Waiting list or appeal

[HAC13]

We didn't get our 1st choice in the primary school admissions. Our 1st choice school allocated 16 places (they only had to take 11 but they wanted to accommodate all the village children that applied), I have heard that one of the places offered won't be taken up as the child is going to private school instead. Do the school have to offer that place to a child on the waiting list or do they save it for people who appeal or do they not have to reallocate it at all as they originally offered more places than they officially had to? Hope that makes sense, would really appreciate any feedback on the issue.

Legally they actually should do nothing. If the PAN is 11 then the school can and did make a voluntary decision to take the extra 5 pupils who were in the village. As such they do not need to take any other child until the number of pupils is down to 10.
In theory the school could decide voluntarily to again go back up to 16 places but they would probably be advised not to do that.
You should make sure you are on the waiting list and also appeal. The reason I say appeal is that the school have to some extent opened up a hole which could be to your advantage.
The school has taken an extra 5 pupils because they were in the village but actually whilst this might be morally correct, at an appeal there is a perfectly legitimate question as to why if they could take 5 extra they could not take every pupil who wants a place at the school. Also if by chance they do replace the pupil then that makes it even more of a valid question because at present the school's reasoning is to take all from the village. As soon as they change that it opens up the reasoning to dispute.
The other big issue is around the infant class size regs. Without knowing all the details of the class organisation and numbers it is difficult to speculate. But 16 is a funny number, it is clearly not enough financially to afford a class,so I might suspect that actually the 16 takes the class however it is made up to 30, which is the maximum for an infant class in normal situations.
Sorry but the reply is not giving you any positive news really but you do need to understand the law behind what has happened and what can and cannot happen. Having said that sometimes schools make really stupid decisions which are backfire on the school but are to the benefit of parents wanting a place at the school.

Thank you for your reply. The class will be a mixed Recpetion/Yr1 class which may explain the odd intake size. I remember the Headteacher saying on the open morning the most children they had ever taken was 16. The Headteacher is meant to be phoning me on Tuesday to discuss the places they allocated, waiting lists and appeal. It's good to know where we stand legally. Thank you again for your help.

We are in a similar situation. The Head rang us as soon as we heard we hadn't got in (DD goes to their free Wednesday afternoon session for children with the school as first choice) . Apparently there is a decent chance at appeal- better than the 15% I saw in a "getting into primary" type article due to the way the school already mix numbers. We are both on the waiting list and appealing. You can also appeal for multiple schools and they won't know you've done this unless you're unlucky and one is directly after the other and they physically see you- there's no other way they should know, according to our admissions team.

Isn't 11 quite an odd PAN?

Isn't 11 quite an odd PAN?

It is unusual but many small village schools have PAN set at strange numbers and run mixed classes.