Ics advice

[Coi123]

Hi everyone,

My son didn’t get his first choice primary place. The school is one of a few in a very overpopulated area but I am within the catchment. According to the government website it is the nearest school to me but the schools admissions policy states that they take up to 1.4 mile distance (as the crow flies) and we are 1.4 miles so I’m guessing that there were 60 other children that were nearer than 1.4. The concern I have is my son has quite a severe stammer and he has been receiving speech and language support at nursery (waiting on any sort of government support or referral is another story 🙄) and he has improved hugely in that environment and at home but any new environments he really struggles and he cannot get his words out which breaks my heart as he is at the age where he is very aware of it and it upsets him. The school I chose as first choice is our village school, a feeder school from his nursery (who do a before and after school pick up), the majority of his friends are going who are used to his stammer and never mention it (he gets extremely anxious with new people, children who innocently point it out to him or in new environments). They also have excellent SEN provision with a lot of support staff which convinced me further that it was a great school to meet his needs if his stammer gets worse.
Where we live is semi rural so according to the ‘as the crow flies’ we technically don’t live within 1.4 miles of any school which feels unfair. The school we have been given is in the next village and I have to pass his first choice to get to it. A lot of people are telling me to appeal but I want to be realistic too. Has anyone appealed on those grounds or similar before and can offer any supportive thoughts or advice? T. I.A

Unfortunately it sounds as though you didn’t qualify for the school place, probably on distance. It is worth checking that you were considered under the right category, though if your child has no older siblings at the school, or hasn’t got a statement that names the school, or is a former LAC you will be checking to see if your address was recorded correctly. You can also ask what the furthest distance was that a child was offered a place, though this can be misleading, it could be a sibling or former LAC. Not all authorities use as the crow flies to record distance, many, particularly in rural areas use a safe travelling route, which can turn out to be a very different thing.

The advice is always accept the place you have been offered because you do need a place. Then go on the waiting list for the preferred school. If he is a late birthday you could opt for deferring the place and hope a place frees up at the village school. An appeal is not going to succeed as it will be based on ICS.

Thank you so much for your reply @viques. I will accept the place at the school I have been given. I do feel quite worried about it as they won’t even allow me to come and look around so I am not filled with hope about the school. I will put him on the waiting lists for his other choices and just hope 🤞🏻

I think you need to be realistic about the chances of success at an appeal for your preference school. That is very low if the appeal is an infant class size case. The LA and schools argument at any appeal will be that a stammer can be handled in any school, that the school is full and ICS applies with an admission number of 60.

However that should not put you off appealing. The reason I say this is that you appear from your post to be right on the border in terms of distance for being offered a place at the school based on distance. Given you say you are semi-rural you need to be absolutely certain that the "straight line distance" is correct from your home to the school. I am assuming here that this is the criteria used and it is not "safest travel route". If it is safest travel route then you need to get the LA to confirm exactly what route was applied because the computer might be using a different route.

Would this be an infant class size appeal? If so, you’d have to convince the panel that either there’s been an error which has cost your child a place (and nothing here suggests that, unless they measured the distance from home to school wrongly) or the decision to refuse was unreasonable in the legal sense.

Your best hope, I think, is to present any appeal along the lines of the decision to refuse being unreasonable. It’s far from certain that you’ll win. Many ICS appeals are about wanting to remain with friends from nursery and that’s never enough to win; panels generally take the view that any school will help children quickly settle in and make new friends. You’d therefore need to show why that wouldn’t be enough for your child. Does your preferred school have a bigger, better SEN provision than the offered school? Does it have better provision for children with speech issues?

@admission and @PanelChair, thank you so much for your replies. Yes it will be an ics case. I will double check with the LA what route was applied. Does anyone know where I stand with the fact that no schools in my area are within my ‘as the crow flies’ 1.4 distance? This school was the nearest and my second choice school was the next nearest which was also declined as was the third. It feels really unfair that I’ve just been given the next school with free places yet that is miles away from my home. Yes @PanelChair, the first choice has excellent SEN provision and more teaching assistants than needed to support that. The school I have been given is very big (three form entry) and I could say I’m sure the provision is good but I have not been allowed the opportunity to look around or speak with the headteacher (I have rang twice and been told each time that someone will get back to me which they haven’t done).

One thing to find out is where you are on the waiting list for your local school. It sounds like you may only just have missed out on a place, in which case you may be at the top of the waiting list, and stand a chance of a place becoming available by September. That obviously depends on someone moving away, deciding to go private, or successfully appealing for another school. Note that your place on the waiting list can go down, though, if another child moves in who lives nearer or has a sibling.

Hopefully your preferred school will get back to you soon. Some schools are still struggling with staff off with covid, so things may be a bit hectic. If there's still a bit of movement going on with the allocations, they may be waiting for that to settle - no point in showing you round if you get a waiting list place the next day! If you make sure they know about your son's needs, I'm sure they will make sure they liaise with you and his nursery in good time.

Presumably no EHCP ?

How far away is the school you've been offered, and how long is the journey typically?

(Also, if the school is miles away they may need to offer you transport, but your child might need to be 5yo to access it)

The "nothing within 1.4 miles" is just one of those problems that comes with being rural. The simple fact is that there isn't room for all the children from your village, and so someone will have to travel to another village. The simplest decider to use is distance. The 1.4 miles will probably be how far they've reached this year before they were full - next year it might be 1.5 or 1.2 miles.

(I'm not sure it always works out best that it's done purely on distance. Where the school is in the middle of the village, that can result in three children in opposite corners ending up going in three directions - it might be better to work out which neighbouring village has spaces, and send three kids from that side of the village together. However that sort of joined-up thinking also means giving someone the power to make decisions on a year-to-year basis, and I think it's seen as fairer to have a fixed rule.)

Thank you to @lanthanum, @Aroundtheworldin80moves and @LIZS for your replies. I really appreciate it! Yes no EHCP. Nursery told me that the LA have said they are snowed under with referrals at the moment so everything is taking much longer. Yes you are right, hopefully it is that. They didn’t have an open day and wouldn’t allow visits in the Autumn of last year and said it was because of covid which I totally understand (although they were the only school in the area who did this) but now say it’s just whether they have the time but would let me know.

You are being fobbed off about the EHCP, you can apply for an EHCP yourself and the LA must stick to the statutory timescales.

The 60 will include siblings as well and they can be out of area as long as the sibling was in area at the time of application (at least that applies where I am).

@AReallyUsefulEngine I did wonder was I being fobbed off a little and thought if I should have been doing more pestering to see where they were up to with it. I will speak to nursery tomorrow. Thank you

@nearlyspringyay ah yes good point! I did think I can’t believe there are 60 4 year olds that live less than 1.4 miles away from the school (although it is an overpopulated area there are two other schools right near it too-my second and third choice 🙈)

Apologies. I had overlooked that you said very clearly this is an ICS appeal.

For clarity, was your allocated school one of your preferences?

There’s no guarantee here, but if you’re arguing on reasonableness, I think you could add in the argument that - even though the admission criteria were applied correctly (unless the distance was mis-measured) - there is something unreasonable about them.

I’m not sure, rereading your first post, whether this is a fixed catchment of 1.4 miles or is the “last place awarded” and so might move from year to year according to the number of siblings etc. Either way, if the effect is that your three preferred schools all serve tiny areas and people living in your location are unlikely to get a place at any of them and so have to travel to the next village, I think you could argue to the panel that that too is unreasonable. Of course, the panel might think that that’s just the way it goes in rural areas (and that the long term solution lies in expanding one or more of the schools) but I’d be inclined to add this to the argument that it’s unreasonable to expect your child to attend a school out of area, without his friends, and see what the panel make of it.

IPSEA have a model letter on their website if you want to apply for an EHCNA yourself.

Our LA instructed schools to cancel in-person open days and visits partway through when they were all happening. To confuse things further, they inadvertently used an out-of-date email list, so those schools with new heads didn't get the instruction and went ahead. So it may not have been their choice not to allow visits.

@PanelChair no it wasn’t any of my preferences (mainly because my three choices are all in my village and the one I have been given is in the next one). Can I just say a big thank you to you all for taking the time to reply to me. You have all given me some brilliant advice, I really appreciate it.

You have three primary schools in a village? That’s a huge village. I think you, unfortunately, live in a black hole. I would also speak to the speech therapists about an EHCPWhat do they think? What extra help can they give and what is their plan after he goes to school? How will they continue to support him.

If he starts at the school you don’t want, are you confident he would thrive with another change? I would not be thrilled with the response of this school either. So do stay on waiting lists. Schools used to visit children and parents where DC had identified needs, whether DC had a EhCP or not! Services are at rock bottom! Are they having a new child familiarisation morning? I would go and see the office and make an appointment to see the head. This isn’t good enough.