Didn't get village school - appealing, but need your advice wise MNers!

[MillieMoodle]

DS didn't get allocated our first preference school, which is the village school. It's the first year ever that children living in the village weren't all offered a place. We've established that there are 4 children who live in the village who didn't get a place. We are the only one on our side of the village - all other children on our estate got in. The 4 children have been allocated places at 3 different schools. All 4 parents are appealing but we are also getting together to put pressure on the school (academy), diocese (it's a CofE school although faith isn't part of their oversubscription criteria), MPs etc to accept them all. I have two main questions, but any advice is gratefully received!
First, at appeal, has anyone actually won on the ground that the decision not to give the child a place was so perverse in light of the facts (or whatever the wording is!)? If so, what exactly was it that convinced the appeal panel? We are in a situation where there are 3 sets of twins in the year, which is a very unusual circumstance. If they let all 4 who didn't get a place in, it won't really be setting a precedent as it is hugely unlikely that there will be over 30 children next year, the village just isn't very big. Can we use that as an argument? What else can we use as an argument? I'm thinking isolation from village community, socially excluding him, emotionally damaging to him (he'll be heartbroken), DS already at preschool in village, allocated school has no before/after school provision, we can't walk there, we can't even park there to drop him off, etc.

Secondly, what info should I be asking the village school for? I've already asked what distance the last child to get in lives (0.28 miles), what distance we are (0.33 miles) where we are on the waiting list (4th), where they measure to on the child's home (front door/boundary of property etc - await a response as the school don't know) and whether those that have been offered places have to provide proof of address (await a response as the school don't know). What else can I request?

I don't know how likely it is that we will be successful at appeal, but I have to know that I've at least tried and have done the best I could for him.

Thanks if you've read this far

I hate to say this but none of the reasons you have cited sound good enough for you to win an appeal. They are all 'nice to have' rather than essential.

Google your county and school distances. I bet there is a website that will tell you exactly how far you are, and the LA should also be able to tell you the distances last year to give you a bit of an idea of what to expect.

I have been on the website which you can measure distances by, but it only gives it to 2 decimal places, the local authority gave our distance to 6 decimal places. I don't think they have it right but I don't know which point they measured to. I think they are 0.01 mile out, and as the last child to get in was 0.04 miles away from us, it could move us up the waiting list.

I also have no way of knowing whether they measured the other 30 odd addresses correctly. Am I entitled to ask for all the distances? I know where most of the other children who go to the preschool live, as we are a very close village.

has anyone actually won on the ground that the decision not to give the child a place was so perverse

To win on that basis the decision has to be Wednesbury unreasonable, i.e. "So outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it". Missing out because there were 3 sets of twins this year doesn't come remotely close to meeting that bar.

it is hugely unlikely that there will be over 30 children next year, the village just isn't very big. Can we use that as an argument?

No. If PAN is 30 this will be an infant class size case. That means you can only win if the admission arrangements did not comply with the Admissions Code, the arrangements were not implemented correctly or the decision to refuse admission was unreasonable. The panel cannot admit on the basis of speculation about what may or may not happen next year.

Our reasons are that it's the only school we can walk to

I'm afraid that won't help you at appeal. The panel cannot consider transport or childcare issues. Your arguments around social exclusion are also unlikely to persuade the appeal panel.

The school we've been offered is 3 miles away

If it is over 2 miles by the shortest safe walking route your son will be entitled to free transport to and from school.

It seems they have measure from the main school gate to a point at each child's address

That will be defined in the admission criteria. As this is an academy they may say that they use the distance as determined by the LA's computerised system. That will almost certainly use the address point defined by Royal Mail which is usually in the middle of the property. You will not win an argument that they have measured from the wrong place on your house. You would have a better chance if it is unclear which is the main school gate or if they have measured from the wrong house.

As far as I can work out, no-one who has been offered a place has been asked to prove that the address they gave is actually where they live

Most LAs ask for some proof at application time. Whether they do or not you are unlikely to win an appeal on this basis. If you have evidence of a fraudulent application you should notify the LA.

Does anyone know what kind of reasons do qualify as perversely unreasonable?

Something like the child being placed in danger by going to this school, e.g. the parent is a police officer or social worker and the school is used by families with whom the parent is professionally involved.

There shouldn't be any who live further away who got a place on the sibling criteria as that is ranked below proximity to school here

Do you mean the school has a defined catchment area and people living within catchment get priority over out of catchment siblings? If that isn't what you mean I struggle to see how that would work.

Where there are more applications in any one category, applications will be prioritised on the distance from the child's home to the address point of the school. Distances are measured on a straight-line basis from the address point of the child's permanent residence to the address point of the school using the local authority geographical information system.

That answers the question about where on the property they measure from/to. It is the address point set by Royal Mail. That is used as the basis for measurement by many LAs. You will not win by challenging that. Also your description of distance coming before siblings is wrong. Distance is the tie breaker. If there are more siblings than places available distance will be used to decide which get in. However, if there are enough places for all siblings they will all be admitted regardless of distance. Other applicants (i.e. those in category 6) will then be ranked on distance.

Am I entitled to ask for all the distances?

No you are not. They cannot give you that information or tell you anything else about other applicants. It would be a breach of the Data Protection Act.

"straight-line basis from the address point of the child's permanent residence to the address point of the school using the local authority geographical information system."

This is how it's done then - google will tell you more than the school can. Are you in the parish?

Prh, the criteria says that children living in the parish are in the category before siblings.

By what you're saying, does that mean that children living in the parish but further away than we are could have got a place ahead of us if they have siblings at the school?

Yes we are in the parish.

one other thing to check is where the parish boundary is.
Parish boundaries don't always follow village boundaries - especially if there have been new houses built.

You can check online here

This could explain why someone living further away (but in parish) may have got a place above someone nearer (but outside the parish)

x-post!

Betsy, thank you so much. I've checked the link and it shows that a number of the streets in the village which I had expected to be in the parish, aren't actually in the parish.
We are still in the parish, but it would be interesting to find out whether any places have been offered to children living in those streets which fall within the village but outside the parish. That could be evidence of admissions criteria being incorrectly applied.

Thanks tiggy. Yes have checked the link given by Betsy and we are definitely in the parish. There are some streets in the village but not the parish, so I need to try and find out whether any children living there have been offered places.

As you say, with all children in the village always getting a place before now, in actual fact the parish boundaries have never really mattered before.

Secondly, what info should I be asking the village school for? I've already asked what distance the last child to get in lives (0.28 miles), what distance we are (0.33 miles)

From what I can work out, the local authority gave the school the distances for each child, the school ranked them and the local authority sent out the offer letters.

I think that there is a chance in your situation that something has gone wrong with the oversubscription criteria. The descriptions you are giving sound very much as if the school assessed everyone on distance and ranked them using distance. It sounds like there is a chance (not definite by any means, but high enough to be worth checking out) that category 4 wasn't properly applied. Either because they skipped it entirely (and did siblings and then distance) or because they didn't properly apply the difference between inside and outside parish boundaries.

The reason I say this is that you say that the school was sent a list of distances for each child. That might just be shorthand, but they should have been sent a list of in-parish distances and a list of outside-parish distances. I would expect their explanation of the last distance admitted to be a lot clearer too - "we got down to priority category 4 and the largest distance within parish was 0.28 miles" etc. If the school ranked them rather than the LA, there is greater scope for a well meaning admin person to have cocked up.

Penguins, I think (hope!) you're right. In the email I had from the school admin lady, she only referred to the furthest distance from school, not within the parish.
There are 4 roads which are in the village but not within the parish, save for the first couple of houses in each road. They are newer than some parts of the village but have been there 20 years or more. But as all children from the village have always got in, it's possible that no-one has ever queried it.

If it is the case that the village boundaries rather than the parish boundaries have been applied, how do I find out? What evidence do I need? Do I just ask the school outright or do I need to find someone living there who has been offered a place? And surely the school would just say that they have applied the parish boundaries regardless of whether they actually have?

Schools local to me produce a map that shows places offered. Are you able to get hold of anything like that?

If you don't get any joy with just asking for the information you may be able to get it via making a Freedom Of Information request. I know local authority admissions teams have to give it out and I would assume the school would too as a public body but as an academy it might be able to wriggle out of it.

Definitely ask: how many children were given places for categories 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the admission's criteria? If it's less than 30 I would think you have reasonable cause to think something has gone amiss in applying the criteria fairly and this would be the basis for your appeal.

Is the school Voluntary Aided (VA) or Voluntary Controlled (VC) - I'm guessing it is VA from the OS criteria.

The way it works in my LA (I'm an admissions governor at a VA school) is that the LA send the school a list of everyone who has applied together with the home-school distance from their GIS software. They don't get involved in in/out of parish identification (nor should they as it's a "church" thing). The GB (who are the "admissions authority") are responsible for working out in/out parish and ranking the applicants accordingly - usually this is a sub-committee of the GB (The school office person may help with the admin, but it is not their responsibility so they may not be totally au fait with the process.)

I think it is quite possible, if they have never been o/s before, that the parish boundaries weren't checked carefully enough, so it is definitely something to question for your appeal. Even better if you can find someone out of parish that was offered a place ahead of you.

The admissions policy should also state where you can get a copy of the parish boundary from (eg view on the school website, hard copy from the school office) - but in practice the achurchnearyou one is very accurate, but it might not show clearly enough if, for example one side of the street is in parish and one is not.

(bane of my life, parish boundaries, can you tell?! I check them VERY VERY carefully!)

ah missed the bit where you said it was an academy, they will definitely do their own admissions then.

I asked the school for a map but they said they couldn't provide one as the local authority works out the distances based on their geographical mapping system.

The thing is, these 4 roads which I now know are outside the "parish" are much closer to the school than most of the rest of the village so I think anyone would assume children living there would be given a place.

I could ask whether any children living in roads 1-4 have been given a place but I'm not sure if they'd tell me that. I'm not even sure whether there are any children living in those roads.

I'm not sure how to work out whether the school/LA have made a distinction between "village" and "parish"; I certainly hadn't.

Betsy, there's no other information on the school website, just what I've regurgitated below!

So I need to find out whether any children have been offered a place in any of those roads, and hope to God that at least 4 have as then I should be able to win an appeal.

Out of curiosity, if there were e.g. 5 children who live out of parish who'd been offered a place in error, and 5 in parish who should have been offered a place but weren't, would the school have to offer a place to all 5 who'd lost out? But still allow the 5 with incorrect offers to have a place? (So the class size would then be 35?)

Betsy, just read your post again - thank you so much. It sounds quite possible then that the school could have applied village boundaries rather than parish boundaries, or just assumed these 4 roads are within the parish!

You don't need to find that information out regarding those four roads. At this stage all you need to find out is if any children were admitted who did not meet the priority criteria (ie category 5 or more). If they were, then great - appeal. If they were not then you need to start looking at the distance stuff again.

Even if you just find one person was admitted who was lower down the criteria you can appeal, as can all the other parents who lost out. If I've understood correctly it is extremely unlikely they would give the others places even if a mistake has been made unless they appeal.

You do need to look very carefully at the admission criteria here to see how the admission criteria order is made.
Firstly in terms of agreeing the order of admission, it is the school as an Academy who will agree and confirm to the Local Authority the order. So what the school will get is a list of all the applicants with their distances and also where the LA notes from their forms that there are siblings or LAC or anything else. The LA are very unlikely to have done the split between parish and non-parish.
So for you the first three criteria are irrelevant however if you live in the village parish boundary then you should have been in category 4. This category will include all those siblings and twins who do live inside the parish boundary but the way that the actual order of those in category 4 is according to your post, distance nothing else. So what they are saying in the info you have is that all those given a place are in category 4, within the parish boundary and within 0,28 miles of the school measuring point.
The question then becomes one of is this actually what has happened or not. So when the school were putting all the applicants in order then they should have made sure which applicants were within the parish boundary and which were not. For me that is now the primary question, did they actually do that exercise or not? If not and some of your posts seem to suggest that this might not be the case, then that needs to be resolved. Then comes the question of did the school actually sort not by distance but give priority to siblings or twins.
So what I believe you need to ask the LA and school is where you considered under category 4 and if so how were all the pupils in category 4 separated into order. Make sure you get an answer in writing as it is going to get messy this one by the sounds of it and you need to ensure a train of evidence for anything else coming up at the appeal.