help with in-year school appeal

[marl]

Hi, I'm wondering if any of you can offer any input on in-year school appeals. We are moving area and therefore moving our Reception DS to a new school. Our nearest school is .2 of a mile from our house ie ideal! It currently has a set number of 27 students per class so is not over infant class size numbers. They have other year groups with 29 and 30 in a class but the school have said that the local authority reassessed and changed their pupil numbers last year - the implication from the school is that they would be happy to accept our son, but it has to go through appeal and the school don't have a choice to be able to accept at this point - it's the LA and appeal panel. At the moment I have written our appeal on a variety of reasons which seem to me wholly reasonable from a family point of view, but might be minor and irritating to an appeal panel. Do any of you have experience of this?

Current reasons, in summary:

1. it is .2 of a mile. The other schools with places are over 2 miles by pavement to walk (though I think the LA draw a straight line and say 2 miles is reasonable for infants...so there are two schools with places on that basis).
2. Little brother will definitely be going to our catchment school once he reaches 5 and we will want both brothers at the same school, so DS1 will then have had to move schools 3 times if he goes elsewhere now and waits for a place to come up.
3. We know noone in the area and are keen to integrate into local community. The other 2 community schools are up to infant class size limits.
4. Other classes in our appeal school have up to 30.
5. This is a large Victorian building, and we don't believe one more pupil would have a negative effect on resourcing and space,
6. DP will have the car for work and is travelling 30 miles to work so we need a school that is walkable to.
7. We are keen to minimise disruption for DS since this is a big move, leaving grandparents behind etc...

Any feedback gratefully received! We can only appeal once this academic year so need to get it right..

Sounds like you've got a good case, but I'm no expert.

For a bit of advice I'd try the 11plus website www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/appeals

It covers appeals for secondary application, but a lot of the advice applies to primary as well, it also includes a section: "Appeals For An Oversubscribed School"

Good luck!

1, 4 and 5 have the best chance imho. Unless your ds has sn I'm not sure disruption and desire to have children in same place longer term really add much to it, except which demonstrating that it outweighs the problem the school may face by admitting.

To take your points one at a time:

1. The panel will be aware that if the school is over 2 miles walking distance from home your son will be entitled to free transport to and from school. This is very unlikely to win your appeal.

1. I'm afraid that is completely irrelevant.

1. Worth mentioning but unlikely to win your appeal on its own.

1. Useful but it would be worth finding out if anything changed to justify the LA's decision to reduce PAN.

1. I wouldn't put that as part of your case. That is more useful for attacking the LA's case for refusing admission.

1. Completely irrelevant I'm afraid.

1. You can mention this but again it is unlikely to win your appeal on its own.

If the case to refuse admission is weak you may not need a strong case to win your appeal. However, it is worth making the best case you can. The case you have set out so far is fairly weak.

The panel has to decide whether the disadvantage to your son through not being admitted outweighs the disadvantage to the school through admitting another child. Note that it is about the disadvantage to your son, not the disadvantage to you or your family. Transport difficulties and the like are not things the appeal panel can consider in most cases.

You need to identify things this school offers that are missing from the allocated school and which would be particularly useful for your son. For example, if he is showing an aptitude for music and your preferred school offers more musical activities than the allocated school that is worth bringing up.

Ah Ok, thanks all of you. Will be about 45 minutes from our current school in the next county, so at present the LA haven't allocated a suitable school because we applied to 3 in the local area all of which are full! So at present I am only appealing for one school since the others are up to infant class size of 30 so I am suggesting we will continue to drive back and forth which is far from ideal until either a. we get through on appeal or b. a place comes up....rather than move him twice. I don't know if that makes the case weaker. The LA previously suggested I phone round schools and told me which ones they 'thought' had places - several of which didn't and the others of which are not 'local' to the suburb we are moving to but in other areas so I haven't applied for places at them. Don't know if any of that is a bad idea.

Your LA is letting you down. They should be finding a place for you, not making you do the work. Remind them that under the Admissions Code they are required to co-ordinate in year admissions and must tell you about places available at all schools in their area.

Having said that, if you are only 45 minutes from your current school the LA is entitled to regard that as acceptable, so that could justify (just about) their failure to make an offer. If they don't come up with any offers before the appeal you need to show why the appeal school is more suitable for your son than his current school.