Advise for appeal to Reception Year admission

[Mosurgia]

Hi - I am number one on the waiting list of the school of my choice in our catchment but I have been offered a catholic school which is also in the catchment area. We are not catholic and I definitely don’t want to send my daughter to a catholic school. Do you think that I have ground for appeal? Any chance to win it? Thank you!

You can only appeal to why you want to go to the school you’re appealing to, not why you don’t want the one offered.

Being offered a place at the Catholic school makes no difference on your appeal. You haven't given any reasons why you are appealing. This website might help.

www.parentalchoice.co.uk/schoolsappealprocess/

Therefore, you may wish to look at whether the following might be grounds for your appeal:
The admission arrangements haven’t been followed properly
The admission criteria aren’t legal according to the school admissions appeal code
The decision to refuse your child a place wasn’t reasonable

As others have said, you are appealing for the school you want, not against the school you've been offered. You will not win an appeal on the basis that you don't want a Catholic school.

Your chances of success with an appeal depend on whether this is an infant class size case. If your preferred school runs classes of 30 in Reception, Y1 or Y2 it is infant class size and you can only win on the grounds listed by icklekid. If it is not infant class size you would have a better chance as you can win by showing that the disadvantage to your child through not being admitted to this school outweighs the problems the school would face through having to cope with an additional pupil. Going to a Catholic school is not seen as a disadvantage.

Rather than rejecting the Catholic school out of hand, you should go and take a look at it. Some Catholic schools are less religious than some non-faith schools.