School Appeals

[babakeri]

Hi,

How do you appeal primary school offer?

What are good reasons to appeal?

Thank you

Look up Infant Class Size appeals. Assuming the class will have 30 children, then an appeal will only really be successful if a mistake has been made. There is allowance for if a 'perverse' decision has been made, but it genuinely needs to be hugely unreasonable, so won't apply to things like transport issues, friendships, poor schools.

An ICS appeal is just a review of the processing of the application. Unless you have a reason to be admitted that no normal admissions authority would have agreed to then your personal circumstances are not taken into account.

The reason an appeal will win is if they’ve made a mistake with the allocation. It won’t take your personal circumstances into account.

The only reason to succeed is if an error was made such as application being put in wrong priority category or distance incorrectly measured.

Most appeals for Reception are infant class size cases, where the rules are that you should only win if a mistake has been made that has cost your child a place. However, that is not the case universally as other posters seem to think. If, like a school near me, your preferred school runs classes with less than 30 in Reception, Y1 and Y2, appeals are much easier to win. You can win by showing that the disadvantage to your child from not being admitted outweighs any problems the school will face from having to cope with an additional pupil.

We have recently moved to a new area and applied for a primary school for our daughter.
at fair access we did not get either of our two preferred choices . The one school we didn’t want we got . The reason it went to fair access is because all schools in the area are oversubscribed .
I asked what was the reason we were refused and was told that all schools were over subscribed by 3 and they could give the specifics but likely that there was more sen children in the ones we preferred. I asked for specifics and was told I would need to make a FOI request as nobody had ever asked for the reason before ?

We choose the schools we did because we don’t want our child to be brought up in the catholic faith . The chop we were allocated is catholic . Also our daughter is so upset because she has friends in the other schools and will find it even more difficult to adapt emotionally. The school we had as our first choice suuits the way she learns better . All schools are deemed good . Do we have any chance to win an appeal ? It really is genuinely for our daughters wellbeing no other reason.

any help would be appreciated .

thanks in advance .

If your daughter would be going into Reception, Y1 or Y2, there is a good chance that this would be an infant class size appeal, in which case I'm afraid it is highly unlikely you would succeed. To win, you would need to show that a mistake has been made in the normal admissions process and that your daughter should have been given a place at the appeal school. As the schools are full, it is unlikely that there has been a mistake. The only real argument for a mistake would be if your daughter could have been treated as an excepted child, which means she wouldn't count towards the infant class size limit. Unfortunately, you haven't said anything that indicates your daughter could have been excepted.

If it is not an infant class size appeal (i.e. it is for Y3 or later, or the classes in the school have less than 30 pupils per teacher) you have a better chance, but the arguments you have advanced will not get you anywhere.

Going to a Catholic school does not mean your daughter will be brought up in the Catholic faith. Some Catholic schools are less religious than some non-faith schools, and you have the right to remove your daughter from assemblies and RE. Many non-Catholics go to Catholic schools.

It is understandable that your daughter wants to go to a school where she already has friends, but friendships are pretty fluid at this age. Unless you had evidence from a medical professional that your daughter has a much stronger need to stay with friends than other children of her age, this argument won't fly.

The preferred school better suiting the way your daughter learns is rather vague and, again, unlikely to fly at appeal without expert evidence.

You have nothing to lose by appealing but, if you do, you need to be realistic about your chances.

I asked what was the reason we were refused and was told that all schools were over subscribed by 3 and they could give the specifics but likely that there was more sen children in the ones we preferred

How big is the intake in the two schools?

Three over in a 3 FE school could be 'just' one extra 'body' per class, of course, so your DC might 'only' make 32 plus the normal complement of adults. 2FE?, probably ditto if the class organisation is +2 and +1. But - less likely but not totally unknown - a 1 FE school? How many pupils in a class would you be happy for your DC to be one of, so to speak? 1/34th of the attention of the teacher vs the statutory max 1/30?