Help needed to ascertain if it is definitely an infant class size appeal please?

[Bridge44]

Have much to think about in preparation for our daughters appeal. Would be very grateful for any help or advice at all please. Think it may be that we have no case to win our appeal on but for the sake of my child I really must be sure there's nothing we are missing that we could use to help our appeal for our village school. We and 3 other children are appealing for reception there and we are all absolutely gutted as all attend the attached preschool in a very community orientated village where the school is the heart. Although all of us are in catchment area we have all been offered a school over 3 miles away but live within a 10minute walk of the local school. The LA said that we have not been accepted as it is infant class size though we have only just submitted our appeal paperwork so we don't have any more information from them yet. They have already accepted 30 and that is the admission number each year except for reception for 17/18 it offered a higher intake of 45, however there's only 38 in this yr as it was a small yr and some of those children are from out of catchment as they struggled to fill the places from village children. Can someone please advise me if this in anyway helps our case. Previously until 2009 the school intake was 45 but dropped to 30 then apart from this one off increase to 45 the yr before last because of a predicted bulge yr that an extra classroom was built for. It seems like because of this and the consequences of that bigger intake along with the sibling rule this yr we have just missed out Thanks so much in advance for any thoughts or advice.

I'm afraid it won't help,your case.

It seems they did deliberately plan larger classes some years ago, and wouid have employed the teachers to allow them to do this legally.

That there are gaps in other year groups in the school, and that historically the classes have been arranged differently, does not alter this being an ICS appeal (which LA have confirmed) with PAN of 30 and one teacher.

You might want to attempt to build a case that the decision is so unreasonable that it is legally perverse, but I think you need to be realistic about your chances. The threshold is very high, and your DC is not the only child who will have to go to a more distant school.

Thanks for your reply meditrina. I thought as much.. We as a family are devastated at her not getting a place and when we spoke with the head she and the governors invited us to meet along with the other families and offered their support and encouragement to appeal they said that they felt that as a former middle school they have the capacity, space and willingness to take all the children but unless the appeal panel agrees they cannot do anything as there hands are tied. We are appealing on the grounds that this school is the right one for our daughters emotional and social needs as pretty much all community activities revolve around the school and its children being a distinct village. Its a long shot but we feel that we need to try and if we fail at least we cannot say we didn't try everything to get her the best start in the community. Its heartbreaking to think that she will effectively be a stranger to all the other kids at village events. Our village is like a big extended family that we won't really be able to be part of. I pray we might get lucky somehow..

The school have never not taken all the local children in the village who have applied so its pretty much just these 4 children and families who will be made to feel isolated from their community. Sorry to go on it just feels so unjust that people who don't have any idea about what it feels like to live in a close knit community make these decision that hugely affect us.

Sorry I've no advise, just want to wish you lots of luck! It would really be a shame for your daughter not to get a place and actually just very unfair. Good luck

Advise= advice

Thanks my dear it is nice to have your support. If nothing else it helps me feel slightly better than you understand what I have said! I had know idea how emotional and stressful this appeal process would be and I expect its going to be more so in the next few weeks. So upsetting when thinking about the little girl at the centre of it all. Of course we will be 100% positive about the school she goes to but we know that life will be very different depending on the outcome. I honestly don't think that I could go through it without my supportive OH. Thanks again.

Would mentioning a mistake the LA made in saying that the pan was going to be 45 again this year in published documentation prior to the deadline for school application then changing this afterwards, though still prior to the deadline and saying that it was a mistake help us at all? It was picked up on by another mum who enquired at the school about whether they were taking 2 classes again as she had seen the pan published as 45. The school response was to inform her that it was an error and apologize and it was then amended to 30 by the LA.

Mistakes will only count if it cost your child a place at the school

The mistake was publishing, for a while the incorrect PAN. This was corrected before applications closed.

Are you saying you wouid not have applied for this school had you known all along what the correct PAN? Did the error lead you to do anything differently on your form? Would you have made a different set of preferences?

What you mention might lead the school/LA to being censured, I think once again you,have tombe realistic about your chances of success.

And again, with apologies for being the cold voice, also be realistic about your chances. What you have listed in your case so far are 'balance of prejudice' which are not part of an ICS appeal.

You might stand a better chance on the angle of 'no village child has ever had to go to schol outside the village, ever', assuming this is indeed the case, and that the village is not growing (new houses etc, meaning you are unlucky in timing as there has to be a first year when the school is outgrown by the population, rather than it being a genuine, exceptional one-off)

Even then bear in mind that the threshold for exceptional/perverse is very high - things like child protection issues or placing a child who uses a chair in the onkymschool in a 10mike radius which is not adequately accessible.

On the face of it from what you have said this looks like an infant class size case, with a PAN of 30 and one class of 30. However there is one area here which you currently do not have information on.
You know that what will be year2 in september currently has 38 in the year group but not how the classes are being made up for reception, year 1 and year 2. The key issues are how many are there in what will be year 1 in September (which can be up to 30) based on the PAN and therefore how are the school going to handle the infant class size issues for the 38 in year 2. The school in theory has to plan on the basis that there could be 30 in year 1 (if that has a lower intake number than the PAN of 30). The official PAN for year 2 will be 30 also but as a bulge year the school agreed to take up to 45. This does not mean that they have to allow for 45 legally as any school can exceed the PAN with agreement, its just how you accommodate the extra pupils.
The school can make any decision they want in terms of classroom organisation so were they running two small year1 classes this year and are they going to run two small year 2 classes next year? If that is the case then you have an argument that the school, if they wish, can exceed the PAN and run with mixed age classes to accommodate the extras in reception in September and the 8 extra in year 2.
I have to say that if I was advising the school, I would be advising against this as it will cause issues for the school . However you need to be playing the community aspects of the school for all its worth and hope that the school feel obliged to find a way to take the 4 extra children.
If you can find out what the current year 1 class structure is and the numbers in current reception, then I can comment on what is the best structure to propose to the school but you need to do that before the appeal not at the appeal. If it goes to the appeal before it is raised the LA will say no, whereas you need the school to feel obliged to take the 4 pupils and make decisions as to how it can happen. If the school put it to the LA, then the LA will normally agree it but not if raised at the appeal.

Hi admission, thank you so much for your input. I have done a lot of reading on other posts here that you and others who have a lot of specialist knowledge in this area have been involved with and am very grateful for your advice to me now.
I have read your post through carefully quite a lot of times and I am still struggling with fully understanding exactly what it is that you are saying in terms of my understanding the full reasoning behind it but I think I get the main of it and am truly hoping that the school is considering taking us in this way, if it is a way forward in this situation, as from what has been said to us I think they want to, but I obviously don't know what the options are and I am just finding it hard to get my head completely around your comments. As far as I understand the yr 1 bulge, that's about to be going into yr 2 is made of 2 small classes of 17, that's where the extra classroom was built to accommodate them and presumably has 2 teachers, I am not confident of that but assuming that legally there has to be 2? Current reception who are about to go into yr 1 is a class of 29 with 1 teacher. When you say that the best structure to propose to the school needs to be before the appeal not at the appeal do you mean now rather than putting it in our submission letter that we have just sent in 2 days ago, the deadline for that is monday next week.

OP,
Unfortunately the numbers in the year groups do not work well for you.
As it stands in September what the school will be working to, is two small classes of 19 each to give the 38 in year 2, a single class of 29 in year 1 and a single class of 30 in reception.
The only way that the school can accommodate 4 extra pupils who are reception age is to have a reception class of 30 and then have 4 reception age pupils in what is a reception and year 1 class of 30, which would then mean that one of the year 2 classes has 4 year 1 pupils in a class leaving a class of 18 and a class of 22.
Being realistic that is not likely to happen as it means so much change. So I apologise for may be giving you some hope when the reality is that you are still in the position of the school not being able to exceed 30 in reception without breaking the infant class size regs.
Realistically your only option is to appeal on the basis of this has never happened before and the LA and school are putting the four pupils at a disadvantage. Whilst the panel will be sympathetic and will want to ensure that the 30 places offered were all offered to the right pupils, there is little chance of success because of the infant class size regs. Sorry

Such a shame that the numbers don't help us. Apparently the bulge yr 2 years ago included 27 siblings and 3 triplets. All we can do is try our best on the day and see what happens but at least we are going into it with our eyes open. Thanks for your advice, its worth knowing more about it even if it now seems more certain that our appeal will likely fail.

An appeal panel cannot direct a school to rearrange its year groups or to introduce mixed-year teaching.

The school as a whole may well be under numbers, but unfortunately for you, your year group is full.

So if the appeal panel cannot direct a school to rearrange its year groups or to introduce mixed-year teaching who decides? Is it down to the local authority or purely for the school to decide. (Its a community primary school not VC or VA or academy) I am asking about this because although admission said 'being realistic that is not likely to happen as it means so much change' but could it happen if the school really support the idea?

If the appeal panel directs a school to admit, then the school has to sort out its teaching as it sees fit. Up to them, not the panel or any other outsider.

Pupils admitted by appeal are formally excepted, so not count against the 30 rule. Thus means that, if the panel decide to admit, then the teaching group can be 34. That is one reason why the 'unreasonable decision' bar is very high - all the DC end up in a group which is larger than that permitted by law.

If it was one DC in a stable population village whowas the only DC in living memory to miss out, them I think the chances wouid be rather higher. But 4? And is the village growing?if it is, the school needs a proper, permanent increase to the size of the school. Or else there will be DC who cannot be accommodated every year, and a line will need to be drawn somewhere. This sucks when it's your DC affected, but ICS rules are the law.

The school could rearrange if it had 4 teachers in 4 classes:
Yr 2 = 24
Yr 1/2 = 14 yr 2 + 11 yr 1= 25
Yr R/1 = 18 yr 1 + 7 yr R= 25
Yr R = 27

But as has been said, a panel can't tell a school how to manage their numbers, so it would need to be suggested to the school prior to appeal, so that they are onboard. They may say it's not how they want to do things.

Thanks for your information everyone its really helpful for me to get my head round everything. My thoughts now are that I would think that the head would have already considered this by now so the school must have decided that's not what they want to do as otherwise we would have heard from the school already wouldn't we? Although actually we only just submitted our appeal letters by the deadline on Monday (3rd) and as yet haven't heard anything since from the LA to say its even been received so I guess until that happened it was not actually certain how many were appealing. Tho I am almost certain that the head is aware that 4 of us would be doing as the school invited us to meet with them shortly after receiving our results from the admission choices day in April. So does the school get to hear about the no of appeals once they have been submitted as a matter of course so that they get an opportunity to say what they think to the L.A before the appeal or not are they asked their opinions or do they have to act independently? I wonder if the head had considered changing how the school is operating and how they hear about appeals as am assuming that we as parents don't ask or is that the best way? The head and the governors were very open and encouraging of us to get in touch with them again if we wanted any more information but I don't want to be stepping in unless it is the right thing to do in this situation. Thanks again for an advice.

Number of questions to answer in your post. Firstly at the appeal it is usual for a maintained school appeal for the school to be represented by an LA Officer, who will make the case not to admit any more pupils and hopefully answer any questions that are asked of the school's case. Sometimes the head teacher is present if the LA representative is not secure in knowledge of the school and the headteacher then comes to answer any awkward questions.
The reason the headteacher is usually not there is because sometimes they have a tendency to side with the parents. If the headteacher is at the appeal then you really do need to use them to your best benefit, even if it seems wrong. So you should get then to admit that they have met with the 4 of you about the situation and that yes they have space to take all 4 of you. You need to engender as much sympathy as possible.
The school's case is agreed between the school and the LA and you will receive a copy about 7 days before the appeal, as they will receive a copy of your case. They tend to be of a fairly standard format for what is probably an infant class size case. The case has to be the same for all who appeal and will be very much we have admitted 30, our PAN is 30, 30 is the maximum we can have in an infant class, so it is an infant class size case.
On the basis of the headteacher not attending the appeal, I think that is the reason to write now whether the school will consider altering the class structure to accommodate the pupils. I will guarantee you that if it is raised at the appeal, the LA presenting officer will say very clearly that there is no chance of this happening and that it is an operational decision for the school. So ask now, you have nothing to lose by doing this as a letter from all 4 of the parents to the headteacher and chair of governors. Obviously if there are other siblings both older and younger then this needs to be put in the letter as we will have to also move these siblings if we can't attend. You just need to be creating as big a number of pupils the school is either going to lose or miss out on, so it seems the better option is to find a way of accommodating the extra 4.

Just drafted a letter and think have covered most of the main points.. there's only one younger sibling at the moment to consider so finding it hard to 'be creating as big a number of pupils the school is either going to lose or miss out on, so it seems the better option is to find a way of accommodating the extra 4.' Wondered if you would mind if I pm it to you for your thoughts please?