Sibling Admission Appeal for Reception sept 2018

[MoJoMum2]

As I write this I am heartbroken for my son who is 4, he has not been offered a place at the Catholic Academy 5 mins walk away, that my 5year old daughter attends in Reception. They both attended Nursery there and are very close in age, 12 months apart and friendship. We are Christian and but because my daughter got a place last year with no problem, we assumed as a sibling he would be fine. He has been offered a school 6.3miles away. The rose their bikes to school today and I am in tears knowing that this may not happen in September.

@Bombardier25966 thank you for confirming my intial thoughts. I thought I was being a bit slow I spoke to the Appeal clerk and he reassured me to ‘tell my story’ he said there have been appeals where non catholics get in over catholics because of their parents ability to be calm and clear -and make their points effectively on the day.

@TeenTimesTwo thank you, you have a calming effect on me 7 months does sound like a long time. I don’t drive

OP - if you put all your local schools on the form and were only offered school 5, then the council HAS to provide transport.

I suggest you talk to LEA about this too. If they say no bus, then the comeback is - it is 6 miles, so are you going to taxi him then?

The reason I say this, is that the LEA will not want to taxi him, so they may put pressure on another school to find space. (unlikely to be the catholic school though)

Non Catholics get in over Catholics if they make their points more effectively on the day? That sounds most odd.

I find it hard to believe that a non catholic would get in instead of a catholic based on their own criteria , also it doesn’t matter how calm and clear you are if your appeal has no compelling basis , which unfortunately for you sounds like the case . I agree with a pp that you’d be best off looking for a different school that can take them both .

Ouch that must hurt. We did consider a Catholic school that is near us and very good. Some years it takes a small number of non Catholics, others it doesn't if filled by Catholics. Non catholic siblings are trumped by first child Catholics. So we knew even if Dc1 got in there was no guarantee hat dc2 would in a later year.

However I think their drafting in your case sucks and I can see why it is open to Confusion.

Iam & floral

In a 'grounds of prejudice' appeal, the admission criteria don't really matter, so a non-Catholic could easily get in if their case is more compelling. However, if this is an Infant Class Size appeal (so class of 30 at some point in infants), then the bar for succeeding is set very high and a sibling and travel aren't going to (or shouldn't) cut it.

Oh, I see. I wouldn't have thought very much trumped the rights of a Catholic child to a Catholic education, given that the faith schools were established for this very purpose. Who knew?

Its a minefield isn’t it .

I agree with @Bombardier25966 and I'm surprised it wasn't raised sooner. I think the oversubscription criteria is unclear re: siblings and I would appeal on that basis and expect to win. This is very poorly drafted: open to multiple interpretations including one that favours your child. Have you missed the deadline to appeal?

@intherosegarden Do you have any experience with appeals?

The admission criteria is not very well worded but I am sure based on experience of other catholic schools that they mean that for each of the admission criteria they would be sorted into order firstly by those who have a sibling in the school and then by distance.
Having looked at what I assume from the information supplied is the academy trust involved, all of the three schools in the Trust have either 30 or 60 in the year group and therefore any appeal will be an infant class size appeal. As such the only realistic chance of getting a place is if the admission arrangements were wrong for this particular child. On the face of it, there is no mistake just a misunderstanding about what part siblings played in the admission criteria.

Whilst i also agree that the criteria are not worded well, I don't see anything here that would win you an ICS appeal. (I sit on appeals panels)

The criteria are legal, and would appear to have been applied correctly, though you do need to get them to confirm which criteria you were in and which criteria the last child was admitted under and distance (which I'm assuming is the way of ranking the applicants within each criteria).

It could definitely be clearer, but there are no grounds here to win an ICS appeal- the criteria are legal, no mistake was made that cost the OP a place, and the decision not to admit was not unreasonable in a legal sense.

@admissions and @PatricaHolm thank you for your advice. I’m glad I asked for help on here

Another option is to consider moving your DD to a school where they will both get a place