Should I use this in our appeal hearing?

[BaffledSomeMore]

We have a Y3 appeal coming up very soon. The school's statement cites a guideline on classroom sizes of 60 sq m as one reason why they can't have another child.
A bit of Googling turned up that that is an out of date guideline and it's been changed to a smaller volume in a recent BB. Therefore their classroom is bigger than the guideline for 30 children.
Am I going to get everyone's back up if I raise this at the hearing or can I use it to refute that part of their statement?
I'm really struggling with the idea of being 'adversarial' which I guess is why some people use solicitors for this! :)

Would welcome any views!

Try it, but I think the BB guidelines refer to the time when the school was built and are used to calculate admission numbers. Don't think it can be applied retrospectively. But I may be completely wrong, and it's always absolutely worth making the point. And I wouldn't worry about being adversarial, the Council won't be! (Worried about being adversarial, that is). Remember also that the panel are independent, they need to hear both sides of the argument in order to reach a fair decision.

Thank you. I did think it might be new buildings but it's all I have on classroom area. They refer to DfE guidelines but there's no reference so hard to counter.
If anyone knows where I could find these guidelines I'd be very grateful.
Will have to practice being a sharp lawyer type. Eek.

The building regs change quite regularly, so when i started doing appeals, the norm for a 30 pupil primary school class was 48 sq metres. It has been through several iterations since then.
The other consideration is that it also depends as to what other facilities are in the same area as the classroom, so do they have a separate computer room for instance, wide corridors, outdoor facilities off the classroom etc.
I would not ram it down their throats. I would be tempted to ask which BB the 60 sq metres comes from and see what they say. You can then point put that the latest BB 103 does actually have smaller values than the 60 for junior classes (but not infants) so the addition of one further pupil does not need a new increasing sized classroom and leave it at that.
You do need to challenge the admission authority case, because any bit you can chip away at means that the level of prejudice to the school is reduced. That does not mean be adversarial it means just make your point and the panel will hear it.

The current guidance for new schools is in Building Bulletin 103. It is fairly complex depending on a range of factors but 55m2 for 30 pupils is the recommended minimum size for most junior classrooms.

A hearing isn't usually that adversarial. You don't have to become Perry Mason for the day. All you have to do is ask questions. In this case, something like "your case states that classrooms should be 60m2 for 30 pupils. However, I believe current guidance is in BB 103 and suggests 55m2 for 30 pupils. Can you explain the discrepancy please".

Thanks both. I had started wading through the long running appeals thread tonight and saw the post you'd made a couple of years ago about the area, admissions. They do have a number of facilities for teaching that aren't the basic classroom starting with small rooms that link classroom. When I looked round the school, teaching was taking place in lots of the extra areas. I will ask them to explain whether these areas are additional to the figure they give. Thank you.

prh exactly that point about Perry Mason. I don't want to come across as thinking I'm a hard nosed wannabe barrister :) I have been mulling it over and I think the phrase "Can I ask you to clarify..." is my friend. BB103 is indeed my source. Again thank you.
I think we're ready...

Update. We won our appeal!
Thanks for help here and on other threads where I've asked questions :) Much appreciated.
Can't quite believe it.

Well done! We also won our appeal yesterday... And we used a paragraph about classroom size too.

Heart yes they have gone over their PAN to admit dd. We used this to help pick apart the school's statement which the panel then continued to do after my questions. We have only been told the decision so don't know if we'll get more detail when the documentation comes through.
Stardolly Well done to you :) It's such an important thing and feels like s mountain climbed!