School and appeals

[Notjustthecatsmother]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had any experience for schools and appeals?

My dd is 9 and is in year 4. The school she’s at is very small in a neighbouring town, just 8 in her year group. She’s very lonely and has no friends there. She’s very unhappy, each morning the staff have to remove her from me. She comes out crying often. She has been bullied although the bully has now left. I’ve talked to School endlessly, teachers and head teacher but I’ve got nowhere.

So I’ve applied for a place at our local school (we moved here when dd was in Year 1 and the local school was full. I got her a place at her current school and I’ve perservered with it since). The local school is still full so dd has been refused. I understand I can appeal. Is there any merit in doing this? How likely is it that an appeal would be successful? The main problem dd has is that the year group is so small and one of the children had AS. This child has picked on dd extensively. I also have a ds with ASD so dd deals with that at home too. She’s just surrounded by autism and of course, we understand it it’s just a bit overwhelming for her. Would it be worth getting an appointment with the Head teacher and pleading our case? Is there any discretion? I’m worried about my poor dd.

The head has no discretion, so your route is to go to appeal. It is difficult to be precise on what chance you have of getting a place. It depends on how good a case you have to be awarded a place but on average something like a third of appeals that are not infant class size cases are won by the appellant.
If you are going to allege bullying then because so many parent use that as a reason for appealing you need to be able to show written discussions with the current school over the bullying. I think that many panel members will have some degree of sympathy with your child's situation but you do need to be looking for reasons why your preferred school is necessary. i would suggest one reason is the small number of pupils in the current school meaning she has no friendship base. It would be useful if she knew pupils at the preferred school. Also look if there are after school clubs at the preferred school which your daughter cannot currently access - sport? dance? ICT?

If you've been refused, I'd assume that they had reached there class limit. In order to appeal the place I think you'd have to successfully argue that the benefit to your child of being in that class outweigh the negative impact on the other children of having another pupil. That cannot include what is wrong with the other school or issues that could be solved by a.n.other school.

You can obviously talk to the Head about it but they don't have a say on appeals.

Just keep knocking on the door and you'll get in. At the end of Year 2 there's traditionally a handful of kids that shuffle out in every school so I'd consider that your worst case scenario.

Councils are well known to be borderline hopeless at school admissions. I know an Irish lady with twins in Year 2 that emmigrated over the summer to Bristol and wanted to get her twin sons into a particular school. They said they could admit one but not both and offered no alternative for the other twin. After endless calls and rejections, on the final Friday before the start of term, the council said they could offer places for both twins. Beyond stressful for her and hopelessly inept from the council.