminate the thread. If someone has had their form excepted during an appeal then surely it is only fair that ours is excepted too, if the CAF form does get accepted then surely they must consider the other evidence as well.

Maybe I am thinking of things in a too simplistic manner.

Thanks in advance

I think I understand..

• you applied, didn't get the place you wanted
• you were hoping to get a place on medical/social grounds, but the LEA didn't get the relevant documents before the places were allocated so didn't put you in that category
• the appeals panel ruled against you, as your evidence was not available to the LEA at the time of allocation

If this is a Infant Class Size case, then they were correct. The panel can only admit in cases of ICS on three grounds;

• that the LEA made a mistake (e.g put you in the wrong admissions category, which is effectively what you are claiming, but if they didn't have the information then they couldn't place you in the medical category);
• that they didn't follow their own admissions arrangements
• that the decision not to admit is "unreasonable" in a legal sense (effectively so perverse that no rational person would have made it)

The LEA didn't have your docs at allocation time, so didn't make a mistake. Unfortunately you can't go to an ICS appeal with new information that the LEA didn't have at the time of allocation for an ICS case. So no, they shouldn't let you submit the new forms.

The issue about whether the home authority (are you applying outside of your home LEA?) was at fault in not producing the information is a different issue. Did you supply any information originally supporting your medical/social application? If so, that can be brought to appeal.

If it's not ICS, then it's a different ballgame!

We did provide some medical information at the time of application, however this was not the depth that was produced at the appeal.

The medical information that was provided to the home authority was not passed on to the out of borough authority until the day the admissions panel sat and a day AFTER thieir 'expert' had already passed her comments on the medical application.

We have been trying to establish as to why the home authority witheld the information for so long (we understood that this should be passed on as quickly as possible to the out of borough authority in accordance with their agreements), to date they have not made a comment and refuse to answer.

We did apply on medical grounds but initially it did not have all of the documents that were available, we were unaware of the type of information that was required as we were working without any booklets or information as to what is classed as suitable medical information.

As a result of the 'lack' of information, our case was judged on distance criteria and not medical.