Advice re potential primary school appeal

[Pl242]

Hi. Hoping some of the knowledgeable people on these threads might be able to help.

We didn’t get our first choice primary school. This wasn’t a massive surprise but have just found out waiting list info and how offers were made which has raised some question marks on the process for me.

Background is as follows. We would have been close enough to get a place in 2018 but not 2019. But at the school tours we were told that 2019 had been a bumper year for siblings and they were expecting a third of those sibling numbers for 2020 applications. Whilst obviously no guarantees this gave us some hope that we might get in on distance.

However come offer day the last place offered distance was half of that in 2019 and we have now found out that there were almost 4x the amount of siblings than the number the head mentioned at the tour! (DH and I went to tours separately and I’ve checked with other friends and we all recollect the sibling number mentioned so sure we are not all misremembering).

We are way down the waiting list so no chance really that we will get a place that way. So I wonder if an appeal is worth it to explore the sibling numbers vs what parents were told at tours? Any thoughts?

Many thanks.

As long as you have no reason to dispute the amount of siblings allocated places then I can't see this being any grounds on which you would win an appeal as it did not lead to a mistake in dealing with your application that cost you a place.

Firstly, would the appeal be Infant Class Size? Are there 30 pupils to a teacher in any of YR, Y1 or Y2?

If so, you can only win on very limited grounds - that the admission criteria were unlawful, or that the admissions authority made a mistake that cost you a place, or that the decision not to admit your child was perverse (in a legal sense).

If it's not ICS then there is more scope, but I don't think I see what your point with the siblings is. Someone in the school was either misinformed or made a error when mentioning the expected siblings to you - this doesn't seem to give any grounds to appeal unless you think there has been a mistake made. Presumably siblings have priority in the admissions criteria?

That said, it's always worth appealing, especially if it's not ICS as you never know, but the fact there are a lot more siblings than you were led to believe isn't relevant.

Just to add, headteachers aren't always the most informed when it comes to admissions. They may think they know what the intake may consist of for the following year, but there are always siblings they thought were younger applying or families living in catchment they had no idea about. The headteacher may have just been trying to convey that the previous year was oversubscribed to a level they didn't expect and that they expected a more normal level of applications this year. To be honest, you never know what your applications will contain. We had two sets of twins from the same family one year! That was unexpected....

Thanks both. Yes. It would be an ICS and siblings get priority in the admissions criteria. Usually it wouldn’t even cross my mind to question sibling numbers but on several prospective parent tours and at an open evening in front of many many people, the head teacher kept stating that they only expected 10/11 siblings in the 2020 applications. I’m just really surprised that this information was stated publicly time and time again when the final sibling numbers were nearly 40 of the 60 available places. It’s very possible and likely that I’m just annoyed of having my expectations raised, as were many other families! But it just seems so odd to me that there was such a difference between the two numbers. Hence whether an appeal would at least ensure the governors look at it?

So are you suggesting that the sibling places were awarded to "non-siblings" i.e. a mistake was made? I'm not sure what you want the governors to look at - this has nothing to do with them.

I think that’s my point/question. I don’t know if sibling places were awarded mistakenly to non-siblings. Obviously that seems very unlikely. But if the head was so confident of projected sibling numbers it does raise a red flag when they were out by a factor of 4. I only mention the governors as it’s an academy and I believe they oversee admissions.

Sibling numbers are only ever an estimate until the application process.
I understand your disappointment but you have no chance of winning an appeal on these grounds
The head can say they had more siblings applying than they had originally expected. Unfortunately this changes nothing for your child.

Thanks for the replies. I am reluctant to go down the route of an appeal I cannot win and your responses have confirmed my gut on this.

This school was the only one who gave such a precise answer to questions about likely catchment and siblings etc. I think I’m just annoyed about the head delivering that sibling estimation with such confidence and so publicly. I feel it was a pretty irresponsible thing to do tbh. But you’re all correct. My disappointment. Not grounds for appeal.

Thanks for all the advice to me and others here navigating admissions for the first time!

Not grounds for appeal but maybe a letter (complaint?) to explain to the head that giving out inaccurate (at best) or misleading information to gain 1st place choices is pretty unprofessional and has real consequences to families such as yours. You may have moved to ensure entry, or put another school first if you were not sure of your child would get in as first choice. If you complain about the head it will need to go to someone like the chair of govs or trust exec.

This almost happened to us with the previous HT of my children's school. Luckily I didn't believe her and moved into catchment.

It doesn't make any difference to your application chances whether you put a school first or not. And it's unlikely that OP would have had chance to move between school tours and application closing. It's clearly OP liked this school, so I don't think knowing she had less chance of getting in would have affected her applying to it. The only thing it would have affected was her expectation of a place, and she was aware there were no guarantees.

Yes. I think what’s bothering me - it’s that I think my expectations were raised. This could have been a genuine mistake. I really hope it wasn’t done to inflate the number of applications. Having seen the 2019 distances (after I moved to the area) I had thought it was unlikely. Yet the spiel given at the tours raised my hopes again as it suggested catchment could go out to 2018 distances which would have meant it was pretty likely we would have got a place. Oh well. You live you learn. And for extra context we live less than 0.5 mile from the school and catchment is now less than half of that. Really is mad!

It was probably an off-the-cuff remark about thinking they were expecting fewer siblings this year, and possibly based on faulty information (eg feeder nursery saying they haven't got very many younger siblings coming up this year, and head not realising there's a lot in the next nursery along). Things can also change - I knew a situation where a family moved in and there was space for the oldest one in an over-subscribed school - which meant his triplet brothers went into the sibling category for reception admissions.

The thing was it wasn’t said in an off the cuff type of way. It was said pretty formally, precisely and said repeatedly. The school opened in 2016 so the eldest cohort are current finishing year 3. So it was also said in the context of “we have fewer kids than other schools so we are able to give a more precise projection of sibling numbers”. I thought the info was really helpful at the time but in retrospect I think it would have been better if they’d said nothing or overestimated to better manage people’s expectations.

None of that will help you win an appeal though unless children have incorrectly been placed in the siblings category. The headteacher was just mistaken. Assuming these are all siblings there was no error in dealing with your application - you just didn't get a place as you lived to far away. Unless you can find out that all these children weren't in fact siblings then I think you are concentrating on her remarks too much as none of it will help at appeal.

Actually, now you've given the size of the school, I can see why you are surprised. 40/60 places going to siblings is high especially in a school where there are only 4 year groups, so 240 children? By contrast, the school I am a governor at has around 47 siblings in an intake of 90 for Sept, from a school roll of 630. We would normally estimate around 40-50% intake is siblings, so 40/60 is high.

Where does the sibling number come from, OP?

Yes. As I’ve said above comments here have cemented my view that we wouldn’t win an appeal and we won’t go down that route. I will put this to one side and move on. My reflection is however that admissions can be a fraught process particularly if you live in an area where catchments can be tiny. Hence I think the message given to prospective parents by the headteacher in this instance was really unhelpful. It will doubtless be giving the school more work now as it’s not only me in our area who has been taken aback by the true number of siblings that have emerged and which has resulted in very few children being offered a place on the distance criteria.

Hi @PatriciaHolm. I got the sibling number from the school directly on the email with our waiting number place. It’s not a community school so sibling numbers didn’t come out on offer day via the LA, just the last distance offered. I’m not 100% on this but think they said there was 30ish sibling places offered last year when there would have been 180 kids in school overall. Loads of people having a subsequent child within 1/2 years I suppose?

You have absolutely no grounds for appeal.

Please do not complain to or about the Head as suggested by pp. that’s a ridiculous suggestion.

Can see why you are so disappointed but you don’t have grounds for appeal unfortunately.

So if they had 30ish siblings last year on a roll of 180, then 40 on a roll of 240 actually doesn't seem unreasonable. If it comes directly from the school then it is unlikely to be incorrect.

It sounds like the Head simply was misinformed, or had misunderstood something - could be as simple as someone told him "we are expecting 10 more siblings than last year", and they heard "we are expecting 10 siblings this year".

Thanks @PatriciaHolm. Yes. Maybe that is what has happened. I’ll take such things with a pinch of salt in future though that will be secondary applications now! Thanks for all the replies. We fortunately got allocated our second choice of school which we are happy with so very fortunate compared to many. Will put the first choice school out of our minds now and focus on where our child is actually going to school (if they are open by September - whole other thread 😬).

It would be sensible to check whether the school has an attached nursery. If they do then I am sure that they would have a good idea about the number of siblings involved, so it then seems a bit "off" for the headteacher to be making comments that were not correct.
I am afraid that you have a problem that happens with many new schools. When they started they will for the first couple of years have been struggling to get pupils in and so accepted anyone that applied.
You will find that a good number of the siblings will be coming from a distance that is larger then your distance of 0.5 Miles, which is no comfort to you and is a consequence of giving preference to siblings in a new school.

Thanks for your reply @admission. There isn’t a nursery attached. He seemed very confident in the projected numbers and I thought he wouldn’t have mentioned them if he wasn’t. But it was seemingly incorrect. Doubt I’ll ever know why! Yes. The catchments were much bigger at the start of the school so siblings and children of staff coming in from much further away but I suppose that’s just the way it is...

So are you suggesting that the sibling places were awarded to "non-siblings" i.e. a mistake was made? I'm not sure what you want the governors to look at - this has nothing to do with them

Governors are the admissions authority in a faith school so are involved in appeals. However, there are no grounds for an appeal here I’m afraid. Also, no grounds for a complaint to the school either whoever suggested that!

A little update. I responded to the email
I got from the school asking (not complaining!) for some clarification about sibling numbers given what had been said at the school tours.

They clarified that for September 2020 entry the sibling policy included having a sibling at the academy senior school. Out of the 39 siblings offered a place in Reception 13 were siblings of students at the Academy and therefore they’re saying It’s likely that the estimated sibling figure mentioned at the school tours was for siblings at the academy.

This was not how it was put across at the time and I do still think communication from the head was confusing. But I hold my hands up. I didn’t realise that sibling policy included siblings from pupils at the secondary but it’s there in black and white in the admissions guide.

So any parents reading this re future applications, do read the small print!