Help. Child offered place at different school to sibling

[Maiden247]

Basically my youngest has been offered a place at a different (not preferenced) school to his sister. Please can I have some good tips for what to put in my appeal letter? TYIA

Do you live in catchment of the school still?

No but to travel it takes exactly the same amount of time

Does the school have sibling priority?

I think you need to start by checking whether the admissions authority has made a mistake.

Does it say in email, in which admissions category your DC was considered? If it does not say, you need to find out. If they got it wrong, and put you in the wrong category, then you should win an appeal (if you would have been offered a place if they had not made a mistake)

If it was as bumper year for siblings, not all got a place and younwere beyond the greatest distance offered; or if you are an out of catchment sibling and the school filled up with in-catchment applicants, or you made the error by omitting to mention the sibling on the form, then yunwill probably just have to cross your fingers on the waiting list.

Have you received the letter or email yet? That should provide more information.

You first need to check that there hasn’t been an error. Did you flag up that this was a sibling application? Where were you in the school’s oversubscription criteria? If (say) you are in the out of catchment sibling category and that’s low on the priority list, and all places have been filled from higher priorities/children living nearer, it may be very hard to win an appeal - if the infant class size rules apply here, you’ll only win if there’s been an error or the decision is so unreasonable as to be irrational.

I phoned the admissions yesterday and they said that we are sibling our of catchment which is lower down their priority list. He is however top of the waiting list so fingers crossed someone declines their offer. Still need to appeal to be on the safe side

It is v difficult to win a primary appeal due to ICS and irrespective of ICS travel logistics are not a strong basis for appeals but good luck and hopefully you'll get in via wait list but don't pin hopes on an appeal.

Struggling a bit to see your grounds for appeal if it's infant and the class has been filled by children higher up the criteria.

For an appeal to be successful you need to be able to show an error has occured in the selection criteria. In this case it doesn’t sound like that is the case

F

There is nothing wrong with trying an appeal. You may strike it lucky. But you need to be realistic. It doesn't sound like a mistake was made so, if this is an infant class size case, your chances of success are small.

People tend to assume that all primary admissions cases are infant class size but that isn't true. Most are but not all. If this is not an infant class size case you will have a better chance of success but you will need to come up with better arguments. You need to show that he will be disadvantaged if he doesn't go to this school. Wanting him to be at the same school as his sister is not a strong case. It is clearly more convenient for you if they are both at the same school but it is not clear that there is any significant disadvantage for your son if they aren't.

Thanks everyone. Yes I must admit one of my main reason is the inconvenience. But it will mean either a child being left in a playground on their own for 20 mins so I can get from one school to the other which is a safety issue, or one will be 20 mins late to school every day.
I have checked the school performances and the school offered is below national average whereas my DD is currently performing above average in all maths, English and reading. Moving her to the other school could really affect this.

Are you sure your child would be on their own if you dropped them off 20 minutes early? Many schools have staff in the playground by then.

Quite. And any appeal panel is likely to ask why you couldn’t use a childminder to do one of the drop-offs. They won’t be sympathetic to any suggestion that one child would be late every day.

Honestly, you will not win an appeal unless there has been an administrative error. And there has not. Go on the waiting list, but an appeal is a waste of everyone’s time.

Have you moved since your child started at the (preferred) school, OP or has the catchment area shrunk a bit in the meantime?

Where I live there is a high birthrate this admissions year (and for quite a few afterwards, I hear!) so the last admission distance for a lot of schools has changed even if they don't have a catchment area.

You say you are top of the waiting list, so hopefully a place will pop up soon.

You are first on the waiting list, my advice would be to wait until you are offered a place.

You will not win an appeal, it will be a waste of time. He is already very likely to get a place when people start to accept/decline offers so why not wait and see what happens?

Does neither school have a breakfast / after school club?

It sounds like you have a good chance of getting in via the waiting list. Unfortunately, this is the danger of having a child at an out of catchment school (that you won't get a place for siblings). As others have said, the onus is on you to make the 2 schools work. As wel as other suggestions made,I would imagine another parent would happily watch your DC before school. How old is oldest child? Would it be better to try to move them?

Unfortunately it will be your job to manage the drop offs etc, with school wraparound care, childminder or friends. Do neither of the schools have before or after school clubs? This is the risk you run by going out of catchment with your eldest I'm afraid. It's happened to lots of families round here. They clubbed together to organise rotas, and friends helped out with dropping off the older ones.

You should have an excellent chance of getting him in by Sept but I don't think any of the reasons you've given are worth your time appealing. I would hold my nerve for now and hope a place comes up for him, but if you really can't find a way to make the drop offs work and no place comes up then you will have to move your eldest. Assuming the less popular school has space for her.

At least one of these schools surely has a breakfast club. You may just have to make it work until a place comes up.