mid year appeal help needed please re appeal form

[Sammum312]

Hello,
I'm seeking help for an appeal for my daughter. She is currently in year 3 and we are seeking to move schools. However the school we would like to move her to is full there are 15 children in that year group. Our reasons for moving her are due to personal circumstances. We have recently sold land and this is going for development within the village where her school is. This directly affects parents and the school and we are beginning to have parents blank us at the school gates. Also, the teacher is married to and the chair of the parish council who's children also attend the school. We don't want our child to be affected by this there is already a local action group against us and a large amount of opposition which is only going to get worse. Our grounds for appeal are social, being part of a school community is important especially having to face people at assemblies and school events and also our daughter going to parties etc. also, she has difficulties with her reading and spelling which have not been addressed similarly our older child current year 6 had problems he only made 2 sub level progress in 3 1/2 years and we have since moved his to another school. The school we have chosen is closer to our home, has better support, she has friends and family three already so makes sense. My question is how do I provide evidence to support our appeal and is this a legitimate grounds for appeal?
Many thanks

Thanks you admission, the reason I am questioning the pan and the net capacity is because there is oodles of room at the school for a small primary school there is a lot of space the classrooms are large in fact they split reception and year 1 in the mornings because they have an extra classroom, also they have recently had building work that has increased the space and extra non classroom space. My line of questioning would be to ask if the net capacity has been reassessed since the recent building work and also to highlight that the school had in 2010-2011 116 on roll before the extra space was created am I on the right lines ? My friend has leant me an excellent book by Ben Rooney that explains a lot of these points but I feel that this would be the sort of thing we have to prove. Again, your help has been invaluable thank you :-)

Sorry I also forgot to ask that when I submit the initial appeal form do I have to submit a letter of appeal, references and appendices at this stage or can I do this afterwards? I presume that if the school only send me this case a week or so before the date of appeal then do they also only have a week with my appeal details?

Well, they might decide that future expansion is possible, but that won't magic up something in time for your DD.

I expect you'll need a log of incidents which have happened in the school as evidence that there is sustained nastiness, plus the school's response, and anything which shows why that response has been inadequate.

Sounds to me that you need to press hard during stage 1 of the appeal on the issue of number of class rooms, their size and the numbers in each class. Every appeal is different but the schools case to not admit does seem weak on the basis of your posts, how can the school possibly be full if they have an extra classroom?
However you do have to remember you are looking for admission to one of the classes with 30 in it, which does make agreeing to add a further pupil to the class more difficult for the panel.

Thanks admission that's what inthought they do have extra space although the pupil teacher ratio is higher than uk average it's 26:1 with. 107 on roll but would be 25.6 with 105 so still higher and they have operated much higher than that with no ill effect to results either. Is it worth asking them to tell me the adult pupil ratio? They have a lot of support staff so thought maybe I could counter act their saying that the ratio pupil to teacher was already higher than national average but they do have a lot of extra staff etc

With regards to the net capacity being at the lower end do I phone the local authority to find out classroom sizes or the school itself?

If this is a VA school, academy or free school you need to ask the school itself for any information you want. If it is a community school or VC school you ask the LA.

I wouldn't get hung up on ratios. Most appeal panels are comfortable with class sizes of 31 or 32 in Y3 and above.

Thanks prh the school is voluntary aided, it's good to know ratios are not too much to worry about. Again thanks is much for all your help those that have replied it has been very beneficial and I am grateful that you have taken the time to reply