Appeals and waiting lists for primary schools

[drspouse]

We heard we didn't get our first choice, our second choice is OK but not great for DS and we'd put in specific information about why the first choice would be better but we think they just ignored it.

In our area you automatically accept the allocated school and you have to fill in a form for either waiting list or appeal. So we'll fill in the form but we'll see if we're near the top of the waiting list in which case we probably won't bother appealing.

Anyone else?

Having been involved in a case that has some resonance with your situation I can tell you that there were some very difficult nuances with regard to the situation over fostering / adoption which social services will say means that a child is adopted when actually under the definition in the admission code it does not. I am sorry but I cannot remember the exact circumstances but do know that the LA ended up consulting a number of expert legal people from outside the LA before they came to the decision that what seemed an obvious LAC situation was not.
Your situation is further complicated by the fact that ds was adopted under the rules of his home country. Personally I think you have a strong case, especially if the LA eventually concede that you were fostering DS but the LA will probably take the very narrow view of whether adopted in this country or not.
To me this means that you are probably in for a very long and difficult journey to prove that DS does qualify under cat 1 and you probably need expert legal opinion. When it comes to admission under cat2 (social and medical) I think you have a weaker case. I accept that the school offered is on 2 floors but they should be able to make reasonable adjustments to get your child to different floors, as such they are likely to have refused being able to apply under cat2.

Thanks admission. The bulk of our case is that our first choice was able to give us specific examples of how they have dealt with individual cases, curriculum issues, and provided therapy (use of Pupil Premium) for children with a difficult start in life. The other schools couldn't give us (anonymised) examples, and only seem to use PP money for extra-curriculars (they couldn't tell us anything they'd used it for that was specific to ex-LAC/adopted children).

The stairs issue is really a recent discovery that's a bit of a side issue - we didn't put it on the form as he hadn't had a diagnosis when we applied, and we were just going to add it on as an "oh and also", and probably only then if we can get a letter from the physio.

I'm working on the appeal form now and will run it past our SW on Monday but if anyone else had time to have a look...

As an aside, I'd like to reassure you that good teachers and good schools are sensitive to such things. As a teacher, I would always double check if there was any issues before any SRE lesson or even before whole class making of Mother's Day/Father's Day cards. This isn't just in relation to LAC or previously LAC but also bereaved children, those with a terminally or chronically ill parent or those whose parents are not on speaking terms and therefore they don't want to take home to mummy a card for daddy that they know mummy isn't going to want them or even allow them to give to daddy.
But good teachers and good schools keep themselves abreast of the home circumstances and backgrounds of the children in their care. Please be assured of that. good luck

Admission- if the LA cannot confirm that the OP's DS's application was considered and rejected under category 1 and 2, wouldn't this make the appeal case stronger, as a mistake had been made? I know the OP suspects that they have not examined the application in terms of criteria 2.

Drspouse, can you remember if your DS was in care under a section 20?

Mini - that's certainly my experience and you've added yet more circumstances that teachers will be aware of and adapt to..

In the interests of balance, I am an advisory teacher for children in care. Whilst there are certainly some schools such as Mini's with excellent practice around trauma-experienced children, they are sadly in the minority. The culture is certainly changing for the better, but it is a mistake to think that everything is fine for all adopted children because of at least 10 who are.

*because at least 10 are.

Word soup at the end there

It is really nice to hear this but it's just not terribly reassuring when you are shown round two schools and the HT/deputy head can't actually think of anything they might cover in their curriculum that might be troublesome for children who are adopted that they might need to alert parents to.

drspouse I'm on your other thread about nervously awaiting the schools allocation. Sorry you didn't get your preference, I hope you get all the information you need to appeal.

Can I just say - tiggy you've been so helpful on both threads and many others I have read - you must have helped so many people. Thanks very much - I know loads more about this whole system due to yours and others (such as admission) helpful and what must be time consuming for you help and information. 😊

Yes I'd like to echo the thanks. It is so thoughtful and patient of you!

Sorry to hear your news drspouse. Hopefully you will find out soon whether your application under the soc/med criteria was considered or not. in our LEA the emails only contain minimal information about which school you are allocated, the letters sent out by post contain more details.
Please remember when appealing though that you are proving why "School A" is the right one for your child not why school B isn't! Your impressions from the visits could well be correct, but it could also simply be that your questions were outside their area of expertise rather than that the school doesn't make any adjustments iyswim.

wouldn't this make the appeal case stronger, as a mistake had been made?

Not necessarily. A mistake on its own won't win an appeal. The OP needs to convince the panel that her son would have been admitted but for the mistake. So if her son was not considered under social/medical at all that is a start but the panel will then need to agree that her son should have been placed in that category. If they think that he wouldn't have gone in that category even if the application had been considered properly it doesn't help.

If a mistake has been made which has affected the outcome that is the strongest appeal case possible.

Joining - no grounds for appeal but going to apply for continued interest. How does it generally work, though? One assumes it's not first come first served.

Thanks Tiggy. Hopefully luck will be on our side as we're in a very high movement area. Is there a way I can find out if people my distance away ever get in - the stats on the council website appear to be the initial allocations - or if I'm on a hiding to nothing?

Standing outside my house I can see the boundary of the catchment areas so we're not that far out (in fact we're a lot closer than some of the outer reaches of the catchment area, but them's the breaks, I suppose).

It may be a bit misleading though as sometimes if a family moves into the area, there may be one place at one school randomly because someone's moved out and nobody happens to be on the waiting list?

So chasing up with paediatrician and SW... SW never sent the letter (COUGH) and has been mildly told off. To be honest, because they took so long to tell us they weren't considering him as PLAC, they might not have got round to looking at it anyway by the time she'd written it.

So they didn't actually consider the medical/social information but it wasn't their fault.

As pointed out above even though many LEAs seem to consider children adopted from overseas as priority, ours refuses to do so.

Paediatrician's secretary is going to get a letter written saying that DS has been referred for therapy for his behavioural problems but our School 1 has a therapist on site and would be most suitable for him on those grounds.

SW is tweaking the letter and sending it to us to attach.

Not sure if we should even bother with the hypermobility issue, it would be "and also" if we did.

Commander we are also in a fairly high movement area so honestly, if the appeals waiting list was a month after the waiting list deadline I'm not sure we'd do the appeal now because we are pretty hopeful we'd get in on waiting list.

Heard at the preschool gates - what a pleasant experience that was not - that an out of catchment sibling got into our first preference and they're further away than us, so hopefully that bodes well for our place on the waiting list.

Fingers crossed Commander

I can't believe the SW didn't send the letter

Hopefully you've now enough evidence to be considered in category 2 when placed on the waiting list- with a bit of movement, this should produce a place.

Fingers crossed

Just got an answer back from my email asking about distances/categories. 60 places, 2 LAC, zero medical/social, 29 siblings, the rest on distance, furthest away was 0.76 miles, we are 0.9.
So a fairly near miss and we shouldn't be too far from the top of the "just missed out on distance"group.

But it does slightly worry me they've taken nobody on medical or social grounds. They don't have a specialist unit or anything but there are mutterings e.g. from the friend with a DC with mild diagnosed SEN, that "all schools are supposed to meet the needs of all children".

Bloody hell! Got the confirmation letter complete with allocation breakdowns and our preferred school got down to our category (ie out of catchment) and we missed out by just under 0.07 MILES. Less than 120 metres. 64 applications refused so surely we must be really near the top of that pile.

Will the council be able to tell me where DD is on the list even though the deadline is 9th May? Shall I just wait to ask until then?