Primary School admissions appeal or reapplication.

[Babeee]

Hi,
I am in a big predicament with regards to my sons' reception class admission. I had originally applied o time with a choice of 5 schools as preferences - but he was wasnt allocated any of the preferred schools and been offered an alternative school in our catchment area. However I do not want to send him there. He is currently attending nursery and we had kept that school as our first preference, but he was not allocated that school and is on the waiting list currently. We were almost certain that we would get into this school and had made arrangements to move to this schools vicinity and catchment in a months time even have the tenancy agreement etc in place.

I am looking for advise on how to go about this -

Option 1 - Should I appeal against the decision giving the details of my imminent change of address to the preferred school's catchment and vicinity. Will this be good grounds for an appeal? Will it help my son to jump the waiting list to the top?

Option 2- Should I reapply keeping the preferred school as the first choice and adding other nearby schools (for the new address) as well? Will this be better to help him jump the waiting list at the preferred school?

Looking forward for any help on this..

Thanks,
B

You new address will certainly bump you up the waiting list of the school you wantonce you actually move to it. But the only people who can apply for a school place are Armed Forces families with a posting order (this is specifically written into the Admissions Code).

The first thing that you need to do in deciding whether to appeal is find out if it's an ICS appeal. If the admissions number is a multiple of 30 (or sometimes 15 if there is mixed year group teaching anywhere in KS1). If it is ICS, then there are three grounds for successful appeal: a) mistake by the admissions authority (eg putting your child in the wrong admissions category, measuring the distance from the address you are actually living at wrongly); b) a mistake in the admissions rules (eg giving priority to a grop they are not allowed to); or c) a decision that is so perverse it cannot be allowed to stand (the threshhold for this is very high, like child protection issues).

Might any of those apply to you?

I think that you need to be careful about the wording you are using. For all the five preferences that you originally requested, you need to make sure that you are on the waiting list for each of these schools. My feeling is that you did not get an offer at any of these schools because of distance from current home address to the schools. That is why the offer made to you is the local catchment school.
I would make the move to your new home as soon as possible because as soon as you move it will bump you up the waiting lists hopefully.
You can appeal for any of these schools also but as Tiggytape says your chances of success will be low if they are infant class size regs cases. Also to confirm moving home will have no effect at any appeal.
When it comes to considering other schools that were not your original preferences, do not reapply because this could affect your original preferences and where you are on the waiting lists. If any other schools appear appropriate then talk to the admission office of the LA. They will be able to tell you whether the school is currently full or whether it has places. If it is full then you can ask to go on the waiting list without having applied for a place, though some LAs limit the number of schools you can have on waiting lists. If there is a place available then you need to make a decision whether it is a school that is preferable to that currently offered and if so ask the admission office for that place. They have to offer you the place if one is available and nobody else has requested it.