Our youngest didn't get into the same school as his 16 month older brother - can't split myself in two! - appeal?

[OhForFrigSake]

Ok, so my eldest son goes to a lovely village school jus outside of our catchment. We applied for his place and were surprised he got in last year.

This year his younger brother didn't get in - he has been allocated a school within our PAA.

The problem is, I cannot split myself in two to drop them both off at the same time. The eldest has just gone 5 and youngest not 4 yet - they're still young - I can't leave them waiting around the school to go in/ come out and wait without me there.

I've estimated that if I drop the youngest one off first at 9am (which makes sense as it's the closest school), I'll then need to get the eldest into the car, and 2 miles through the village (very congested - especially as we'll be late and parents will be leaving the site by that time). By the time we get there the eldest will be between 20 minutes to half an hour late to school. We'll then have to do this in reverse on a night and I'm guessing the teacher or TA in my youngest's school won't wait on for 30 minutes while I'm late to get him every single day!

The school drop off/ pick up will become a logistical nightmare with no choice but for us to be late for each school once a day - furthermore I work for myself and the idea of different inset days/ school plays/ school events is already making me want to cry.

Should I appeal on the grounds that the original allocation was 'a decision so outrageous in its defiance of logic that no sensible person who applied his mind to the question could have arrived at it?' (Wording taken from the appeal guidelines). Do you think I have a chance of success at appeal?

I assume that the reason he didn't get in is over subscription. Our admission criteria is:

1. looked after children and children with special educational needs
2. children in the PAA with siblings in the school
3. children in the PAA
4. children outside the PAA with siblings in the school
5. children outside the PAA

Our neighbours on the next street got their out of catchment sibling in the same school so I guess they were the last child to get in and we were the cut off

Sorry, OhFor, I didn't mean to put more stress to you as you already have enough. It was just a genuine question. I really am sorry for making you upset. Please forgive me.

I'm ok Irvine. It is stressful but one of those things I guess when you're dealing with very popular schools that everyone wants to get in to.

The only thing that bothers me is when posters insinuate that I'm somehow expecting special treatment or an unreasonable for getting the eldest into a school out of our catchment - Its the best school around here so I applied and we got in, I'm sure most would have done the same!

Thank you Dreaming. I've been told lots by MN that I've got 'no chance' at appeal. I think that if I can prove that a child lower down the priority list has been Incorrectly given preference that I have at least some chance. We're 2nd on the waiting list (who knows though - they might have made other errors) so this error could affect us directly.

Ohforfrigsake I think you were told you had very little chance of success at appeal that was BEFORE the information about a possible mistake by the LEA came to light.

You have got to appeal haven't you, in your situation I would. Did you say his name is on the waiting list? Hopefully a space may come up where someone chooses not to accept for various reasons. Also put your oldest sons name down for the other school but I am sure it will all work out okay in the end, good luck x

but what must the cost be to LAs of all those unfounded appeals? All those "but we reeeeeeally really wanted School A because DH went there" or "but School B is near the ILs' house" or "but School C is a shithole" appeals which just have no grounds at all. It must cost an absolute fortune to run all those appeals.

Not really. In my borough panel members get a princely £25 a day. Yes, there's the cost of a clerk for the appeal hearings, but given that they have a duty to run appeals they're paying him or her anyway. There's a fair amount of admin, but a lot of that is standard letters which don't take too much time.

The simple fact is that, in a fair society, there has to be an appeal right, and you will inevitably get non-meritorious appeals. The only way to stop that would be to impose some sort of financial penalty, but that would just mean that rich people could play the system whilst poor people with genuine cases couldn't take the risk.

It does sound like if she's genuine then there is something not right. The only other explanation is that the DC is adopted and she did apply but didn't want to say that.

Where on earth do you live Augusta? In my LA panel members get travelling expenses, free coffee and a sandwich lunch. We bring our own biscuits, as these were stopped due to LA cutbacks some years ago.

Blimey Augusta - we panel members in our LA give our time for free! (Well, we get tea, biscuits and sandwiches if its an all day sitting). I wasn't aware any LEA paid!

Well quite, Eddie. In our LEA, we get free tea and coffee and a sandwich which the secretariat have gone out to buy, as the Council no longer has a catering service. I don't know whether we could claim travelling expenses, as the culture is not to. £25 would be riches beyond the dreams of avarice!

I don't think you're asking for special treatment, OP. The situation is probably nobody's fault, though, you just got caught out by bad luck. I wouldn't appeal assuming there has been a mistake but you did nothing wrong asking the LEA to check if there has been one.

There are frivolous appeals, often encouraged by people with no knowledge of current school admissions procedure. Last year our town's FB page was alight with shocked parents who hadn't read the admissions procedures and subsequently didn't get the school they wanted. One person was advised 'Definitely don't accept the place you've been offered so you can win an appeal. My granddaughter did and won because every girl in our family has been to X school since 1927'.

siblings are always first priority when allocating school places - seems crazy not to do it that way.

I wonder how many parents would support priority for siblings out of catchment if it were their own child missing out on a place in the school they live next door to as a result?

I have no axe to grind here, my son goes to an out of catchment school and he doesn't have any siblings. But I can see how the system is never going to be fair on everyone. Some of us choose to take a risk to get the best option for our child and just have to hope we don't fall foul of future changes in circumstances.

The simple fact is that, in a fair society, there has to be an appeal right, and you will inevitably get non-meritorious appeals. The only way to stop that would be to impose some sort of financial penalty, but that would just mean that rich people could play the system whilst poor people with genuine cases couldn't take the risk.

Absolutely right, and I was only pondering what the cost is rather than making any statement or judgement as to the recoverability of that cost.

For example, the success rate of primary appeals seems to be around 10%, although they can tend to cluster where there was a systemic fuck-up in a particular admissions department, or where school size means additional admissions are not an ICS issue.

Of the 90% of unsuccessful appeals, how many do we think had a chance? That is, in what proportion of those cases did it look as though the oversubscription criteria were unlawful, or incorrectly applied? Just looking at MN I would estimate that maybe half or even two thirds of appealing parents are not doing so on those grounds, but on personally compelling grounds such as logistics or personal connection.

It's all very well saying that the clerk is employed anyway and the panel sits anyway, but if they only heard half as many appeals then the costs could be halved (eg fewer days of panel, part-time clerk).

I heartily wish the admissions system were more transparent, as even intelligent and well-meaning parents can fall foul of intricacies in the system. Meanwhile children whose parents are less engaged or less good at reading small print or unfamiliar with the current system or are not English-speakers or or or are left to scrabble for the few available places probably outside their communities and they risk their attendance on commutes which are legal but which one would not wish for small children.

A friend of mine who is perfectly intelligent missed the deadline simply because she hadn't actively sought out any information about school entry and our LA doesn't send it out. Her daughter wasn't in childcare at the time so she hadn't seen any posters. She applied between 15/1 and 16/4 but will be chewing her fingernails until her decision is released in May. I haven't exactly expressed to her that she's got no chance of getting into the oversubscribed primary she wants, but that she'd have been safely in if she'd got her form in on time. Fortunately the next-nearest school is still in comfortable walking distance and is also an Ofsted Good (and common sense Brilliant) but oof.

If it was me i'd put my name on the waiting list for the out of catchment school.

Check your position on the list.
Ask about last year's waiting list- how many actually got in?
Go speak to the headteacher and ask numbers.
Accept the school you were offered and keep on checking the waiting list

good luck

hugs

If it was me i'd put my name on the waiting list for the out of catchment school

She has .....

You're right, MrsHathaway, about the need for transparency and done LEAs do seem to work harder and more imaginatively than others at publicising the admissions round and providing information about how it works.

But, I think you are right too in suggesting that some people inagine that there's a footnote to any school's oversubscription criteria that says "but none of the above applies if you really, really want a place at this school". That's one of the reasons that I and other people on MN who are involved in appeals try to explain how it all works - the strength of your feeling about the school is irrelevant if you don't fulfil the admissions criteria or don't come high enough up the ranking of priorities.

With reference to funding for appeals, about one-third of appeals I have heard this year needed interpreters. Occasionally the parent doesn't turn up, but the interpreter still has to be paid.This is becoming an increasing financial burden on a cash-strapped LA.

about one-third of appeals I have heard this year needed interpreters

I'd be more concerned about the burden on the families. Every April, MN is full of parents born and schooled here, it's their language, their culture - and they still screw up their forms.

I can't begin to imagine how difficult it is for ESL families from a different culture to navigate this.

Does anyone know if any other country in the world has such a convoluted system?

Surely breakfast club for 5 mornings and after school club for 5 evenings is still cheaper than paying out for full time nursery? Make sure you inform tax credits you still have childcare costs.

Like everyone else has said, it really won't be grounds for appeal.

Did you specifically ask to put your first child in this school or were you allocated it? If you requested it (knowing it was out of catchment) then you surely would have realised you weren't guaranteed getting no 2 in. I have 2 kids too. I will be making sure that no1 goes to a school a stone's throw away!

All this crap started when we gave parents choice! Kids should just go to their nearest school. End of!

As a foreigner living here, I find the English system utterly baffling. Surely the LA have a record of births in the borough, so if nothing else can send a letter out to parents telling them they need to submit their preference forms by the following Jan, rather than relying on posters? And that's before we get to the catchment renting dramas, logistical issues with siblings, OFSTED ratings etc. It's a system which seems to privilege the conscientious / sharp-elbowed.

Actually, a very real issue here is that - whatever the political rhetoric - the system does not offer parents choice. It offers them the opportunity to express a preference.

So many of the appeals I hear (and so many of the threads here) come about because parents believe they have a free choice and thus can choose that their child attends the best of most popular school in the area, even though that school is massively oversubscribed, they live far too far away to get a place on distance and have no other features that would put them in a higher priority group. I agree with Tiggy that LEAs could make this plainer; its fine to include an unrealistic and aspirational preference on your application form, but if that's all you include, it could all go badly wrong for you.

Anyway, we're straying off the point of this thread, where OP seems to be in a very different situation.

I agree with what others have said about not knowing the other persons circumstances that got in out of catchment. I got DD into secondary on appeal. They said they didn't know why she hadn't been admitted in the first place. When people ask how on earth we got in when we live further away than them, I just say I was lucky at appeal. I have no intention of giving them DD's medical history.

The appeal was tough and the school were defensive, but afterwards the head invited me in to school to say DD was very welcome and he was happy to see children who had clearly been well supported by their parents.

I think your chances of getting in via the waiting list are higher than your chances at appeal, but definitely check the criteria have been applied correctly.

Star if you make children go to their nearest school it is very unfair on low income families who can't afford to "buy" a school place ie a house.