Infant class size appeal help

[RJC91]

Hi I’m currently in the process of appealing an infant school place which I know is virtually impossible. We moved house during lockdown and our paperwork Was delayed so couldn’t send evidence of our new address with our application. In addition to this my little girl has had a very turbulent year a new baby then with her baby brother having meningitis twice, her dad having sepsis, her nanna being diagnosed with terminal cancer, a house move. Her childminder who has been looking after her since birth and now has her little brother can not drop her or collect her from the school she has been given nor can we,a teacher and a firefighter, this would mean splitting siblings into a number of childcare settings. Her allocated school is 2.2 miles away from our home and her first choice is 0.4miles away where her childminder can collect and drop off from and four of the settings other children will attend reception with her. If our appeal is unsuccessful, this September she will start a new school knowing no one, lose her nanna and her childminder two detrimental security figures for her and I strongly believe this will destroy her emotional well being and be damaging to the start of her academic life. I have of course mentioned all this in her appeal, I just wondered if any of this would class as an exceptional circumstance or if I really don’t stand a chance of what I know is best for child. Any advice would be greatly appreciated :) so worried for her.

When is her birthday? Can't you delay school and put her name on the waiting list of the first choice school?

If feel for u but think it will depend on if there is actually a space. They cant take away someone's space to give it to her. She has no siblings in the school so that won't help. Many children lose a grandparent. Have a sibling. Move house. Change childcare. Maybe not al at once but wouldn't say any of it is exceptional. She has a warm stable home with a mum who loves her. She will thrive i am sure. My son started school not knowing anyone and I felt for him. But he wasn't emotionally destroyed. He made pals. Like he will need to do again at work. At uni. She will be fine in any case. Its less than perfect but far from going to destroy her. But good luck u just need there to be a spade really.

I can’t actually see anything here that would justify an infant class size appeal. I thought they only tend to succeed if the school has failed to apply their applications process properly. You need @PKRBridge as they are the expert

The rules for an infant class size case give the panel very little freedom. They can only award a place if the admission arrangements did not comply with the Admissions Code or relevant law and this has cost your daughter a place, the admission arrangements were not administered correctly and this has cost your daughter a place, or the decision to refuse admission was unreasonable. The bar for a decision to be regarded as unreasonable is very high - in essence, you have to show that the decision was irrational based on the information the admission authority had at the time.

The stuff about the problems you believe your daughter will face isn't really relevant. If the appeal panel follows the rules they should not allow the appeal on that basis. It is still worth including because appeal panels do sometimes make decisions that seem to bend the rules but I wouldn't build your hopes on it.

You say that you couldn't send evidence of your new address with your application due to lockdown. I'm puzzled by that. The closing date for applications was 15th January but lockdown didn't start until 16th March. Can you explain that a bit more? Did you apply late? Or did you move after applying? Please set out what happened when in as much detail as you can. It is a long shot but it is just possible you may have an argument to put to the appeal panel based on this.

Unfortunately, although totally justified, your reasons for wanting this school are no more compelling than anyone else’s.

As PPs have said, I’m pretty sure you need to categorically prove that your chosen school did not abide by their own published admissions criteria when they failed to offer your DD a place.

Sorry I’ll explain, we submitted the application on time in our current address, there was a date to submit any changes to the application such as the address which was in April, we were due to move on the 31st of March into a new build and had to provide a Letter from the solicitors saying that we had exchange contracts by the date in April however due to lockdown the builders building our house and the solicitors all shit meaning we couldn’t provide the evidence of the contracts to be exchanged until after the date provided and we could no longer use it on our original application. We changed her address which put us first on the waiting list however if we hadn’t gone into lock down we would have had all the relevant paperwork to use it on our initial application.

Her birthday is the 13rd of August

@prh47bridge

Her birthday being 13th August means you could potentially defer entry to Reception until next year.

I'm a little surprised they would take an address change that late into account. Check what it says about changes of address carefully. Most LAs only accept a change of address for at most three or four weeks after the closing date for applications. Any address change after that results in you being treated as a late application. However, if your council was prepared to accept a new address in March and still treat you as on time, and if you made them aware of the situation, you could argue that, given the lockdown, they were unreasonable not to accept your new address. I'm not convinced an appeal panel would accept this argument but it is worth a try.

If you are unsure of your council's rules regarding changes of address I will be happy to take a look for you. Feel free to PM me the name of the council involved if you don't want to post it publicly.

The rules on infant class sizes are fixed. You won't be the only ones in this situation. Your best hope is that parents withdraw/defer their places this year, as could you based on her birthday. Moving always causes issues, I homeschooled for 5 months to get my kids places because I simply couldn't get them to the allocated schools.

Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it. Further to this I received my summary today and some information on it was incorrect. 1. Para 4 says all places were given to children higher up than her and is incorrect according to the admissions information(www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/asset-library/Reception-allocation-round-1.pdf). The last place at The school was given to a child in criterion 5 (child living out of the school catchment area) living 0.547 miles from school. So it is wrong to say that all places were allocated to children in a higher criterion than DD as she is also in criterion 5. It is worrying that the facts in the summary of my application are wrong. We are Cambridgeshire.

I'm afraid the summary is correct. Cambridgeshire's admissions booklet is clear that, unless you provided proof of your new address by 31st January, allocation would be based on your old address. So what matters is not the distance from your current home, it is the distance from your previous home. Your daughter would also have been considered under criterion 5 but, because you lived further away, she would have been lower down that criterion than those who were admitted.

Unfortunately, that means you do not have any possible argument that the admission authority acted unreasonably. It is possible something will come up in the hearing that will show they got it wrong but that is a long shot.

The good news is that you are probably at or near the head of the waiting list so you may get a place that way.

By the way, I'm reporting your post as you've put your daughter's name in it. Mumsnet will remove that for you.

Hi there,
Hope you don't mind but we've nipped in and edited your message so that your DD's name isn't seen!

Thank you and oops obviously got carried away and types it in. Well thank you for your help, guess it’s time to give up then. Just another blow for her and our family. Thank you for all your help.

@RJC91, I'm sorry to hear that you have been facing so much upheaval and stress as a family in a short period of time.
Inwardly swear and scream at the unfairness/randomness of lockdown and how it impacted your application. Outwardly remind and reassure your daughter that she will have lovely new teachers, meet new children to play with, have a playground with lots of fun toys (whatever applies). This is not to take away from what your family has gone through, but rather to gently say that there's no need to assume that the changes will necessarily destroy her. She may be one of those children that cope well with the transition.

My DS was going through a heck of a time when we applied for schooling and he didn't get into the school he needed (including a seriously ill grandparent, parent deploying abroad for 6 months, knew nobody going to the allocated school and a SERIOUS safeguarding issue that risked his and our safety if he attended the allocated school). None of that mattered to an appeal panel and we had to sell our house and move which took time and DS had to go to the allocated school for a term while we managed a move.

DS knew nothing about the worries. He was told the school was a brilliant, fun place with lots of opportunities and friendships to be had. He settled fabulously and made friends. He didn't know I was struggling with abandoning his big sister on a school playground miles away and then racing to get him to a different school in rush hour, struggling with the risk, managing a DH about to be deployed to a war zone and all the associated stresses, caring for an unwell parent etc.

It's awful. Believe me. I know how you feel. You must absolutely appeal because you never know but it's important to dedicate time and energy into "selling" the allocated school to your child. They have such capacity for resilience and you can teach her this. Don't decide her emotional wellbeing will be destroyed. Decide that you will get her through these times and build her self esteem and resilience accordingly. You're facing a lot in a short time but huge life events happen and part of our job is to model the ways of accepting them and coming out stronger.

Hi OP,

I don’t know much about appeals, but due to a house move the summer before Reception and a fairly traumatic time (I had to move us across the country to escape her abusive father) my DD also started at an unfamiliar school where she knew no one. I was so, so worried about how she’d cope. But she did brilliantly. Settled so well and really thrived. I don’t want to minimise your distress as it sounds like your family have really been through it recently. But sometimes things can work out better than you think.

Thanks everyone x

Sorry to hear about your situation op. Just to add, we had very similar circumstances and went through a very stressful appeal process. However, as previous posters have said, unless the LA have made an error on admissions criteria there will be no allowance or justification for them to magic an extra place for your child. To add my little boy ended up as the only child from nursery that didn't secure a reception place and was allocated a school several miles away where he didn't know any other child. DH and I had no other option than to speak with respective workplaces to come to a flexible working arrangement to work around drop offs and pickups, and our little boy is absolutely thriving having made so many new friends. It's stressful right now, I understand, I have been there, where you can't see the wood for the trees but things will improve.

She is not compulsory school age until way into next year. How many children enter reception? She should have been at top or near top of wait list since you moved. Can you Check that? I would leave her at the childminder until you secure a place. Hopefully I won't be long and she can join her friends. The childminder can apply for her 30 hrs funding to continue. (You May need to get onto that ASAP).