Infant class size appeal

[Coffeeandcrystals]

Hey all, a desperate parent here after any advice at all on Infant class size appeals.
I know they are hard to win. Success stories would be great.
We didn’t get our first choice school, it is our nearest school and we are number 6 on the waiting list, appeal has been lodged but awaiting the hearing date.

I don’t have any advice I’m afraid but I know of lots of families with summerborns who are deferring this year due to Covid/social distancing/missing so much nursery so you might be lucky. These families wouldn’t have considered it otherwise. Hope you get a place.

What are you basing your appeal on?

@Flipflopflapflip

I don’t have any advice I’m afraid but I know of lots of families with summerborns who are deferring this year due to Covid/social distancing/missing so much nursery so you might be lucky. These families wouldn’t have considered it otherwise. Hope you get a place.

Yes, I’m in the same predicament. LO is summer born so I could defer him but then working out childcare and a new preschool place is proving difficult. He seems fairly ready for reception as he went to preschool and has continued going in on the odd day due to them taking keyworker children. I guess I may have to weigh it all up again, thank you. x

@Pud2

What are you basing your appeal on?

It’s highly likely that it will be an infant class size issue so I have been trying to get all the Freedom of Information requests in to the LA so I can see if any error or mistakes were made. Failing that, my appeal is solely based on; A medical issue on my part which requires consideration for the nearest school, convenient school as our only support network are parents with children at that school, work commitments which mean we can make use of its wraparound care, (school offered doesn’t have the right times available), close friendship groups from preschool all going to that school and wirh covid etc worried he may not be able to settle anywhere else new again also being summer born.

It’s a long shot I know, but it’s Numerous factors causing us to appeal rather than just the one.

Friendship groups, wraparound care and your support network will have no bearing at an infant size appeal. You should concentrate your efforts on whether an error has been made, however even if an error was made would it have denied you a place given that you are 6th on the waiting list. Sorry, but nothing you have so far written seems to indicate you have much chance of a successful appeal.

@Hersetta427

Friendship groups, wraparound care and your support network will have no bearing at an infant size appeal. You should concentrate your efforts on whether an error has been made, however even if an error was made would it have denied you a place given that you are 6th on the waiting list. Sorry, but nothing you have so far written seems to indicate you have much chance of a successful appeal.

Yes, still looking to see there was any error but unlikely. Initially, I put the appeal in because I thought we have to prove that the child would be more disadvantaged of not attending than the school would be by increasing class size. I have since looked into it a lot more and realised it’s not as straightforward as that.

Does the school have family medial/social grounds in its admissions criteria, and if so, did you apply on this basis? If not, your best bet is to get independent written support from a professional who can verify that your condition is such that no other school is suitably located for you as a parent to take your child to school. Panels see tough cases every year, so childcare issues and friendship groups really don't carry any weight by themselves, nor should they.

@BreconBeBuggered

Does the school have family medial/social grounds in its admissions criteria, and if so, did you apply on this basis? If not, your best bet is to get independent written support from a professional who can verify that your condition is such that no other school is suitably located for you as a parent to take your child to school. Panels see tough cases every year, so childcare issues and friendship groups really don't carry any weight by themselves, nor should they.

No I don’t believe it does. Thank you, have sent in letters from my consultant/employer and educational professionals who can comment on my LO.

There are very limited grounds for successful appeal under ICS rules

Essentially
A) the entrance criteria were in some way unlawful - not giving priority to a group they must (LAC) or giving priority to a group they must not. This is very rare. It does not mean that 'they could have done it differently within the code' - admissions authorities do not have use every possibly criterion, but once criteria are published for that year they must stick to them. Blatant gerrymandering of catchment areas (defined priority admission areas) could count as this.

B) there has been a mistake in processing the application and that error has cost your DC a place they would have been offered if no error had mpbeen made

Have you checked that they placed your DC is the correct oversubscription category and that they have the distance (usual tiebreaker) correct?

C) the decision is so unreasonable that it's perverse in a legal sort of sense (no rational person could possibly have made it) - the threadhold for this is very high, child protection issues or significant mobility issues (like placing a child who needs to use a wheelchair in the only school for miles around which is not adequately accessible)

Your case looks like a long shot, but it is still worth trying. Check if the school had an exceptional social need category - some LAs will place major mobility issues in the primary care giver into that category. It won't win you an appeal, as the council did not have that information when they processed your application so it's not an error, but you can get it lodged with them (outside the appeals process as well) now and maybe move up the waiting list if it moves you to a higher category

Wraparound care, or other school run logistics, really won't come in to it, sorry

Thank you. The LA did have the information about my condition but it didn’t have any bearing at that point. Just praying for a miracle otherwise home school it is. :(

Have you had a chance to check if there was an exceptional need category?

Their criteria is;
Baptised Catholic
Sibling
Looked after child -LA/fostered etc
ECHP
Then distance from church.

The issue with the latter is that the school has moved locations so is around 1.7 miles away from the church. Whereas my home address is 0.3 from the school rather than the church. Child is Not baptised. So other non baptised children who live closer to the church have received a place before us.

Hope that makes sense.

That's an interesting one. The school moving wouldn't be helpful to you in itself in my experience, but perhaps @admission or @prh47bridge might have a view on distance from the church being a reasonable admissions criterion? (I'm surprised to see LAC so low as well, but I only have local experience).

It's a permitted way to measure distance. Schools can have non-contiguous catchments. So if the distance from home to church door looks right, there won't have been an error.

I think you need to be realistic about the chances of success at appeal.

I have serious problems with those admission criteria.

EHCP shouldn't be on there at all. If the school wants to list that as an admissions category it absolutely must be first. The school is required by law to admit any child with an EHCP naming the school.

As a Catholic school they must have Catholic LAC as the highest priority for admissions after EHCP. It is permitted to give non-Catholic LAC lower priority than Catholic children but they must be higher priority than any other non-Catholic children. So non-Catholic LAC can be lower priority than Catholic siblings but, if there is a general category for siblings regardless of faith, non-Catholic LAC must be higher priority.

The Admissions Code talks about "distance from the school" and refers to the "point in the school from which all distances are measured". Whilst there is nothing specific banning the school from using distance from the church, I would argue that it is unreasonable to use distance from a point that is nearly 2 miles from the school, especially given that the statutory walking distance for children under 8 (i.e. the distance at which entitlement to free transport kicks in) is 2 miles.

The problem with this is that, if the appeal panel accepts the argument, they will need the school to remeasure the distances for all applicants to determine whether or not you would have got a place. Also, if this affects other appellants, it will be taken into account for their cases as well. That may show that more appeals should succeed than the school can possibly handle, which means the appeal panel must then compare the cases to determine which appeals to allow. You therefore need to make the best possible case as to why your child needs to attend this school.

If you would like to PM me the name of the school and LA involved I will be happy to take a proper look at their admission criteria and advise.

I agree with PRH that there are some worrying areas of the admission criteria as posted. However we need to look at the detail in the admission criteria as in many of these faith school admission criteria you will find there is some detail that needs to be incorporated in the admission criteria but are not that obvious.
I am more than happy, as PRH is, to look at the admission criteria if OP can PM me the school name and local authority.

I dont have much advice but i am waiting for a hearing date myself for infant size class appeal, some advice i have been given is to get everything in that you want to say at the hearing, the panel are not allowed to argue with anything you say, i have heard of people winning because they have had a sympathetic panel, i hope everything goes well for you! :)

Sorry, I may have completely misinterpreted their admission criteria, first time doing this and my heads a jumble with everything I’ve found so far.
Also when I did research it, it said faith schools put out the consultation for their admission criteria a year before and unless anyone challenges it, it is then approved by the LA and is binding. I will send you the name of the school and I’ll be grateful for your views. When I first looked into it in April, everything seemed very airtight.

Sorry, that’s probably the way I’ve written it. I think their admission criteria was a concern when I checked with someone in April, aside from the church and school aspect being a bit unusual as historically the church and school are next to each other.
I shall PM you the name of school and so grateful for your input. Thanks.

Thank you, fingers crossed for you too. X

Good to hear you had misinterpret the criteria because there would be a serious problem if those were correct and I’d be amazed if they’d been agreed. The ombudsman would be over them like a rash!

Just to clarify, now that the OP has told me which school is involved I have seen their admission criteria. They are generally ok. However, the OP is correct that they measure distance from the church rather than the school. The church isn't quite as far from the school as the OP says but I think there is an argument that it is unreasonable to use distance from a point that is around 1 mile away from the school.