Reception class appeal - aspergers son

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Hi, my son has not been given a place at our village school (0.3 miles away). He has undiagnosed aspergers - his issues are inflexibility, needing continuity, lack of impulse control, social emotional devt, rage, control issues. He has been referred to and accepted on the link inclusion scheme to assist the transition to school for vulnerable children. It is a massive blow. I believe his needs will be met at the village school and not at the school place given for 3 main reasons - continuity of peer group where he is known and accepted, has made some strong friendships, and will be exceptionally difficult for him to start a new school with no familiar faces. We moved to the village when he was a toddler so he would settle into the playgroups/pre school. Secondly they have offered a minibus, but due to his issues this is not an option and we have no other way of transporting him. Thurdly he is behind with gross motor skills and he is hard to coax outside/do excercise so the walk/scooter to school will be his main excercise and help with his muscle devt. Its an infant class size prejudice appeal. Do we have a case? Is there any chance?

Why isn't the minibus an option? Sorry but most very disabled (think Cerebal Palsey etc.) children around here are transported to school by minibus.
Did you mention his health issues on the from?
Have you tried to get him a statement?

As this is an infant class size case there are only limited grounds for a successful appeal. If the village school gives priority on medical grounds and you supplied evidence of your son's problems you may have a case. However, you describe him as having "undiagnosed aspergers". It would be unusual to get priority on the basis of an undiagnosed problem. You can try and you may strike it lucky but on the information you have posted I'm afraid I think it is a long shot. You may have a better chance through the waiting list as I would imagine you will be at or near the head of the list.

I agree with prh47bridge. A lot depends on whether the school gives priority in its admission criteria for social and medical needs, whether you presented evidence of your son's needs at the time of your application and whether the LEA took account of that evidence when making its decision.

I would have to agree with the other answers but I suppose my first question is if you are in a village why when you only live 0.3 miles from the school did you not get offered a place. If it is an infant class size regs appeal, I presume that the admission number is either 15 or 30.
The fact that the admission authority is offering a minibus to school means that you have also presumably been offered a place at a school more than 2 miles away. So have you just been very unlucky or is there a bunch of pupils who are being transported off to another school?
The waiting list is probably the best option in the short term but I think that the other option to get a place at this school is to get your child statemented for Aspergers and then you can name the school and will get a place.

Its due to an influx or new families, we are 2nd on waiting list. I know of a family who have rejected their place but a new familt have moved in closer who will get that place on 2nd round.

the minibus is a problem as there is no chaperone as its to a mainstream school and my son can have sudden raging meltdowns if the slightest thing doesn't go as he expected. They are difficult for me to predict let alone a bus driver.

I went to the GP in October way before application deadline knowing something was wrong and querying dyspraxia, and its taken til now to get a referral to the right place (for poss aspergers), so it wasn't on the application. I went to pre school in Feb (after app deadline) queryting aspergers and they agreed, next day they had written a whole list of aspergers traits and ticked 6 out of 9 as applying to him. They strongly think its aspergers.

He is on the link inclusion scheme for children needing extra help with transition. He now has a Springboard (special needs local authority funded charity) who are observing him on Monday in pre school. He has been referred by pre school and link inclusion scheme for speech therapy.

he is Aug 23 born so very young in year which is why we are only at this stage in process with his condition.

The wait to see paediatrician is 6-12 months, so we are getting him seen privately to expedite a diagnosis.

Statement - Pre School think this is needed, Local authority said its a very high bar so unlikely. I may get a bit futher along with speech therapy, other profs and ask for statutory assesement??

My main concern is related to his aspergers traits - extremely controlling of his environment, lack of impulse control, very oppositional/defiant, behind with social/emotional devt, needs continuity. he took a long time to settle into village pre school and still does after holidays and has been in the village peer group since playgroups and is familiar with them/to them with his quirks. He has also managed to make some strong little friendships which is hard for a child with his needs. I feel it would be strongly disadvantaging for him to be split away from his peers and community.

We have been very unlucky, and I watched as more and more families moved in the last year. We are in the village, just the opposite end to the school.

I have a 1-2-1 booked with schoolappeals.com, good idea?

Any ideas? TIA

PS thanks for your replies

Does the school have a category for exceptional medical/social need? If so, one thing to try us getting LA to acknowledge he should be in that category (you'll need evidence - letters from Springboard and other professionals). This could put you at the top of the waiting list, irrespective of whoever else moves into the village.

Lady - yes have found out he can stay on the whole year - funded! AND still keep the place he has been offered which is real result. But its still an unknown wait.

scaevola - its not on admissions criteria, would the school have something separate? I'll be getting all the evidence together for the appeal so it will all be there.

Do focus on Admission's advice if you choose to wait a year. Get a statement naming the school; make it plain to the loocal authority that the primary reason for the statement, is so that it will name the school and get him in.

Come and chat on the SEN children board. You need to get started on the statementing process here for him which can be a lengthy procedure and often fraught with hurdles with the LA seemingly turning down most applicants to see who fights on and who gives up. It will not be easy but you need to start this and keep collecting professional evidence of his needs to back up your case. If you get a statement you can within reason name your school choice. Lots of support here on MN for the process and also IPSEA website too for model letters and phoneline help.

To correct something that has been said, you can defer entry and leave your child in the pre-school, which sounds like a good idea, but you cannot defer for the whole school year, you must start schooling after the Easter break. Officially you could just not start them at school until the september after the birth date (as it is hols) but you do not keep the school place and would have to re-apply for a school place for year 1, not reception. That would be very difficult and probably be a bad option as you will have to accept a place in a school even further away.
If you are considering deferring then you need to arrange that with the school that you have a place at and cross fingers that a place comes up at the preferred school when you are top of the waiting list or that you get a statement.

Thanks everyone. We really do seem to be up sh12 creek without a paddle!! Another thing - I have a DD who will be applying for school when my son moves to KS2 (yr3). If we start him at the school given, this is often also oversubscribed so not a definite we will get her in as its not our nearest school so admission criteria just means it will be on distance. Same could happen with the village school as its getting pretty popular, so I really need to get my son into village school before I apply for her so she can get in and they are at same school. FFS!!!

Nlondondad - sorry to be dumb but what exactly do you mean by admissions advice?

Beautifulgirls - have telephone appt with IPSEA next Fri, they look great, will post now on SEN children board

admission - thanks for easter info

does anyone think we have a case at all with our sons circumstances or is it hopeless?? I know we have to give it a shot anyway, we'd be silly not to but I need to manage my expectations! Any chance? Slim? None?

admission - to answer you earlier q about transport - one other child missed out (hence we are second on list) who will be on minibus, plus children who moved to village in other years where there was no place

Essentially, the only way to win an infant class size appeal is to demonstrate that there has been some form of error - unlawful admissions criteria, admissions criteria not properly applied or a decision so utterly unreasonable that it cannot be allowed to stand.

Given that when you applied, your son's needs weren't yet identified and so they weren't mentioned on the application, your only chance of success (as far as I can see) is to try to convince the appeal panel that the level of your child's needs is such that sending him to any other school would be so unreasonable that no reasonable authority would have refused him a place. The potential difficulty here is that as you did/could not provide evidence of your child's needs, it is (clearly) harder to argue that the LEA did not properly take them into account. The panel may feel that the LEA can't be faulted for not acting on information it didn't at that time have.

Sorry to be discouraging, but ICS appeals are hard to win. The waiting list may be your best hope - especially if there is a category for medical/social need and you can satisfy the LEA that you should be in this category.

Thanks Panel Chair. Would it be worth labouring the point that it wasn't on the application as I hadn't had the correct support from GPs (I first went in Oct asking for referral to neurologist in my ignorance as I then suspected poss dyspraxia but I was fumbling around needing help - this was wrong place to refer him and its taken until now to get a referral to the right place for medical help, and still a long wait. We will get him seen privately before the appeal for diagnosis) Also both me and my husband have stress related illnesses due to his behaviour??

You can certainly explain why your son's needs weren't mentioned when you applied, but (in your shoes) I wouldn't labour it. The appeal will (as I see it) turn on whether the decision to refuse your son a place was so unreasonable that no reas

... Reasonable LEA would have made the same decision. In your favour are your son's needs and the difficulties he would face in any other school. You need to produce as much professional evidence to back this up as you can. But weighing against you will be that the LEA wasn't aware of your son's needs, the class is full and the threshold for winning an ICS appeal is very high. So, the point you need to labour is your s

You still haven't whether this school has an admissions category for social/medical need.

The point you need to labour is your son's need for a place and the consequences for him if you don't get one. Parents' health needs are rarely part of the admissions process - a severely disabled parent needing a school with (say) level access might be an exception to that, but it is up to LEAs whether to extend any social/medical priority beyond pupils to parents - so make this about your son's needs, not yours. (Besides, if your health problems are caused by your son's behaviour, it's less clear why this school will help more than any other).

Sorry for the fragmented post!

what is the maximum admission limit for the school ?

Panelchair - how do I find out about the social/medical, is it an individual school thing, its not part of the main council admissions criteria which the school follows? Thanks for help.

ryanboy - its 30, I know that current teception has no places free but current year 1 has 2 spaces free, does anyone know if that can help case??

If it is not on the LA admission criteria then there is no medical criteria. In some respects that is a help to you as you could argue at the appeal that the LA is being unreasonable in not having a medical category for those pupils who do not have a statement of SEN but clearly have needs. It will not on its own win you the appeal but may just sway the panel towards accepting there are some very special circumstances here that need to be considered.
The only year group that is relevant is the reception year group that has 30 in it. It does not mater how many places there are in the rest of the school, only the reception year you are applying to.
With 30 in the class the appeal will be an infant class size appeal where only a mistake lead to a successful appeal or proving the LA were completely unreasonable. You need urgently to get medical opinion stating what the issues are with your child. It is no use it saying mrs X says, that will carry no weight. It needs to say that I have examined X and found..... Any comments on the likelihood of issues like having a meltdown on the bus would be of benefit though I am sure the panel will have a good idea of the potential for such a situation.
You also need to know that whilst getting a private opinion on your child's concerns is something you want to do, most LAs will not accept them as proof of a medical condition and therefore award a statement, it has to be via the LA appointed practitioner.

Thanks admission, really appreciate your frank advice. We are waiting to get the medical insurance form from my husbands new job to get my son on policy but it is taking an age - think tomorrow i will source the best private route and go ahead and book appt for a few weeks in hope the admin side will have been sorted. If we get a really good case together with top notch evidence and really go into detail about specifics of aspergers and my sons specific needs in relation to the desired school, as well as transport meltdown issues, muscle devt etc - what is your honest opinion, do we have a hope?

admission? desperately needing hope? but not at risk of false hope. The schoolappeals.com advsior I had a 1-2-1 with who is a school admissions lawyer and sits on panels said 50%, does that sound right?

I would say that this is generous given that it is an infant class size regs case and you have to prove that the admission authority are being unreasonable over this, which has a very high threshold. It will be a three member panel and you need to convince two of them about how perverse a decision this is. You need to appeal but you also need to accept that the percentage is significantly against you in winning the case, not because I think you don't have a case but because of the very high threshold to win the case on the LA being unreasonable.
Sorry if this is not the answer you want but it is better to be realistic now than delude yourself that you will definitely win the case.
You need absolutely every piece of evidence that you can to convince the appeal panel that putting a very young child with aspergers on a minibus with older children is an accident waiting to happen. I would start a diary of every incident with your son, especially when he has a meltdown and what you think the underlying reason was. That can then be presented as part of the evidence that there is a real risk here and not just parental concern.