Any chance to winning an appeal

[3boysn1]

I applied for two children for reception intake 2014, one biological child and the other one we have parental guidanship order for,which qualified him for looked after child space, my biological son was given a school that was not my choice and my other son was given School B which was my second choice , I want both boys to be in thesame sch B, as they are like siblings and having my son of thesame age with my adopted son has really helped the boy settle I don't think separating them now will be beneficial to him also the logistics of getting 3 children to school. I have another son in school A in Y4, but did not get spaces because it's a faith school. What angle should my appeal take?

Is there a category at school B for sibling priority? And does the definition of sibling include foster children? Have you actually adopted him yet? If you have you could argue they should be treated as twins and your other child should be a excepted child.

Thanks for your prompt replies , school B does pioritze siblings , but my adopted son will not be starting until sept, does the panel not consider exceptional cases? I mean with this child joining my family just over a year ago, he has formed a very close knit with my biological son and I don't want this disruption to dent the progress he has made since joining us.

OP, would there be a place for both boys at your biological son's school?

For the purposes of admissions surely there's an argument that they should be treated as twins (ie sibling allowed as an excepted child)?

To my mind:
Siblings A & B, living at same address, same age, same school year.
Sibling A given place at school X (as a previously looked after child).
Sibling B therefore has a brother who will be attending from September and should be giving sibling priority immediately given that the application is for the same school year. And given they are effectively now being brought up as twins (kind of), then the excepted pupil thing could/should apply.

If you can't use year 6 children to give sibling priority because they won't be there in September, surely you can use Reception starters, because they will be there?

To be excepted a child must be a twin or sibling from a multiple birth. Since the OP has one biological child and one who is not there is no argument that one of them should be treated as excepted. The child not admitted will get sibling priority but will not be admitted as an excepted child.

By the way, admission authorities can now give priority to siblings of former pupils. So a Y6 child can give sibling priority if the admission authority state this in their admission arrangements.

Does the school have an exceptional social need criteria?

The law does not permit siblings who are not twins/multiples to be treated as such. But I think you might be able to make a case that same-year siblings should count as exceptional (because same familial/logistic reasons for twins apply to them, and because if reception starter sibling priority does not apply, the younger sibling could in effect never receive sibling priority).

Presumably the biological son will be very high on the waiting list as he now has an eligible sibling?

I am assuming that you asked for school A for both children for the reception places as you have an elder son there. So my first question has to be what is school A's admission criteria and why does looked after child not have a place in reception at this school? The only reason I can see for not having a place is if their admission criteria puts looked after children but not off a faith after all faith admissions. Is this the case or not?
If it is then I think you can probably consider the chances of getting two places at school A as being very low.
The immediate future is however to appeal for your biological son to go to school B in reception but that still leaves elder brother in school A or do you want to get a place for him in school B as well?
To be precis there is no twin link for the two for reception places because of the definition of twin used for admissions. You do also need to look carefully at the definition of sibling because you might not qualify for this criteria if the admission criteria is not keeping up with what is now considered "looked after". I would ask the LA to confirm now in writing that they consider the two boys to have a sibling link, firstly to stop an argument later on but more importantly that by agreeing a familiar link it makes it easy to argue for exceptional circumstances later on at appeal.
However having said that there is something fundamentally "off" about the situation you find yourself in and I suspect most appeal panels would have some level of sympathy. My inclination is to argue that the admission regs place looked after children as having top priority for a reason, they are vulnerable etc. That means they need to be supported in every possible way and that at present is the ability to "buddy up" to your biological son who is the same age and is like a brother to him. It therefore seems perverse that the LA acknowledge that the looked after child should have a place and be considered to have a familiar link but that the child who is their prop and mentor is not allowed a place. It is unreasonable for the LA to not give them a place as an excepted pupil. Obviously reams of medical information is good. A letter from an ed pyschs saying that there is a strong bond and in their medical opinion they should not be split up would improve the chances of success.
What is the chance of success? Probably fairly low but it is your best bet at present unless you are high up on the waiting list

Thank you so much for these wealth of information, school A is a faith school, which places all Faith criteria above looked after children. My eldest son will remain in School A, because he will be in year 5 by Sept and i don't want to disrupt him by moving him to a new school. I will apeal on the basis of my Adopted child needing my Biological child as a buddy, and get his formal social worker to write a supporting letter to that effect. The school that was offered to my biological child is not a desirable school, it's not performing well, they do however have spaces for both of them if I wished . I have rejected it based on the fact that they have only one form intake , whilst school B has two form intake , which will afford both children to be put in seperate classes, so that they can form other friendship and still have each other at playtime etc. is this a good enough reason to reject school C? .

The usual advice is to accept the place(s) you have been given and then appeal. Rejecting a school doesn't give you a better chance at appeal. There is a significant chance your appeal won't succeed, so you do need a schooling option for both children.

It is usually good policy to keep the offered school. If you reject and then have to find another school for both it is usually a worse school or worse to get to. The two form entry is not going to be a clincher for a place because the panel could easily say that you can find another school with places that is 2 form entry. However it is a nice add on to the appeal document.

Oh Dear! I accepted the place for my adopted son and rejected the one for my biological son, I thought that was the basis of the appeal. I was considering home schooling until a place becomes available , my B son will not be five until next year March.

IMO same academic year siblings should be treated as multiples. How about this for the next MN campaign?

Secondly, whilst a child who will be in reception next year may not give sibling priority at the application stage I don't see why they can't when it comes to waiting lists.

Sorry I'm not helping OP. It did occur to me when they changed the rules re multiples that other siblings in same year could lose out.

3boys - your biological DS won't be statutory school age until Easter 2015. It sounds like you're prepared to home educate but I'm assuming he will be high priority on waiting list for school B once his brother starts there.

No, rejecting the offered school is not the basis of the appeal. It won't help your case. Get onto the LA on Monday and see if they can reinstate the offer for your biological son. If not see what other schools have places available and apply for one of them.

Thanks for your reply, if I call the LA to reinstate the school , would I be allowed to reject it later if the appeal does not go through ? Because I am not prepared to send my son to that school.

Just as you will reject the school if the appeal is successful, it is not a problem to reject at any time you want. But for the school's sake it would be better to do it as soon as you are sure what you are going to do. I think that you should also give the school the benefit of the doubt and go for a further visit with you eyes open to this is the school one of your sons could be going to. It could well be much better than you think.

Ok , will do, keep you all posted. Thanks to all the respondents , I now have a better ideal where I stand.

I'm not sure that I would mention that you would want the two split into different classes at the appeal as the panel might see that as indication that they don't need each other as much as you are arguing that they do. In our school the two reception classes are very separate and so they wouldn't see much of each other. I agree though that as they go up the school (and maybe from the start once past the appeal panel) it would be good to have the option of different classes that is what most people with twins at our school do.

Double check the criteria. Some LAs (e.g. Hampshire) use 'multiple birth or same cohort sibling' as their exception criteria.

Really? I can't find that in their Admissions Policy for Primary and Infant Schools. If they do use that approach they are breaking the law. The School Admissions (Infant Class Size) (England) Regulations 2012 are clear that only children from multiple births are excepted. This is not an issue where LAs or schools have any choice.