Appeal hearing - please help

[lucyb162]

I have submitted an appeal application for our catchment school, after being allocated a school much further away. The catchment school was very oversubscribed in this year and 16 children in catchment did not get in. My appeal is based on 2 things - (1) that the school's admission criteria are not lawful and (2) that the distance criteria have not been correctly applied with regard to an apartment complex.

I'm comfortable explaining my first argument, so I won't go into that here, but I am having some trouble with my second argument. The crux of my argument is that: the school calculates distance as the crow flies using postal address information. Within the catchment area is an apartment complex consisting of 9 'blocks' located around a central square, therefore some of the blocks are further away from the school than others. However, using the postal address system, all of the apartment blocks in the complex appear at 1 point on a map, which is a point closer to the school than the majority of the physical apartment buildings. The furthest 3rd of the blocks are further away from the school as the crow flies than my house. The issue we have however is that I've been unable to find out how many children from these apartment blocks have been allocated a place this time (although I've been given numbers 'on the grapevine'. I've been told I can't request this information under a freedom of information request as it contravenes data protection rights. My appeal case, including this argument, was submitted 22nd May and yesterday I received the case for the school, which contains no reference to anything to do with either the distance calculation for the apartment blocks or the number of children admitted within them. I'm now at a loss as to how I will actually argue my point when I'm unable to prove or disprove whether my daughter would have got a place had the school applied the correct distance calculation.

Can anybody help??

I think it would be useful to ask -

-exactly where the measurement point for the flat blocks is

• how the random allocation is held
• what evidence is required that the address

Is the child's normal, permanent and full time address

• has the issue of these flats being used as short term accom for the purposes of admission been raised before and what was the outcome
• how many children from these flats have been offered places and what exactly was the distance for each of them (you may struggle with this one)

I do see your point, I do. However, as a panellist, I think you may be asking the panel to make a decision they do not feel empowered to make; a decision that they would feel it falls to the OSA to make.

admission the case you refer to is not an isolated case or the earliest example I found of this ruling, such as this one from 2013 in a neighbouring borough:

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/294982/ada2490_tithe_barn_primary_school_stockport_-_22_november_2013.pdf

And this statement from the 2013 OSA report, photo below.

I think the point is that it's not a 'one rule fits all' in respect of siblings, but the individual circumstances must always be looked at to decide what is the fairest method for each school. Park road have not done this.

I feel I've somehow got drawn into a prolonged discussion on this point and it's clear that others have very different viewpoints to me, which is understandable based on relative experience and familial situations.

That I could win the appeal on this alone is not in question, I know that I can't, hence my second potential argument to do with the apartment blocks. However, I'm happy that I've done sufficient research on siblings rulings to talk confidently on this point. That is not true of my second point and my reason for this post.

Thanks patriciaholm much appreciated

admission would you mind telling me the name of the LA you refer to below as having extra measures for 'red flagged' let properties? Is that a policy that they publish online or I could find out if trafford have anything similar, do you know?

The adjudications where objections are not upheld are not particularly relevant. Refusing to force a school to give priority to out of catchment siblings is not the same as refusing to allow them to give priority to such siblings.

That leaves us with three decisions that appear to support your point of view to some extent. All three of these decisions have problems. They appear to adopt interpretations of the Admissions Code that go beyond what the wording will bear, and that is quite apart from the points made by Admission. I am not convinced any of these three decisions would survive judicial review if the admission authorities involved wanted to challenge them. It remains my view that, even armed with these decisions, you will struggle to convince an appeal panel that the admission criteria for Park Road are illegal.