Reception Place Withdrawn - Appeal Help

[HeadWrecked2021]

Hello all,

Like some other posters here our reception 2021 place was withdrawn as it turned out to have been offered in error. The place was withdrawn 10 days after it was offered by which time all other schools on our list had filled their places. Without going into too much detail, the local authority have been an absolute nightmare in terms of how they have communicated any of this and have offered no help or support. They've basically told us to stick it out on waiting lists and hope we get sorted that way.

Had the error not been made, we would definitely have been offered a place at our 4th choice school. Others higher up were filled by closer applicants on offer day. We are on waiting lists for all schools on our original list plus some extra ones.

In case waiting lists don't provide us with a place we are preparing to appeal the decision not to offer us a place at the school we would have been offered had the error not been made. This school is its own admissions authority so we need to appeal to the school directly.

So, the basis of our appeal is maladministration. Do we need to argue that once the school became aware of the error they should have sought to rectify the error and offered us a place at their school? Is that it in essence? I'm finding it hard to get clear in my head because the error made had nothing to do with the school in question but perhaps that isn't relevant.

Should we at this point be asking that school when they were informed of the error? Or collecting that information from the local authority - although I'm pretty sure it was me that let them know of the error, I don't think any formal effort has been made to sort it out.

Advice, questions, comments, all welcome!

The reason why the place has been removed is because of a mistake made either by the school or the Local Authority who originally gave you a place at your preferred school.
The first question that you need answering is whether this was an isolated mistake or a mistake which involves quite a few people. You then do need to establish the reasons for this mistake being made because only then can you be certain that you are taking the right decisions in terms of appeals etc.
One decision that is easy to make is to get on the waiting list for every school that you expressed a preference for, so at least you have a chance of getting a place offered if any become available.
The second thing to do is to appeal for at least the 4th preference school. This is fairly clear cut as an appeal. You were mistakenly offered a place at preference 1, when if the mistake had not been made you would have been offered a place at 4th preference school.
In terms of the first preference school at which you lost the place I am not at all clear what mistake was made and how you notified them. However if you wish to appeal for the preference school then the appeal is that the school or LA made a mistake and offered you a place. By the time that the school or the LA got around to telling you that the place was lost 10 days later you and your child had an expectation of having got that place. There are some very old legal case which suggest that for anything over 3 days, the place should not be withdrawn but many LAs do not believe that this is now a valid argument but nobody wants to go legal on it for fear of losing and setting a precedent. All you can do is appeal on the basis of the Local Government Ombudsman case 99C01876 and hope the panel is sympathetic.
You can also appeal for preferences 2 and 3 if you believe you construct a good enough case for admission

Oh sorry, the appeal we want to make is to the 4th place school - the one we would have got if no error was made. I don’t believe that school were told by the local authority or anyone else that an error was made that ultimately had a knock on effect on their admissions process.

So that 4th preference school is it’s own admissions authority. Is it as simple as me making the appeal to them on the basis of maladministration as an error was made that cost us a place there, even though the error was nothing to do with that school / admissions authority?

The mistake that led to our place being withdrawn was some kind of admin error that affected several other families too but we aren’t planning to appeal that place anyway so I don’t think we need to get the bottom of it for purposes of the appeal we do want to make?

Yes, you appeal through the school. It doesn't matter that it wasn't their mistake. The point is that admissions were not administered correctly by the LA and that this has cost your child a place. That is the case you need to make. The only way that should fail as an appeal case is if there are a number of appellants affected by mistakes and the appeal panel thinks the school can't handle them all. In that case the panel must compare cases and award places to those with the strongest case. You therefore need to make a positive case as to why your child will be disadvantaged if they aren't admitted to this school as well as pointing out the error.

Thank you that’s really helpful.