Primary School offered, not possible, how likely would an appeal be successful.

[LeeandEmma88]

Hello all,

We have read this forum many times but our situation has led to us feeling the need to create an account for advice.

This isn't the typical "We didn't get our preferred school, but it is a good school so can I appeal" post, so please bear with me whilst we explain.

My family has lived in the area of our preferred primary school now for 10 years, with us being located here for 5. The reason we moved to the area was solely for this primary school. We have had our Son's name on the school list since 2013 when he was approximately 10 months old, he is now 3 years and 8 months old and will be starting school this September 2016.

My wife and I work full time jobs and these jobs are unfortunately located out of the area, my wife working 1 hour from home and myself working 30 minutes away.
We also have a 9 month old baby who will be starting daycare in September of this year. This leads us to a bit of an issue, in regards to dropping off children.

It would not be possible for my wife to drop off our baby at daycare, our son at school and then travel to work. she has tried to go part time and drop morning hours but to drop off both and get to work is just too much, leaving her approx an hour late each day.
It is not possible for myself to drop hours as I am a manager at work and have several employees under my sole responsibility. I have to be at work when they are so to say.

This means we need assistance, which comes from my Mother. She is retired but does not drive, she lives on the same road as us meaning both the preferred school and our house are walking distance (she actually has to pass our house to get to the school).

Now we haven't been offered a place at either of our 2 local and preferred schools, which in normal circumstances I would just put it down to over-subscription and learn to live with it. But since January 2016 when the application process was closed my Father has taken ill in health meaning he requires full care which is provided by my Mother.

My wife's employer has agreed to shorten her hours on 2 days meaning she can drop off and collect (based on the thought we would have gotten our preferred school) leaving my Mother to drop off and collect the remaining 3 days of the school week. Now my mother doesn't drive as mentioned earlier so needs a school in walking distance (she cannot leave my Father for a length of time) this leaves two schools, both which were on our application. The 1st choice is 0.3 miles and takes 6 minutes to walk, the 2nd choice we had is 0.6 miles and takes 15 minutes to walk, now the offered choice which we didn't even know existed is 1.8 miles away and takes 45 minutes to walk (these times are one-way not round trips). The choice given would take 4 hours walking time per day to drop off and collect for my Mother, this is not even a possibility due to my Father's health.

We know the preferred school has 30 placements up for grabs and half of these have been filled with siblings, this leaves around 15 places to fill with other criteria. We live 0.3 miles away and can walk to the school within 6 minutes, not many people at all live closer than us, the reason we chose this address. Where do you lot think we would stand with an appeal taking all of the above into consideration?

We would be taking all my Father's medical history to any appeal, along with work contracts to show hours etc as we really feel we should have been offered a place at one of the 2 schools. We also have to take into account though, that the local council do not know of my Father's ill health as it has all happened 'after' the application process. We honestly thought luck would be well within our side as we live so close to the school (we can just about see it from our house) but this isn't the case obviously.

Any help or advice is appreciated.

But it's a simple line in every direction from the church. There may be 15 children who live closer in all the other directions.

I'm sorry, I find out myself tomorrow but your circumstances won't affect an appeal unless the LEA have made a mistake

It's more like this. But then vpb said, any of the the first three criteria will trump you regardless of distance.

Did you provide the required evidence to be submitted under 4? I would expect you to have been required to show a baptismal certificate as well as proof of residency within the parish.

If so, then you need to check that you were considered under that criteria and a mistake wasn't made. That is your only hope realistically.

You should make sure you are on the waiting list, as people do move and free up spaces.

Ok looking at this I'm assuming it's a voluntary aided church scholl who control their own admissions and some of their admissions criteria different to local authority community school

It's possibly a very high sibling year.
As where we live half intake or more has been siblings recent years

Children in care and special needs some times have greater priority

Worth checking which section you came under and the stats of who got in under each category as well as furthest distance.

Forgot to mention faith schools have supplementary evidence firm plus copy baptism certificate and often they decide their places first and notify the council.
Then council then apply la admissions to community schools.

Did you send in proof re your religious status with the application?

You need to clarify which category your child was placed in, and if you agree it is correct.

Do you live in the parish specified in cat 4? Because that 'and' means that baptism is not sufficient, you need residence as well.

If you wants to be considered under cat 5 you would have needed to include attendance on the Supplementary Information form. Did you do so? Did your priest sign off that you attended regularly? Because, as the map you added names the school, it's easy to see that the criteria includes: "The faith criteria for worship will only be satisfied by a minimum of 12 weeks attendance at church at public worship for at least a year prior to 1st September in the year before admission to the school. Evidence must be provided by a member of the clergy or other designated officer."

You seem to have skipped cat 6 (which is another faith based category based on attendance at any Churches Together member church)

Without residency in parish, or normal evidence of church attendance, then your DC would be in category 7.

It is easily possible that the c.15 places remaining after siblings were all taken by cat 4, 5 and 6 children.

If you're in Ringley Meadows you're in the right parish. I've just had a good Google.

If it's the same school, the bottom of the admissions criteria page says

"The faith criteria for worship will only be satisfied by a minimum of 12 weeks attendance at church at public worship for at least a year prior to 1st September in the year before admission to the school. Evidence must be provided by a member of the clergy or other designated officer."

Did you get anyone to sign a form and submit it to the school? They would also want to see the original Babtism certificate (rather than sending it in with your application).

It would be worth the OP ascertaining exactly which parish map was used for admissions purposes (there ought to be a definitive one available from the school, which is VA so it's own admissions authority). But I agree with volleyballmum's reading, that the river is essentially the boundary and so the OP is not in parish.

If you didn't complete a supplementary information form (sif) and ask the vicar to sign it then I think that the most likely answer is that there were more in category 4 than there were places remaining and those who completed the sif were placed ahead of you. If you were even placed in group 4. How did you communicate that your dc had been baptised? If not on a sif then you are probably in group 7. The school could make it clearer on their webpage that you need to complete a sif though and the process by which you prove your attendance. That could be a chink in the armour for an appeal. It's a shame that you stopped attending as that would also help if you could get the vicar to sign the form (if s/he didn't originally sign one) now it might put you in a higher position on the waiting list.

Lougle that is the wrong church. The church is St Saviours, same name as the school.

We have the original baptism certificate here but I did my application online and have not been asked for it. There was no option to attach a photograph of the certificate from which i remember, so where do I go from here.

I ask as Baptism is category 4, whereas without that I would be category 7.

You should have gone to the school and submitted it along with the other supplemental form they requested - that's the way it works in our faith school. They don't ask - you're meant to read the admissions booklet and follow directions.

Seems I am well within the parish, you would hope so at 0.2 miles :)

I am really dissapointed as this school is in the top 100 in the U.K, lat year being in the top 15 :(

Ah - I think the new admissions criteria shed far more light. Essentially only 20% of places after criteria 1/2/3 are given to people who don't worship regularly; and you don't.

Criteria 4 has changed, and realistically you needed to be a regular worshipper and able to prove it; 20% of left over spaces is 2 or 3 up for grabs for those who aren't workshippers. You aren't, and didn't get one of those 3 places. So it doesn't look now as if any sort of mistake has been made I'm afraid.

Thanks shinyshoes!

The 2014 document is what appears on the school's website, and that is a place where parents would reasonably expect to find reliable information.

However, it's not clear that OP's DC ould have received an offer, as they do not appear to live in the parish, nor to have submitted a valid SIF.

Under the new criteria (where 4 requires residency in the parish only, and the following faith criteria require a year's attendance at a) specified parish followed by b) any Church Together church and c) any other religion as recognised by UK Interfaith Association) it seems even less likely that OP would qualify.

It also changes straight line distance to walking distance.

Lee the council document shows that baptism is actually 5th not 4th and you needed to attend fortnightly for a year and complete a supplementary form signed by the vicar. Without this you're actually in the 8th criteria.