published admission numbers in appeals - advice needed please!

[richmal3]

I'm appealing for a place for my DD who missed out on her chosen secondary school by a short distance. She's 9th on the waiting list and although the local authority haven't started allocating waiting list places yet, they've told me informally that she won't get a place that way.

The school's PAN is 130, although they have 131 children in two year groups (7 and 9) at the moment. Higher ability children are in classes of 28 whilst lower ability children are in classes of about 10. My DD is higher ability.

Do I need to prove that admitting an extra child would not cause prejudice, or is it up to the LA (as admitting authority) to show that it would? If the former, could I say that in many schools, children are taught in classes of 30, so admitting another child to a class of 28 would not cause prejudice? What's the best way to approach this part of the appeal? Any advice very welcome.

Thanks, tiggytape, that's really useful. The school's net capacity is 650 but currently they only have 639 so presumably that's a point in favour of anyone appealing. But as you say, I need to make a very strong case as to why my daughter should get a place if they decide they can allocate one or two more. I don't think in fact we have a terribly strong case - ability at maths (it's a maths specialist school), ability in English (it gets good english results), a few extracurricular things, and a quibble about the distance measurement is about all we have going for us, which may well be very much less than other families have. Still, nothing ventured!

The net capacity at 600, says that the PAN should be 120 (600 divided by 5 year groups) so the fact they have a PAN of 130 suggests that the school is already admitting as many pupils as is realistically possible.
Also although they only have 639 the spare places are in other year groups and the regs for admission appeals means that those places have to be allocated in the year groups where there are spaces if anybody asks for them. So the 639 does not improve your case.
As Tiggy says you need to be concentrating on part 2 and tell the panel a convincing case as to why a place should be given to your child. You might think you have a weak case (and probably I would agree with you) but you do not know the strength of the school case and the attitude of the panel to the school's case so it is always worth applying.
In part 1 case I would argue is that there is no reason why high ability pupil groups should not be 32 to 34 which they are in many secondary schools. There are probably 4 higher ability groups, so the school could easily take 16 to 24 extra pupils. There is no way that the panel will completely agree with you as it is up to the school how they run the school, unless there is something very dodgy about the net capacity but it just knocks a couple more bricks out of the wall in terms of level of prejudice.
You should also not say that your child is high ability as the panel will not make the decision based on the groups but the figures overall

Thanks admission. I'm slightly puzzled by your first para: 'the net capacity at 600 says that the PAN should be 120...' The net capacity is 650 (130 in each of 5 year groups) so I'm a bit confused why you say the PAN should be 120. You go on to say 'the school is already admitting as many pupils as is realistically possible'. If the PAN was 120 they'd presumably be admitting way over their PAN already. Could you explain this?

(on a side note, I met a friend today who'd gone for the same oversubscribed school. I thought her son would have got a place as they live much closer to the school than the furthest child who was admitted. Turns out she filled in the application online but failed to press 'submit', so didn't get a place. She'd also failed to put down any other school so was allocated the worst school in town. That's a tough lesson)

I think Admission has misread the net capacity. As it is 650, not 600, a PAN of 130 is what would be expected.

Being under capacity helps a little in that it undermines any claims by the school that they are currently overcrowded. However, as Admission says, empty places in other year groups have to be offered if anyone applies so the school could find itself full to capacity at any time.

The fact that a couple of year groups are over PAN helps as it suggests the school can handle an additional pupil without problems.

What is your quibble about the distance measurement?

The distance thing is just raising as an issue that they initially made a mistake with their measurement, so how do I know that it's right now? When first measured, we were 250m out. I asked for a map of the route they'd used, and from my rough calculations I could see that it wasn't the shortest route. I asked them to recalculate using my route. They accepted that I was right and that they'd been using the wrong route for years but nobody had ever queried it (I'm sure because this is the first year that children in my town have not got into the school).

However, they then had to remeasure for all the children (ie all the children in the town, as it's basically a route which starts just north of the town so affects everyone equally, wherever they live in the town). In the end, the final distance had come down by about 400m, but we still missed out, this time by 177m. I can't quite work out how we missed out by 250m the first time, then when all were remeasured using the same route, we were 177m too far away. My brain can't cope with that but I'm sure it's mathematically possible.

However, all this messing around does make me wonder about the accuracy of their system, and someone in an earlier thread said that it would be good to raise this issue to at least put a doubt into their mind that they got it right. I wonder whether the remeasurement meant that children who had initially been refused then had to be given a place, which would obviously be bad news for us as they'd then already be over their PAN before they even started the appeals process.

Yes as Tiggy says I misread the net capacity. At 650 it would give a theoretical PAN of 130 for each of the five year groups. Sorry about that.

As far as the distance issue is concerned, yes this could be a problem for you. As the LA has remeasured all the applicants they will have had to compare the original list of pupils offered a place against the revised list. What should have then happened is that the LA would have kept all the original list on at the school and then offered places above the 130 allocated to all those that did not get a place but should have done on their recalculation. You at present have no way of knowing what this figure is and will only find out by appealing.

Quite a lot of LAs are also taking a harder line when mistakes like this are made and telling those that got a place by accident that a mistake has been made and withdrawn the place. I personally think this is wrong but LAs are doing it.

So you might find that the number of places are still 130 or it could be any figure above 130. Obviously any number above 130 puts pressure on the school and therefore more prejudice to overcome to get the offer of a place. If more places having been offered it will be in your interest to make as much song and dance about how it is now impossible to know really whether the LA have got the distance figures right in part 1 of the appeal, especially as they have admitted to this being a long standing mistake. It could be that if you can create enough doubt that the panel will feel that having messed up once that the LA cannot guarantee that the correct people have still been offered the places. The outcome then would be that the panel would have to consider whether to admit those who raise the issue and have appealed.