Are any secondary school admission appeals experts on MN please?

[NeneValley]

I know there’s a couple of knowledgeable school appeals posters on MN. Just wondering if any can advise me please?

Appeal date is 11th June. By Zoom video link due to Covid restrictions.

There’s about 60 pupils in Year 6.
58 of son’s Year 6 applied for this particular secondary school, and only 38 were offered. These stats were posted to me as part of the Appeal process.

All my son’s friends were allocated this particular school, whilst my son was allocated his second choice. His sister is in Year 8 at this second choice school.

Son sat the Fair Banding test and his test results allocated him to Band 2 under sub heading ‘primary school with traditional link’.
I don’t know how he did in the test.

It says he was ultimately allocated using a ‘random number generator’. So by luck he didn’t get his first choice secondary school.

This school is always oversubscribed. The other two secondary schools in town always undersubscribed. The town’s private school isn’t relevant here, it wasn’t a financial option for us.

My son has 400% attendance at primary school (or would have if Covid didn’t happen). He’s in top classes for all subjects and middle for English. He isn’t ‘gifted and talented’ or whatever it’s called nowadays, at all. He’s liked by everyone, is polite, quietly confident and enjoys schoolwork. He always win headmaster awards, etc

Clerk organising the appeal with us informed us that there are 30 appeals for this school.
Over 550 children countywide applied to this school and only 241 were allocated.
Over 100 of those were sibling link. (Unfortunately for my son his two best friends are both twin sets and all 4 of them got into the school!)
which was the biggest allocation factor above all else - staff children, SEN, Academy Trust’s own primary schools, etc.
Proximity doesn’t factor in, they said.

I have stats but don’t know how to prove a mistake was made.
I can’t convince a business, which is what the school effectively is, to accept my son as a saleable commodity because my son won’t make a huge difference to their results as they’re already great on results ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted grade already).

How do I sell my son to an already oversubscribed school when he is only academically satisfactory?

My last hope is to email son’s current junior school headmaster to request a letter of commendation, but I already know that isn’t sufficient ‘evidence’ to win an appeal on.

I don’t have a hope in hell of winning the appeal do I?

What mistake do you think has been made?

I think it would be very hard to prove any mistake has been made, by your own admission he is not a sibling nor in any of the priority categories (SEN, LAC etc) and the remaining places were allocated randomly so there is not mistake on distance.
School won’t care what his attendance or attainment is.
Your only hope is if this school has something no other school in the area has. Eg a mandarin language club and you child already takes that language, or a fencing club and you child competes in county teams.

If your dd is at second choice why do you feel school 1 is better for him? It is not necessarily a mistake that will "win" but arguments as to why he needs this school in particular ie extra curricular interests or subjects offered/ specialised in that second choice does not have.

Even if your son was smart as Stephen Hawking and sporty enough to play for England they are not going to accept him if there hasn't been a mistake in the process. The stuff about winning awards doesn't matter to a state school as they are for everyone.

Nothing in your post suggests that you have a case tbh

Given that this is a secondary school appeal, the way that you get a place offered is to make a sufficiently strong case in part 2 of the appeal , such that the panel are swayed by your arguments. This has to be on the basis of the strengths of the school and why your son wants to go to the school. Having friends there is not a reason that will get you a place. It needs to be things like the school teaches russian and your son has a real and provable desire to learn russian.

Whilst I would always want to question the admission criteria of the school, from what you have said it does not appear to be the case that no mistakes were made in not allocating a place. As you say it is random as to whether your son was pulled out of the hat for one of the places available in Band 2.

Concentrate on reasons to want to go to the school, unless you are convinced a mistake was made.

As this is a secondary school appeal you don't need to prove that a mistake has been made. I agree with Admission that it doesn't sound like there has been a mistake. However, you can win by showing that the disadvantage to your son through not going to this school outweighs any problems the school will face through having to cope with an additional pupil.

You don't have to sell your son to the school. They aren't making the decision. That will be made by an independent appeal panel.

Thankyou everyone.

@prh47bridge The appeal panel has someone called ‘a representative of the school and the academy trust’ present on the day, who will be ‘involved in making the decision’.

It doesn’t sound like an impartial panel because of that?

You can present your case and so can the school/trust. That’s what that representative does. They are not on the panel but will attend and the panel can ask questions of them.

What mistake do you believe has been made?

The representative of the school/trust should be there to present the case to refuse admission. They will also question you about your case, as will the appeal panel, and they will answer any questions you or the panel ask about their case. They must not at any point be with the appeal panel unless you are also present. They must not take any part in the decision making process. The decision must be made purely by the members of the independent appeal panel. The only person who should be with the panel when they make their decision is the clerk, who is there to take notes and give the panel any legal advice they need.

It sounds like you've got things a bit mixed up. You aren't selling your DS to the school. You're trying to tip a weighing scale in favour of the benefit of your DS attending the school, against the problems it will create for the school.

Look at all the things school 1 and school 2 offer. Compare them. Make a list of benefits of your preferred school. Remember that any negative issues with the allocated school has to be turned around into a positive of your preferred school. For example, say your allocated school does a 3 year Key Stage 4, so they choose options in year 8 and study GCSEs over 3 years. You don't like it. You can't say that because you aren't arguing against the allocated school. But what you can say is "The preferred school has a 2 year KS4. This will benefit Thomas because he takes time to establish himself in subjects and it will give him longer to discover his strengths and weaknesses, as he won't have to choose options until year 9.'

You only have to convince the panel that he would benefit marginally more than the school would suffer by taking another child to win. Having said that, if there are many appeals that would 'win', the panel may have to decide which ones are in most need of a place, because they can't admit everyone. So you want to make your appeal as strong as possible.

Agree with PP. What are the reason that your son needs a place at the school that outweighs the problems of having an extra pupil in the school? Problems for the school - extra resources and lack of space.

As PP have said attendance and intelligence at current school, not being able to go to a private school are not relevant. If it is oversubscribed then random allocation (luck) can be fair, you would evidence that it was not done properly.

Friends would not a reason without more - why can’t your son make new friends in his new school? Why can’t he see his current friend’s socially after school or at weekends?

For example does your son have diagnosed disability that makes it harder to make friends at school?

Downplay the appeal with your son. He should not “attend” or be in the same room over zoom.

On a somewhat related note, my child's primary school application has been rejected for a reason that I'm very confused about. Would it be possible to discuss it with one of the admissions experts here in private? Thanks very much in advance.

Feel free to PM me.

Thanks!