Who do I take this up with?

[Stardolly]

I recently moved and have applied for school places for my two children, one is in year 2, one is starting reception.
Since we moved, I've been on the phone to the admissions for progress almost every day. I have contacts from the school and I have known how many kids have left the school (yr2), so it's just been a case of chasing admissions. Daughter 1 was number 3 on the waiting list (yr2), and daughter 2 was number 2 on the list for reception.
Last Monday, the school informed me that there was a place for my daughter (yr2) and that if my other daughter was indeed number 2 on the list, it would look like she would get a reception place as well, but she had not received the list from Waltham Forest school admissions department.
On Tuesday, admissions informed me daughter 1 had been allocated a place.
On Thursday I called the school to ask when my daughter could start and she said right away. She had a copy if my offer letter so I could go and collect it, and we agreed to start her on the Monday (today) - I asked about daughter 2, she said she hadn't heard anything from admissions about that year, but as daughter 1 had been allocated a place, daughter 2 should be top of the list. That afternoon, I emailed back my acceptance letter.
On Friday I was informed by admissions, that daughter 2 was currently number 2 on the waiting list and that she had been number 4 (slipped down) and therefore, was not allocated one of the two spaces that came up.
Obviously I went a bit berserk, that one daughter would be allocated a place and the second daughter not moved up the list..... They said it's not how it works and that I have to accept the place and start my daughter before the second one will move up the list!!! Surely this is absurd???
They said that the school didn't inform them how many spaces were available in year 2 until Monday.... Technically, the space has been daughter 1's since Monday, but how can they not give me opportunity to accept the place on Monday, before the allocations are made for reception, and then turn around and say that the reception allocations were done before you have a chance to accept the place????
The school agrees with me and says it does seem absurd that they would technically be forcing an appeal situation on the school.
Their argument is that daughter 1 hadn't started the school when daughter 2's allocations were made - my argument is that as the place was available to me on Monday, if I had been emailed or telephoned, I could have started daughter 1 on Monday afternoon if I had to, just to get daughter 2 moved up to 1st place on the waiting list before the reception allocations were made!!!!
What do I do???

While I agree with you that you are in a stupid situation now, the admission code is quite strict about exactly what can and cannot happen. So places cannot be held for siblings etc.
What you have is a time issue and who did what when. From your email it would appear that DD1 was officially allocated a place in year 2 last Tuesday (though the place was available on the Monday according to the school). Officially until you accepted the place and DD1 started, DD2 did not have a sibling in the school. I think that is actually today. All vacant places have to be filled as soon as they become available, so I think that officially the LA admission office are correct in allocating last week the two available places to the two at the top of the waiting list.
Having said that there has been a lack of thought applied to this situation and as you quite rightly point out if you had been properly informed then your DD1 could have started last week and dd2 would then potentially have been top of the waiting list for reception.
I think that you should ask for an appeal for a place for dd2 in reception on the basis that the school and LA have not allocated places correctly in reception. I do however have to say that I think that while morally you are right, legally the admission process has been carried out correctly and there is a good chance the appeal will not be successful

The school have said its nothing to do with them (not sure on this as it's an Academy?) and that they agree with me that it is stupid but they get nothing from the admissions service anyway and that they are always slow and useless at giving them information.
She also said that she emailed admissions on Thursday, asking if Dd2 could start as I had accepted place for dd1.
As of this morning, school still hadn't received notice of who got the reception places and seemed surprised when I told them Dd2 didn't get a place.
She also tried to put me off of appealing, saying it costs the school and that they had over 30 unsuccessful appeals over the summer.
I've spent all morning trying to get through to WF admissions. I asked on Friday for a manager to call me back but I won't hold my breath.

Thanks for replying btw!!

I can see what has happened here, but I can also see why you feel aggrieved.

The elder sibling needs to be "on roll" to count. You didn't officially accept the place until Thursday pm, and she didn't start until the next Monday. I'm not sure which of these counts as "on roll", (probably the Monday), but if the reception allocations were done before or up to the receipt of your acceptance on the Thursday, then the allocations were done correctly.

Also - did you email the school or the LEA the acceptance letter? It needed to be the LEA; by putting the school in the middle you probably added extra delay unfortunately.

If you intend to appeal, you need to get the timings from the LEA - when EXACTLY were the reception admissions allocated, and when EXACTLY do they count your eldest as "on roll"? I think it will be very hard to prove an error has been made, which is what you need to do, but it may be worth a try. Your youngest should also be top of the waiting list now - school may be able to give you an idea how often places come up.

I've spoken to a manager at the Admissions dept. She has advised me I need to appeal on lack of advice as when I spoke to them on Friday, I was advised that the allocations had been made and that there was nothing I could do, when in fact, if I had taken my daughter to the school and started her even for the last 10 mins of Friday, Dd2 would have got her place.
Unfortunately, nothing they can do now and this is so so frustrating.
I also feel really guilty, because when I went to the school on Thursday, she asked me when I wanted her to start and I said Monday so that she could say goodbye to her friends on the Friday.... Been told they have to be 'on the school roll' and she wasn't on it on the Friday because I chose to start her on the Monday, still, the school told me that dd2 would go up the list because I had sent my offer letter back (I emailed it to the admissions dept, not the school).
Waltham Forest said the 'on the roll bit' is in their brochure..... But for all the correspondence I have sent them and applying to a new borough, they have never sent me any information at all, let alone a brochure...
Not sure how often spaces come up.... It's a popular school with an ofsted 'outstanding' - there is a very high immigrant population, and indeed 3 spaces that came available in yr2 were from kids whose families chose to go back.....

Now I have been to the school and spoken to them, they say they still do not know who has been allocated the places in reception because the letters have not gone out yet. She said as far as she was concerned, that fact that she emailed admissions herself on Thursday and told them I had been in and accepted the place, meant that my daughter was then a pupil and that 'on the role' can easily be misinterpreted.
She also told me not to bother appealing as we won't get in and last year they had a boy appeal and he didn't get in and he started this year after a year of being without a school!

Have I got any grounds for the 'unreasonable admin' appeal? The school seem to think it unreasonable that they allocated the places on the Friday already knowing that a child had accepted and was due to start less than 24 business hours later??

I could really use some help here.... Please???

The school office are kind of fighting my corner but I need to know what I give the school in terms of info.... As to if it may affect my appeal.
I've sent over a long list which is a basic timeline of events from last week, to try to make sure she doesn't get muddled when speaking to the LA.... but don't know when the info becomes too much info??

No-one should be telling you not to bother appealing. You have the right to appeal. The comments by the Admissions Manager potentially give you a very strong appeal case.

Your appeal is on the basis that the admission arrangements have not been administered correctly. Your argument is about timing - whether or not your daughter should have been counted as on the roll once you accepted the place -and poor advice.

Starting with timing, I have taken a look at Waltham Forest's Starting Primary booklet which can be found on their website. It repeatedly refers to siblings being on the roll at the time of admission, i.e. the time the child starts attending the school. I cannot find anything that requires the sibling to be on the roll before that. I would argue that once you had accepted the place and agreed a start date your older daughter was clearly going to be on the roll at the time your younger daughter started at this school. The requirements for sibling priority had therefore been met and you should have been offered the place.

I am not saying this argument would succeed. The appeal panel may take the view that your older daughter needs to have actually started at the school for sibling priority to apply.

Turning to the poor advice, you should also put forward the argument that has been suggested by the Admissions Manager, i.e. that they gave you poor advice on the Friday and, had you been given correct advice, the place would have been yours. Indeed, I would suggest to Admissions that, since they have already owned up to this error, they should offer the place without needing an appeal.

You need to email Admissions today saying that you are writing to confirm that they have told you that they gave poor advice on Friday and that, had you been advised correctly, you could have got your older daughter to school that afternoon and your younger daughter would have got the place. State the name of the person who gave you that advice if you know, their job title if not. Say that on this basis you believe they should offer a place for your younger daughter immediately. If they don't offer the place you can present this email to the appeal panel as evidence of what was said. If the appeal panel accept that Admissions have said they got it wrong and you would have got the place if they had got it right you should win your appeal.

Thank you very much for this. I have emailed them just now as you said.
My worry is that I don't have any correspondence between myself and them in writing. All I have is confirmation of the email I sent on Thursday.
Prior to that, the only thing they have ever sent me, was an offer of a school place for Dd1 (a school about a mile from here) which was in June and was sent out about a week after they phoned me and said that until the house has gone through and I have actually moved, they won't offer me any school because I am in a different borough!!! They still sent an offer letter out, addressed to me here! The house vendor was somewhat surprised! We didn't even exchange contracts until August!

I wouldn't worry too much about the lack of correspondence in writing. It sounds like everyone is pretty much agreed on the timeline. And, unless Admissions dispute your version of the conversation with the Admissions Manager, the email is adequate evidence of what was said and may well be enough to win your appeal.

You are right about the booklet. I wish I had known that yesterday, as I asked why no one had advised me that dd1 being offered a place was not enough to move dd2 up the waiting list, she repeatedly told me it was clear in their brochure (that had never been sent to me, dispute moving to the borough and speaking to them server all times).

So the fact that myself and the school feel that it was unreasonable that they didn't consider dd1's offer and acceptance when allocating the two reception places is not the road to go down or doesn't have any sway?

I do feel that they will try to change something, say they didn't tell me to appeal on grounds of bad advice.... Or try to tell me that the allocations were made before Friday.... Although that argument won't work out either, especially as the manager basically said it was my fault, I could have started my daughter on Friday but didn't, and therefore I didn't get a place, she said it was down to them to advise me and it was clear as day in their brochure!

This is a big mess.... Wonder if they have had a situation like this before??

Sorry I meant wasn't down to them to advise me!

Now I'm being paranoid because I have emailed them but every time I email WF I get an automatic reply to say they received my email. Over an hour has passed yet no email receipt confirmation......

To argue that something has been unreasonable you have to show that the decision is so outrageous that no sensible person could have arrived at it. That is a very high bar to cross. Far easier to argue that they didn't follow the admission arrangements as laid down in their booklet and that they failed to give you proper advice.

I am not sure why you think they will try to change something. This isn't a conspiracy against you. This is simply people doing their job. LAs get things wrong from time to time. Their version of events may be different to yours but I doubt they will lie. If they were caught in a lie they would be in huge amounts of trouble.

I think it's easy to think that they don't want to be proved wrong.... Also, that they did have the option to change the allocation, but decided not to.
On another note, the school office manager called them to try to find out what was going on, and told my husband that they said to her I didn't help my case because I lost my temper with the admissions clerk!!! Although I did lose my temper (I was angry) and i know that it doesn't help matters to get wound up..... I didn't scream or swear and in any case I don't see what it has to do with anything?!? I'm not sure they should be saying that the the school officer but it gives me the impression that because the school obviously 'on my side' so to speak, that they said that to try to put her off of helping me!

I think that you need to be careful about the various conversations that you are having. The issue here is that the school is an academy and as such is their own admission authority. They are responsible for the admission of pupils which are in-year admissions and the school will have to go to any appeal and defend the decision not to admit. And yes they will have to pay the costs of the appeal as they are their own admission authority.
The whole thing is a mess caused by poor communication by the school and the LA, arising from the fact that for the Autumn term the LA admission office retain the role of offering places, having been told by the school, as the admission authority, the order of those on the waiting list in admission criteria order.
Previously I said that I did not think you had a good case but I am now changing my view on this. I assumed from what you said that the two places in reception had been clearly allocated by the LA on the Friday. However the school are saying they do not know who has been given the reception places even on Monday evening. There is therefore a question about when exactly the places were offered and why the LA were holding the waiting list order and not the school. Also the heads comments about that she had emailed on the Thursday to admissions and told them you had been in and accepted the place, meant that DD1 was then a pupil and that 'on the role' can easily be misinterpreted. The question that needs asking is whether the LA consulted the school as to who was on the waiting list for reception places and in what order were they.The school appear to be saying that from the Thursday your DD2 should have been on the waiting list as having sibling priority.

To be honest the school as the admission authority could say to the LA that this is a mess, clearly a mistake has been made in not offering a place to DD2 and they should therefore be offered a place as an excepted pupil. If I was the head teacher I would be very tempted to tell the LA admission office that they could pick up the financial bill for any appeal over this, as they caused it. One way to bring this to a head is to put in the appeal application to the school, that might just force them into making a decision in your favour.

I think you might be right in that I might be giving too much away.
My dealing have not been with the head of the school, but with the office manager.... Who has technically been trying to help me!

The office manager has repeatedly told me that they have no say in who gets the places and that she is constantly requesting the waiting lists but the LA never send them over. In fact, when the school opened and we were phoning up to try to find out if there were going to be spaces for dd1 in year 2, she told us again and again that she was still waiting on the list for reception.... And early this week, had still not received it.

Office manager told me that the LA sends her a copy of of the offer letters BEFORE the allocations are given to the parents.
The LA told me that they send the offer letters to the school first so that the school can prepare for new pupils and so that they don't just have people turning up at the school gates with new starters that school isn't ready for??
As of Monday, the school still had not had a copy of the waiting list OR the offer letters for the reception allocations that were supposedly made on Friday.

The LA told me that the school handle their own appeals because they are an academy, but she said nothing about them handling their own lists or admissions.... this is something that confused me, because a group of mums of children in dd1's class, told me that it's up to them who they admit as they are an academy.

I've not yet spoken to the head of the school. Should I make an appointment with him?

How much information do I put on my appeal form? How much do I 'give away'? Obviously the head would need to grant me an appeal? Or someone else? Maybe I need to explain it to him before I put the appeal letter in?
Or could I send an email to the office (that's the only email address I have) but address it to the head and outline some of the facts in writing, and request a meeting with him? Or I could hand write a letter to him and deliver it to the school this afternoon?

I don't think it is a question of giving too much away. If a mistake has been made, and it sounds like it has, the the school need to understand that there has been a mistake, either by themselves or the LA, and that they, as the admission authority, should put it right. If they don't an appeal should sort the matter out.

There is no decision as to whether or not to allow you to appeal. If you complete and submit an appeal form they must arrange a hearing. The appeal is heard by an independent panel. If they decide in your favour the school has to admit your daughter. The head may present the school's case at the appeal hearing and/or attend to answer questions but he has no involvement beyond that.

You can, if you wish, put just an outline of your case on the form. However you will be expected to submit your full case along with any documentary evidence before the hearing. The school's representative will see your case before the hearing. You will also get to see the school's case for refusing admission.

Stardolly:

Waiting to offer your DD1 a place is quite normal - our school, for example, felt they had to let a week pass by without the former student attending (even if they know they've moved) before offering a place to my DD2.

My advice is keep calm and rest assured your DD2 on the waiting list. It's a pain (especially having to drop kids to two different primaries - I've definitely been there) - but keep telling yourself it won't be forever.

There is a system - whether it went wrong in your case or someone else had higher priority (due to distance/ being in care/ etc...) is impossible for you to know.

DD2 will be high up the list - you want the school's good will. Just keep checking (around Christmas/ Easter time) that your DD2 is still on the wait-list (I just used to send an e-mail reiterating that I was still interested in transferring DD2 to their primary school and requesting that she remain on the waiting list/ not sure if with your LEA or the school - here in Birmingham they're now held by schools).

Finally - I doubt if it makes a huge difference - but remember that secretaries/ LEA staff are dealing with all sorts of folk all day (sometimes angry folk) - so being calm/ reasonable helps. I've genuinely found being the understanding/ polite person on the other end of the phone gets me places.

Ok everyone, thank you for the advice.

I am going to hand in my appeal form with basic notes and state that the rest of my evidence will follow.

Pastsellbydate - it's not impossible for me to know where my daughter was on the list and when the allocations were made, if you read the details of the thread, I have been told my daughter would have got a place as she would have been first or second on the waiting list due to the sibling link.

Thanks again!

"a group of mums of children in dd1's class, told me that it's up to them who they admit as they are an academy."

Just to pick up on this bit... it's sort of true in the following sense: academies often set their own admissions policies (which they do have to consult on before publication), so they might give priority to children in a particular catchment or use a lottery or whatever else. But once those criteria have been published, they don't have any further say in the case of individual children.

Go ahead and submit the appeal.

But I would also check where DD2 is now on the waiting list (hopefully no 1) as it's possible that the two other offers might be declined if those children are now at other schools etc.

I am typing up my appeal today.
My husband went into the school office yesterday and they were obviously extremely flustered, confused and had probably been told not to say too much.
The office manager said we seem to have a timing issue rather than an error..... But my husband told them to refer to the brochure.
She said the headmaster is aware of the situation.
She said that they pay the LA to handle their admissions.... although it does also say in the brochure that Academies handle their own, she insists that the allocations have nothing to do with the school... But the school handles it's own appeals.
She asked me to type up a clear timeline of what happened when as it seems to be unclear to her.
She indicated that they haven't had a situation like this before.

She also told my husband that the LA DID reply to her email on Thursday at around 14:15 and told her that Dd2 was currently number 4 on the waiting list. At that time, I was unaware that she had moved down 2 places, but that is not important, because with the acceptance of a place, she should have moved up on the sibling rule.
The office manager had my phone number but didn't call to tell me (she said she would call me when she got a reply).

I emailed my offer acceptance at 15:17 - so I am going down down the route of the paragraph above from prh47bridge - that at the time of acceptance, my daughter had met the admissions criteria as outlined in the brochure (the appeal form specifically advises us to refer to that brochure!) and should have been offered the place.
Along with that and the poor advice, I think I have a pretty strong argument, just need to remain positive!

I am going into the office today so that I can concentrate on typing it up without a bored 4 year old and my 2 year old boy distracting me!!

Hi, I've written a draft of my appeal, but unsure if I am rambling on, wondering if I can email it to anyone on here to read over?

Also, have been offered a school for dd2 which is 2.3 miles away as the crow flies... Obviously I won't be taking this up as I cannot be in two places at once, and my mother in law who provides childcare does not drive.... But I have not mentioned this in my appeal.... Do you think I should mention it?
I don't know if it has any baring on my case, it doesn't have any baring on my reasons for appealing which are mistake/wrong advice..... But obviously I wouldn't want them to think that I am appealing but I do also have a suitable alternative?
Sorry if I'm boring you!!!!!