In Year Application Appeal help

[sarahq69]

Hi,

We're about to move house because we're not happy with our oldest sons school (he's currently in reception). The house we're moving to is 300 metres from a new free school and is really outstanding. Any other school in the borough we would have to drive to and they cover the bare minimum criteria. The school we want our son to go to goes above and beyond and is a STEM school, something our son is really good at.

We have had our application refused due to there being no place available. However, the school has 2 forms in reception and has a maximum class size of 25, not the legal limit of 30. I have contacted the council and because of this, the appeal we would need to make would be on grounds of prejudice, not infant class size. I have also checked with the school and they have 1 teacher and 1 TA per class, so they have the right amount of teaching staff for classes of 30. In fact, the reasons they give for the class sizes is "to maximise the distinct advantages of learning in smaller class sizes."

We feel that the school is trying to behave like a private school, when in fact it should be serving the local community. They have the capacity to take another 10 children in regards to pupil-staff ratio. Given that we will live less than 300 metres from the school, we feel we have grounds for appeal. We have never done anything like this before however and feel a little bit like David up against Goliath. I'm putting together our appeal. Is anyone able to help with advice/proof reading etc? Thanks so much.

There are also floor area per child guidelines I believe.

Of course, one reason it is outstanding and can go above and beyond may be the small class sizes.

I am not an admissions expert! But all schools have a PAN (a published application number) and though that PAN is often 30 or a multiple of 30, the school isn't obliged to do this. I suspect somewhere along the way a PAN of 25 was signed off by an authority other than the school (in the free school's application, perhaps). There's no point being cross about the PAN.

You are in the same position now as someone appealing for a 31st place in a year 3 classroom - it is just about balance of prejudice as the LA said - will the impact on the school and existing pupils by accepting another pupil be more or less than the impact on your son not being able to access this school.

You are right to identify things the school has that particularly suit you son such as STEM - what about other things like extra curricular activities which this school has over and above the current school?

This is a situation that is happening with more and more free schools. Part of their attraction to parents is that they say 25 maximum class size. However the reality is that the PAN should depend on the available teaching space in the school, which then sets a net capacity of the school. The net capacity is a calculation based on so much area per pupil. There are two figures for net capacity, the first is the maximum number of pupils based on the calculation and the second is 90% of the maximum.
Normally the school agrees a PAN based around the two net capacity figures and is usually somewhere between the two (divided by 7 for the 7 year groups in a primary school). However there is no absolute rule that the PAN has to be between those two figures, so with this in mind quite a few free schools are setting a PAN below the expected figure, based on the desire to keep small classes.
That is all well and good but admission appeals don't work on the basis of what the school would like to happen. If there are 25 in the class, due to a PAN of 25 and in reality the size of the classroom is sufficient for 30, then if the admission appeal panel is doing their job correctly they will say the school has not proved their case not to admit and admit up to the 30 maximum allowed in infant classes. That is what is starting to happen around out area, much to the annoyance of the schools.
There is also another point and that is you can work out the actual costs per class against the funding per pupil. Whilst in the south east and london, where the funding is more, you might be able to get away with 25 in a class, in many of the LAs who are less well funded, classes of 25 are marginal on whether the school can then set a budget which is not in deficit. That will become more of an issue now and on 2016-17.
I would definitely appeal and find out how big the classroom is, along with the associated outdoor learning area, as a central plank of your appeal.