Primary school appeals

[Sjh35]

I’m hoping someone can help me or give me some advice!
I’ve been offered my 4th place on my daughters primary school application.
I only put it as it said to put 4, I didn’t take into account distance/traffic etc and never thought she would get the 4th choice as our catchment school was my 2nd choice.

I have appeals for my 1st and 2nd choice but I’ve never done this before so if anyone could give me some advice it would be greatly appreciated!! 🙏

Do you know why you weren't offered choices 1-3? Your best chance is discovering a mistake. (Such as them thinking your house is elsewhere)
Also ensure you are on the waiting lists.

You've got a pretty much zero chance of it being overturned. Sorry

Stay on the waiting lists of the ones you prefer and when there is a space move her.
The appeals won't work they never do so don't waste your time.

OP - why don’t you share your reasons for appealing so people can help you? It is extremely difficult to win an appeal, particularly if it’s an infant class size appeal, but maybe you have a good case?

The first school is out of catchment but her pre school is in the grounds and she has made some really lovely little friendships already and most of them are going to this school.
My second choice was one of the schools in catchment.
There is another school local to the area but for personal reasons I don't want her to go to it so I put other local schools on the list so we weren't automatically placed to that one.

Unless you can show that they did something wrong with the process of allocating places then you have very little chance of winning an infant class size appeal.

If it was the closest available school but still a distance away (I can’t remember the distance I think about 2 miles?) you would be entitled to help with transport but as you say there is closer if they had availability then you wouldn’t get help with that either.

Are there any other schools between your house and 4 that might be undersubscribed or you could go on waiting list for? If it is a class size appeal (ie school intake is full and no mistake was made in prioritising your dc) any appeal is likely to fail.

What grounds are you appealing on? Do you think they made an error? If number 2 is your closest school do you know where you are on the waiting list?

There is no harm in appealing for any school that you believe is appropriate. You never know what information might turn up at an appeal which may be to your benefit.
However you do need to be realistic in terms of your chances of success. Most schools have a Published Admission Number PAN) which is 30, 45 or 60, which means that any appeal would be what is called an Infant Class Size Case. The maximum number of pupils that can be with one school teacher is 30 and the only way that you can win such an appeal is by proving that a mistake was made and you should have been offered a place.
If the PAN is another number, say 28 or 35 then that is much more likely to be an appeal where if your reasons for the school place out weight the school's reasons for not admitting you have a chance of succeeding at appeal. From that you need to understand that you need the strongest possible case for admission to have a chance of success.
You do need however to check why you did not get an offer of your first three preferred schools. I can understand why your first preference would have been an issue but if your second preference was your catchment school, you need to check why you were not offered a place at the school as it would have been the most obvious school to have got a place at. What does the letter rejecting your preference for the school actually say? Does the distance seem sensible?

@NerrSnerr

What grounds are you appealing on? Do you think they made an error? If number 2 is your closest school do you know where you are on the waiting list?

No. 2 is literally a 5 min walk from my house and is the 2nd closest school to my house. The closest one is only 4 min walk they are across the road from each other

But if they were oversubscribed with those living closer or higher priority on admissions criteria ie. siblings then being near is not enough to secure a place. You need more information. Why were you refused? Was your application on time? Have you found out what criteria your dc was placed in and that of the last child admitted? Was the distance used for your address correct? If a mistake was made which deprived your child of a place you may have a case. Otherwise waiting list is the other option.

As admission says, the first thing to do is check there has been no error made by looking at your decision letter and making sure you agree with why you have not been allocated a place (most likely distance, so check the distance looks right).

The next thing is to determine whether the appeals are ICS. If so, then there are very limited grounds on which you can win, which essentially boil down to the admissions criteria not being applied properly in your case (an error was made that cost you a place). So it is important to understand why you didn't get school 2.

If the appeals are not ICS, then there is wider scope.

Read the advice from Admission.

You won't win an appeal on the basis that the schools you want are near home. If it is an infant class size case, you need to show that a mistake has been made that has cost your daughter a place. Have they put her in the correct admissions category? Have they measured the home to school distance correctly?

@PatriciaHolm

As admission says, the first thing to do is check there has been no error made by looking at your decision letter and making sure you agree with why you have not been allocated a place (most likely distance, so check the distance looks right).

The next thing is to determine whether the appeals are ICS. If so, then there are very limited grounds on which you can win, which essentially boil down to the admissions criteria not being applied properly in your case (an error was made that cost you a place). So it is important to understand why you didn't get school 2.

If the appeals are not ICS, then there is wider scope.

Thank you ☺️

It is looked after children first then siblings and then distance.
We are within catchment and met all the criteria for the school.

So presumably you missed out on distance - what is the last distance admitted?

But those criteria are used to put applicants in priority order. By the time LAC, Send and sibling children are allocated places, those in catchment are probably ordered by distance. If intake is 30 and there are 30 applicants in those categories and living closer by distance measured, your child misses out whether they are listed 31 or 50.

@myrtleWilson

So presumably you missed out on distance - what is the last distance admitted?

I'm potentially being thick but how do I find that out? Sorry first time mum this is all new to me 🙈

Position on waiting list should help establish how narrowly your dc missed out.

Your letter may say the distance measured for you and what thevlimit was this year, or you can ask LA (or the school if they do their own admissions) the distance and category of last child admitted.

What did the letter that the Council sent you when your didn't get your first choice say was the reason, OP?

My understanding is that they look at all the people who put the school down as their first choice and go through them all in order of priority. Then if the school still has places they look at all the people who put it as their second choice who didn't get a place at their first choice and do the same. And so on and so on for third and fourth place applications until all the places are filled. If the school was sufficiently popular that they filled all the spaces from applicants who put them as their first choice then it won't matter if you tick all the boxes because you put them second so they'll never have got to your application. If your first school was out of catchment with no siblings then you'd have been in the lowest priority group so unless it was under subscribed it isn't surprising you didn't get a place unfortunately. Something similar has just happened to one of my friends, she chose an out of catchment school because her son was at the nursery and then it was so popular that it was all filled just by first choice groups 1-3. First choice applicants in groups 4 and 5, or anyone who had them as second/third choice, didn't get places.

Out council website has statements from all the schools saying how many applications there were to places and which groups were made offers, so yours probably does as well.

Basically I'm saying that you probably are out of luck with your appeal. It sounds like your first choice school had enough applications that they filled up before they got to group 5, and your second choice school had enough applications that it filled up entirely from people who put it first.

@ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings not correct. All applicants are considered, regardless of position the school is listed on application form, then allocate the highest listed for which a child qualified.

LIZS is correct. Admission authorities are required to operate an equal preference system, which means that all applications are looked at and ranked regardless of whether the school was first or last preference. Preferences are only looked at if the child qualifies for a place at more than one school, in which case the highest preference will be offered.

@Sjh35 - You should have had a letter when you received your allocation, or possibly something in the online portal if you applied that way, that says why you were not allocated a place at schools 1,2, and 3.

It will probably say something along the lines of "your child was considered under category 4, distance, at a distance of 1.23 km. The furthest child admitted under this category was at a distance of 1.01 km".

@prh47bridge

LIZS is correct. Admission authorities are required to operate an equal preference system, which means that all applications are looked at and ranked regardless of whether the school was first or last preference. Preferences are only looked at if the child qualifies for a place at more than one school, in which case the highest preference will be offered.

Aw that eases my mind a little I was wondering whether I'd done the right thing putting the closest one as 2nd and have been kicking myself for not putting it first 🙈

The only criteria she didn't meet was that she isn't a cared for child or have any siblings at school.
We're 0.8m from the school and she's 15th on the list which seems like a lot considering how close we live.