Didn’t get into first choice for primary

[GoBrookeYourself]

Hi,

I was just after a bit of advice if anyone could help. The area we are in doesn’t have many good schools and we were really hoping to get into our first choice. However, we haven’t and aren’t overly happy with the other choices.

We have put ourselves down on the waiting list and appealed, but I have spoken to the secretary and she couldn’t give me a reason as to why DS didn’t get in. I presume it was because we were out of the catchment area (2.6 miles away). However, our circumstances have changed and it will no longer be us taking him to school, we will be dropping him off with family who live 1.5 miles away from the school as DH and I both have to leave v early for work and they will be taking DS to and from school. We’ve put this in the appeal, along with wanting him to go to a faith school and the one he has been offered isn’t (we filled out a faith form during the application).

The secretary said they have offered 17 places this year, so well under the maximum of 30. I suppose my question is, what can I do, if anything, to maximise our chances of getting in? Or is it just something we need to let go of?

Sorry for the long post, very stressed out!

Oh and just to add, my DH’s parents appealed (many many years ago) when his first choice got rejected as his grandparents would have been taking him to school and this was successful, which is why we mentioned it on the appeal.

But where the child's grandparents life isn't a criteria for a successful appeal. It's where the child lives that counts.

When you say they offered 17/30 places what do you mean? That they intend to have 13 seats empty?

I think it's very difficult to win an appeal.

I’m not sure; she said they were full but had offered 17 places. I had read that the maximum they could have was 30, but presumably they don’t HAVE to fill this number? It’s my first time doing all this so just trying to get a better understanding of what our chances are of winning the appeal.

I find it odd that they’ve only allocated 17 spaces - unless they mean the remaining 13 spaces were allocated by the Local Authority /similar authority? A school wouldn’t want to be low on numbers as it drastically impacts on funding. You can appeal but if they are full, which I would assume they are, they can’t make extra spaces. You would have to wait to see if someone doesn’t take up their space or leaves mid term.

Have a look at the schools admissions policy which should be posted on their website. They should tell you their PAN ( Published Admissions Number) which is how many places they offer each year, and will also explain how places have been allocated.

If they have mixed age classes the pan could be less than 30. Logistics will not be grounds for a successful appeal nor will wanting a faith school.

When you get a letter with your allocated school, it should, hopefully, give some detail as to why you were not given your first choice. Assuming distance is a criteria, it's most likely to be that (as it is a faith school, do they give priority to applicants of faith?). At that point you can decide whether that makes sense, or whether you need to query how the allocation has been done if it doesn't.

With regards to an appeal, with only 17 in a class it may not be ICS (though if they combine classes across years in R,1, 2 it may be, as classes may end up being 30 but with multiple year groups).

If it is not, then your challenge is to show that the advantage to your son of attending is greater than the disadvantage to the school of taking another child. The fact your working arrangements have changed won't be particularly relevant I'm afraid.

OP, if you want to PM me the name of the school I can take a look. It's entirely possible that their PAN is 17, if it is a small school, or even possibly 15 and they have decided/been required to take 2 over.

What they cannot do is have a PAN of 30 and simply decide not to fill places if there are people on the waiting list.

As others have said, your childcare arrangements are neither here nor there.

Im wondering if they mean they gave 17 places out for distance and the other 13 places were siblings. Could that be possible?

Yes, check the PAN for the school. If it is 30, then you have little hope of winning an appeal unless you can show that there’s been a mistake which has deprived your child of a place (see PatriciaHolm’s “what to do” thread here, which discusses Infant Class Size appeals). But if the PAN is actually 17, you have more options at appeal because the ICS rules don’t apply (unless this is a method of combining classes to make 30 farther up the school). Even so, your argument about ease of getting your child to school is very unlikely to be enough to win an appeal.

Thank you all. I have PMd PatriciaHolm who has kindly offered to look into the PAN for me.

Does anyone have any advice on what kind of things will help an appeal?

As above. If this turns out to be an ICS appeal, you can win only if you identify an error which has deprived your child of a place. If not, you need to persuade the panel that the prejudice (disadvantage) to your child in not attending the school outweighs the prejudice to the school in having to accommodate an extra pupil.

I have confirmed the PAN is 17, and they do combine classes, so this is very likely to be ICS unfortunately.

Aha. PANs as low as 17 generally do seem to be linked to combined classes and therefore to ICS rules - it’s PANs in the higher 20s that generally aren’t and therefore give more scope for appeal.

My neighbours appealed last year on the grounds Grandparents would be doing the school run. They didn’t win. It’s based on where the child lives, not where childcare is unfortunately..

The location of where anyone other than yourselves live is irrelevant and not grounds for appeal, I assume by ‘secretary “ you Jean the school admin staff? It’s the LA you need to speak to. They may well have meant that if the places offered, 17 of them were based on distance from school as opposed to sibling / SEN categories,

Thank you everyone, especially those who gave some advice into the process. We’re on the waiting list now, we’ll wait for the appeal hearing and if all else fails, we’ll just have to send DS to the school he got in to originally and see how it goes.

I would take anything the secretary says with a pinch of salt. They usually have no idea how the process works and give out all types of mad "advice".

If the school had space, you'd have been given a space.

Unless you are in the country then 2.6 miles is a significant distance

17 sounds like a tiny school. Maybe a village school? And 2.6 miles away is huge in terms of primary admissions normally. Childcare is irrelevant

It's goes on your home address not the family taking child to school.

I'm sorry you didn't get into the school you wanted.

they don't have to allocate to PAN. PAN is the maximum.