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 clearly states the evidence should be provided by the church not ourselves. At no point have I been told or asked I needed to go to the school with our baptism certificate and we have had both children baptised there.

I can't read that map! This is the one for Stoneclough, the parish in question.

Did you see the link below to the different admissions criteria? It makes the baptism cert irrelevant anyway.

Oh dear. No LeeandEmma, that means that to have to get the evidence from the church and supply it with your application. The LA and the school can't be expected to have a meeting to decide which applicants are within each category.

This means you've gone in on distance only. As it's your mistake it's very unlikely you'd succeed at appeal. You can put yourself on the waiting list and supply evidence of your cat. 4 eligibility, which will put you near the top of the waiting list.

I don't read that meaning the priest has to go tell the school, but rather that yor evidence must be confirmed by a clergy person. Also, they do usually have reminders at family mass. Did you attend weekly? Ours only announced it 2-3 times right at start of admission, to remind families to make appointments to see the priest (and get forms signed)

I will do just that, I will call to the church and speak with the Vicar and get something from him.

I haven't signed any supplementary form as the open day we went to at St Saviours it was not mentioned and we were given the admission criteria which I posted, not the updated one. If the school had given us the correct form we wouldn't be in this mess now. The old admission form is STILL on their website, this is beyond frustrating.

What seem to be my options now?

If you look at the policy here
www.stsaviourschool.com/our-school/admission-arrangements
It is the same as I have, not the updated one. This is what we recieved at the open day, only weeks before applications started.

Actually, the school isn't responsible for giving you the form - and as someone linked to it upthread, it is published and available online. It will most likely be on the same website from which you made your application.

i understand you're frustrated but a bunch of strangers googled and found the correct info based on name of school - so it is out there and available to the public.

Evidence we have regularly attended for over 6 months.

Is my best option to accept the school I have been offered, follow all the info on St Saviours admin policy and reapply for next September?

OK so this year is out of the window, so what is my best option now, to get my son into this school at a later date.

There may be some hope...

If in your area it is normal to consult a school's Web page to find out admission criteria and you weren't given a booklet with all the schools' admission criteria (in Hampshire you're given an 'applying for a school place' book which has all criteria and relevant data) and your attendance at church satisfies criteria for category 5 or 6, and you could get prod from the vicar, you could appeal on the basis that a mistake (wrong info from school and on website) deprived your child of a place because you didn't know you needed proof of church attendance, which you would have supplied.

That will only succeed if all category 5 applicants were awarded places, or the last cat 5 place was further away than you and had equal or lower church attendance.

You need to also check the furthest distance awarded a place under cat 4. If you were closer that's also a winnable mistake.

I'm surprised at those criteria in a sense. Seems to lean towards racial discrimination in that other faiths are placed below the Christian faith for priority. I would have thought that in a very multiracial/multicultural area there would be more thought. (I say that as an active Christian - I appreciate that faith schools should be accessible to people of their faith, but as church schools tend to be 'good' it seems unfair to relegate people whose cultural background leads them to a different religion).

Did you not receive a booklet with the admission requirements for each school from the council?

It's up to the parent to check those.

As you fill out the online form and say that you are applying under religious category, doesn't it prompt you that you need to send supplementary forms?