In-Year Primary Appeals - what questions to ask?

[ohblahdee]

Hello,
We are relocating (quite rural) at half term and have only managed to get 2 of our children into the primary school (Academy)of our choice, our son Y5 has been refused a place on the grounds of prejudice to the provision of efficient education and the efficient use of resources.

The school was the only one in the whole area that at least two places so thats why we went for that one (and its where we will be living).

Year 5 have been at 33 recently and I've been told currently at 31 and my son is the only person on the waiting list. They have quite a lot of movement apparently so a place may come up naturally.
I've logged an appeal, hoping to argue they could accommodate an extra child as they have done so before.

I've read the Ben Rooney book, many mumsnet (so helpful!) threads but I am still a bit confused as to where I should be asking my questions and what I need to find out.

Could anyone advise what exactly I need to find out, ie: class capacity, floor space etc and who to ask it too? I feel bad asking the school to accept my son and make the class even bigger and would feel guilty asking the school and them then maybe feeling negative towards my children. So I really want to minimise what I ask the school.

many thanks!

You should not feel guilty about asking the school anything and they will be well used over the years to having admission appeals for the school.

From you post I would assume that the published admission number (PAN) for the year group is 30 but that is what you need to get clarity on. The fact that they have been at 33 in the year group and are now at 31 is a positive for you, even if it is still over the PAN because they can hardly claim that they cannot accommodate another pupil if they have had 33 in the class until recently. You need to understand that the school will nearly always say they cannot admit if they are at or above PAN even though in reality they can take them.

Thank you for your reply admission, you seem almost famous to me from all the reading I’ve done!
do you think it is necessary to get data on classroom footage and net capacity to support that they physically have room for my son? Their last published teacher ratio was 21.9 a little higher than average and I wonder if that’s a worry. Also their writing results have dipped which i am guessing they might argue extra pupils are causing a problem - though ofsted report doesn’t mention this as a cause but just more teacher training needed sort of thing.

Very grateful for your advice!

It's possible they are actually wanting to take your child (for the funding) but still need to go through the appeal route so they're seen to be objective. On the flip side, they may have reasons that they aren't keen to share with you about why an additional child would be prejudicial now when they've taken 33 previously - a high number of SEN children in the class, maybe issues with staffing (eg no longer able to afford a TA in the class).