Primary school appeal

[JJosephH]

Has anyone had any experience of successfully appealing a school's admission? New to UK and unsure how to proceed.
If so, did you just write you own appeal? Or did you get legal advice?

BG: Was offered a place for my 9yo in an oversubscribed faith school (in year transfer) - our top preference as it ticked all the boxes (walking distance for the nanny, faith and it's a good school). We had rented in the area but were not moving in till July. Had explained numerous time both in email and on the phone (have all of these emails) outlining not moving in till July. We even sent them our rental agreement with the move in date of July 1.

Was then contacted to say my child needed to start in early June. Wrote back explaining not moving till July - is this a problem? Radio silence for over a week when the principal contacted to say we are withdrawing the place as we are not currently living at the address. Protested that had outlined the above numerous times; told no, we can't have the place and it will be offered to the next child on the list.

In interim, younger child has been accepted to the school for reception (we had moved in by this stage and he was offered a cancellation).

We have appealed via the local Archdioceses but have been informed this will not be heard till October.

Questions are -

1. Has anyone any experience of appealing a faith school place and what would they recommend
2. Would you recommend getting a solicitor involved or will that just get their heckles up
3. Is there anyway of having the appeal date brought forward? ( I see here that some appeals are held in July - why not ours?)

1. Should I ask local parish for assistance? (They've previously said they don't get involved in school admissions).

Sorry for the essay - just a bit at sea!

IMO, the school has applied the criteria properly. I'm not sure when you applied, but it was very clear to us when we did mid year transfers that we would be required to take the place up within 3 weeks, or it would be offered t thenext person on the list.

Does the school allow younger siblings to be classed as a sibling link, and are siblings prioritised? You may find yourself at the top of the waiting list.

In the meantime, does your 9 year old have a school place somewhere?

Presumably you did reapply once you had moved in? If you got to the top of the waiting list before, you're presumably likely to be back at the top of it now - and if not, you will probably move up it when your younger child starts if there's a sibling rule (it's worth checking that they've made that connection). So you might get a place anyway - it only takes one child to leave. (There might be a slight delay, as sometimes the first the school knows is when the child doesn't turn up in September, and if they don't know where they've gone they probably have to give them a fortnight before removing them from the roll.)

You should have been advised when you originally applied that any place offered would need to be taken up within a certain period of time, and so you should not apply until nearer the time. However it wouldn't have made any difference, as the place obviously came up in June and would have gone to the child already at the top of the list.

The appeal needs to be based on what that school offers that others don't (and not the fact that sibling will be there or proximity). The faith element is obviously one thing, there may be others such as music/sport provision catering for your child's interests.

Your 9 yo will be considered a sibling in September once your younger dc starts, which may help if there is movement. Where are they on waiting list? It is unlikely any external body or faith leader can influence admissions if school is full and In Year admissions criteria were correctly applied. Has the previous place been offered to and taken up by another child. If not why has it not been reoffered? Does dc1 have a place allocated at another school? If not and all schools are full in the year group the LA need to look at Fair Access Protocol. Appeal will take time and the situation may resolve in the meantime.

I suppose my argument is that we were new to the country and it was clear from the correspondence (and telephone calls) that we weren't moving till July. We weren't aware of the difficulty with school places in general (now are acutely aware). We weren't given any opportunity to offer to get my child to the city in order to attend in June. He is now at the top of the waiting list, but there aren't any places there or in any school within walking distance (bearing in mind we now will have to get my younger son to the school with the baby in tow). Our jobs start early so at the moment we've had to employ a nanny (another massive expense) but now she'll have to drag the baby with her on the school pick up all over the place. It's just so unfamily friendly especially to new arrivals. My employer has offered to write a letter as I am a front line worker and with the schools situation am seriously considering terminating the contract.

I feel they offered the place in error. We told our child he had a school place. Now he doesn't. He's already so put out at having to leave all his friends. If they didn't read the application properly, that's not my fault....

Thanks Lizs. No he hasn't got a school place now as all the school are closed and we've been told it could be October before he is allocated - I think this seems mad. Can't have him out of school for a full month.

The school told me that the place was offered to someone else and that the offer was accepted but they have not confirmed if that child attended.

Thanks lanthanum. I suppose the primary issue is it's consistent with our faith (Catholic). But also it's the proximity to the house. We won't have a car available to us and will be relying on a nanny to get the kids off to school due to the time that we start work.

We've been told he's at the top of the list but that there aren't any places.

Would you advise asking for legal advice? I just feel it's so adversarial but neighbours seem to think this is ok?

@prh47bridgemay have some useful advice as may @PanelChair

Unfortunately issues like no car, walking to school, logistics of you g baby and child at different school, even faith will not win an appeal. Even though schools may be closed the council will have staff to handle admissions. Presumably the RC school handles its own applications and appeals but the LA is still your primary point of contact. You should not need to go legal. However it may be worth thinking that your dc is in no worse a position currently than had the application in May been unsuccessful.

Not an expert, just basing on my experience. If you liaise with the LA to find your closest school with a space and accept the place, if it is over a certain distance 2-3 miles (difers by age), transport should be provided. Hopefully this is the school you have already been allocated. But, I think transport can come in different forms - taxi, school bus, public bus pass, etc.

Not ideal, but might alleviate a problem until you can get a sibling place in the school you want.

Your basic argument here is that they have taken too long to withdraw the offer of a place. You were clear throughout that your child would not start until 1st July. If the place was offered in error, established precedent through a combination of judicial review and Local Government Ombudsman cases is that they can only withdraw the offer if they do so within 3 days of making it. That clearly didn't happen. The offer should therefore stand.

They might try to argue that they removed your child from the Admission Register due to non-attendance. However, to do that, your child must be continuously absent for not less than 20 school days and a number of other conditions must be met. Crucially, one of these conditions is that "the proprietor of the school and the local education authority have failed, after reasonable enquiry, to ascertain where the pupil is" (The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 regulation 8(h)). That condition clearly was not met - they knew exactly where your child was.

Do not get a solicitor involved. That won't necessarily rub the appeal panel up the wrong way, but my experience is that solicitors don't understand school admissions, even if they claim they do. I have come across far too many cases were a solicitor or other paid "expert" has given extremely poor advice and taken away any chance the parents had of winning.

Any appeal must be heard within 30 school days of the appeal being lodged. Unfortunately, we are now in the summer holidays so the clock doesn't start ticking until schools go back in September. So no, I'm afraid there is no way of getting the appeal brought forward.

It is highly unlikely that the local parish can help you. Given that your basic case is that they've taken too long to withdraw the offer, I don't think they can add anything to your case even if they were willing to help.

The rules on admissions may seem at times silly but the reality is that when you originally applied you used an address that you were not entitled to use. The address that you should have used is the address where child slept for the majority of the week. This is an easy mistake to make, which the school / LA have then compounded by not recognising that the place was not going to be taken up until 1st July, when address would have been appropriate . As such the school is allowed to reject the application.
What is not clear is when you made the application other than it was sometime before June, so at least a month. As we are talking about a 9 year old, the infant class size regs do not refer and so it is possible for the school to go above the published admission number of the school, which I would expect to be 30.
I think this then opens up a potential line to take at appeal. You clearly had an agreement from the school to admit on the 1st July and can prove with documents that they were aware of this. So having been offered the place there is a reasonable amount of time before the school recognised their mistake of offering the place and withdrew it. The school could have recognised their mistake, offered a place to the person, who was given the place but kept your place open to start on 1st July, meaning there would be 31 in the class. They however took the view that they needed to withdraw the place. To the panel you should be asking them whether this was a reasonable and fair decision in the circumstances or that the school should have been more sympathetic to the mistakes made by both parties.
I would have to say that there is probably more chance of the appeal being dismissed than agreed. There is little or no benefit in employing a solicitor as they will not offer any real extra insight into winning the case.
You do however need to get a school place arranged and for that you need to go to the LA and ask them to tell you where places are available. They also have a legal requirement to offer a place but this can be at any school.

Thank you very much for these insights @prh47bridge. When the school contacted me (initially by telephone) to say that they were withdrawing the place, the made mention of having sought legal advice, which has worried me.

The appeal will be via an Archdioceses - do these appeals operate differently? or would it be the same as a LA appeal?

I appreciate the home address aspect is a tricky one but I have gone through the admission policy with a fine tooth come and it does not say currently resident on it. When we applied, we applied directly to the school (we didn't even know about the local authority; the school had to tell us about it) and didn't apply via the school authority for about another fortnight (simply due to lots of other administrative burden with moving a family overseas).

Thank you again for your advice.

Thanks @admission . Appreciate these insights.

Appeals are governed by the same Appeals Code regardless of who actually runs them.

The home address may well be an issue. It depends what you said and when you said it, along with details of the admissions policy. They may have an argument that your application was fraudulent or deliberately misleading, in which case they have the right to withdraw the offer regardless of the amount of time that elapsed. However, if you were clear throughout as to your intentions, you may be able to get past this.

If you want me to check the admission arrangements, PM me the name of the school and the LA involved and I will be happy to take a look.