Hello. Did anyone win an appeal for primary reception class whn there were 30 children admitted?

[fedda]

Hello, my child is on a waiting list and I was wondering if anyone had won an appeal while all 30 children have been already admitted for the reception class. If so, would you kindly share your experience and you thoughts what helped you. Ta.

fedda - it certainly is not impossible. They tell you that KS1 classes are capped at 30, but the appeal panel is independent and separate from the school and the LEA.

They will look at your child's individual situation. If they feel it is in your child's interests to go to that school then the number of people in the class will not matter.

This happens a lot (to the chagrin of heads who are already coping with over-crowded classrooms).

UnquietDad, thank you so much for your kind advice. I don't know though how to persuade them that this school that it's in my child's interest to go to this school. I'll try my best but I have to say there are many other mums who are in similar situation and there were so many last year. I know of some families who are waiting for years for a place in this school. That's why I feel i need to try for an appeal but i don't really know what my chances are. I wonder who they decide and what people say that really helps.

Sorry, I should have written how they decide, not who they decide. I'm sure there are other misspellings.

Just a few suggestions:

• Does your child have any particular medical/learning circumstances? (e.g. dyslexia, hearing problems, etc?) Does the school you want have particularly good provision for dealing with this?
• Do you drive? If not, is it convenient to travel to the other school? (Even if it is, make out that it's not.)
• Does the journey to and from school put an unnecessary strain on your child?
• Do you have strong ties to the local community and do all other children in your street/area go to that school?
• Would your child be emotionally disadvantaged by being schooled apart from friends in the local area?
• Does the school you want provide anything extra-curricular or within the school curriculum which would be especially suitable for your child's needs and interests?

By the way, what SparklePrincess says below ("You can't argue against infant class size rules. You would only have a case if the admissions process had been done incorrectly") is not wholly incorrect, but is only one part of it.

Get the DfES Admission Code of Practice and Appeal Code of Practice and read them carefully. You can download them at the Teachernet site here

There are two different sets of grounds for appealing at KS1 - they were called A and B when we appealed, and may still be.

Thank you very much, UnquietDad. I've downlowded it and it will take me some time to read but I will. I'll read as much as I need to so that i come prepared and it's all so very useful what you suggest. Thank you.

Sorry, forgot to say that we don't have any medical grounds. I hope we still can find something though. I like the idea of the difficulty of the journey but they can argue that most of the children have to overcome it by their own will as they choose schools away from the home because they are good schools.
The local connections are very important to my child but they can argue that children are adaptable and many schools actually separate good friends because they often tend to distract each other.
I feel whatever I say they will have something contradicting and I'm desparate to prepare well. It will be so sad if I don't win an appeal because the alternatives are far from ideal.

fedda, which London borough are you in? I'm in Southwark and am fairly up-to-date with their appeals process as 3 of my very good friends went through it last year. One succeeded and two failed but the two who failed had no grounds to appeal at all really and the one who won did. This is also a very popular, over-subscribed school.

Has your ds been in the school's nursery? That can provide some useful grounds for appeal.

Make sure you get both documents - Appeal Code of Practice and Admission Code of Practice.

The LEA will, in my experience, be putting a very technical argument based on the fact that there are X number of free places "in the borough" and that they only have to educate your child "within the borough", not at the school of your choice. At our appeal the LEA seemed very dispassionate and uninterested.

The head, and/or head of governors, from the school you want to get into will also be there and it is up to them to put the case why your child should not be admitted into that particular school. For Key Stage 1 this will inevitably be the 30 pupils/ not enough space argument.

Here's another thing. Find out - I think the LEA/Primary Admissions must tell you - what the exact numbers are in the school overall. It may be that Key Stage 1 is down a couple, e.g. that while there are 30 in reception there are only 29 in Y1 and 28 in Y2, say. This will be to your advantage because you can then argue that they are not at capacity.

Have I mentioned the Advisory Centre for Education yet? They are an independent body and will advise you for free. They are very good - phone them. They don't have magic answers but they will tell you exactly what you should be finding out and, most importantly, what questions you should be ready to ask the school at the appeal panel! their site is here.

imaginaryfriend, my child was in the nursery there but all parents had to sign the form the the nursery place dosn't gaurantee the place in the primary school.
UnquietDad, thank you again. i'll try to find out about the numbers but could you kindly tell me how I can use this information? my child can't be admitted in the year where there are less children then 30 and if I take this figure as an example they can say that every year the situation can be different and there might be 30 children in year 1 next year.

fedda - you need to apply and get turned down in a particular academic year to be eligible to appeal. You then take the most up-to-date info you can get to the appeal, so you are talking about the pupils in school NOW. You will be discussing a "snapshot" of the places at the time at the appeal. If I remember correctly, the appeal panel are not able to take into consideration any might-bes or could-bes, whether to your advantage (e.g. a child who may be moving away) or your disadvantage (e.g. the future Y1 may be at capacity of 30).

ACE should be able to clarify this for you...

Hope I have understood what you are asking!

Yes, you have, thank you. As I understand, it's for the future and at the moment I need to think about the issues which could help with the appeal for the reception year. I'm still not sure what could really work as whatever comes to my mind can be answered not the way I'm looking for like the examples I wrote in my previous posting.

Well, good luck and do ask again on here if you have any more questions. Let us know if ACE are useful.

I understand that fedda, we had to do the same as the school can't guarantee a Reception place even if the child is in nursery.

I meant, rather, that you can state that in your appeal, that your child is very settled due to being in the nursery. It seemed to work quite well for some other people I knew a couple of years ago and there are people this year at dd's school appealing on that front. Saying their child is shy, finds it hard to settle, has been happy in nursery, etc.

Thank you, imaginaryfriend, I'll try it. I'll let you know if it helped.
UnquietDad, I've called ACE after I read your advice on a previous postings on appeals which I found very useful and informative. it took me a very long time before finally I got through. I've almost gave up because instead of the usual message that the lines are busy, please wait and eventially being connected they were saying on a recorded message that they are a small charity and the lines are busy, please call again later. Each time I diled, was the same and after hundreds of times I had a chance to speak but unfortunately apart from them being nice and understanding they didn't give me any useful information or advice. It might be that some people there are better then others and I might try again though.

I think it maybe depends which advisor you get and on the particular circumstances of your case. I found them useful for telling me what questions to ask the school.

I'll definately try them again then. Thank you.

I called ACE today and they were very informative and supportive but I completely forgot to ask what questions I should ask the school. may I ask what questions they advice you to ask? if you don't feel like disclosing them I'll understand. I'll just have to try to get through again.

I'm trying to prepare well for the appeal and have as many points as possible to help my child to get a place in a school he loves so much. If anyone has any more tips/advice I'll be very grateful. Thank you.

sorry for not getting back to you before. I've been away for the weekend. The questions they advise you to ask depend very much on the situation you find yourself in. Ours were very particular to our situation.

One important thing is to question the school's arguments - ask them about the overall numbers in KS1, the size of the school, etc. Also if anyone else has been let in on appeal, this should set a precedent.

I've heard Ben Rooney's book is very good, although we didn't know about it ourselves at the time so I can't claim to have used it.

Thank you very much for replying. I've read the book and I think it's a very good book but I'm not sure it's helpful for my child because all the 60 places have been allocated. That's why I'm trying to search for some more tips on winning the appeal. I've called to find out whether my child's place on a waiting list has moved and it has but towards the wrong direction! There is no chance to wait and see what happens, I have to rely on the appeal alone.

I called them again and this time they sounded less encouraging. Last time I was speaking to someone who said that i have a strong case because I have another child at the school but this time i was told that the numbers are very strict and they think I don't have enough grounds for the appeal. i know of 3 other mums who are appealing but it sounds as if we wouldn't stand a chance. I don't want to give up though.

Its worth a try if you already have a child in the school. Im personally at the stage now where im looking at other schools that have places for both my girls. I think hell will freeze over before we get in at the local school

So you already have a child at the same school, or will they be leaving in July so there is no sibling priority?

In terms of questions you should ask the school/LEA before the appeal then you need to know of the 30 children offered places, how many were offered on each of the criteria (it depends on which borough you are in, but each school will have some sort of priority which goes to SN/"incare", siblings and then proximity). You also need to know which of these categories that your admission was put into - was it incorrectly excluded from the sibling category say. If you were in the proximity category, then how was the distance measured, and was it accurate? One family won an appeal because the school used postcode software which was inaccurate.

Your only grounds for appeal are whether this admission criteria have been correctly applied, so you need as much info about it as possible. Wheter this is the perect school for your ds or not will matter not one jot in an appeal - the only thing that you can appeal against really is that the school/LEA has incorrectly applied their criteria.

You can look at trying an appeal on the grounds that there is overall room within KS1, but I think that that is harder in London becuase it is hard to know what the numbers will be on the date of your appeal.

My child is not leaving the school in July, he will stillbe at school. Siblings priority is way down the list and the catchment area and children in public care, children in special needs come before siblings. What I don't understand is why for the secondary schools siblings priority are on a top of the list but for the primary they are not. It's not so critical for the secondary school because kids go there by themselves. In a way I have the problem with the admissions twice because when my older child is going to aply for the secondary school he wouldn't have a sibling there.
I don't really know how people manage to find out if there were mistakes in admitions. I only know of the handful of children admitted who belong to the priority admission area. I doubt anybody official will tell me how it was all decided. People can cheat on addresses they suply as you can see on another thread. Noone can cheat they already have a son or a daughter at school. Anyway, it's not possible to raise this matters in appeals because they want to hear your particular case and it's difficult to make a case not having enough information. I really don't know how to prepare properly.