School appeal - urgent

[monyk12]

Dear parents,

This is a desperate post re schools and appeals; apologies if not allowed, I can delete if needed.

I have appealed for reception for my daughter and I am looking to find information, reasons, motivations on how to build a successful school appeal.
I am concerned that the offered schools is unsuitable for my daughter and the hearing is tomorrow.
Any information welcomed.
Many thanks in advance.

I think you should just stop being so entitled and accept the fact you are coming up with laughable excuses here. Where I live, there are hundreds of children in the area with NO school place, due to lack of provision for SEN. I'm sure many people would be delighted for any school, myself included. Whilst I assume your child does not have SEN, coming up with reasons like criminality rate and drop off times not suiting, really? Its not a daycare centre, its a place of education. As for the crime rates, what exactly are you expecting to happen in a school building, and why is your child more important than anyone else's?

Compared with the school she was oferred which has an above than national and borough average criminality rate, with hightly transited public roads increasing the risk of accidents and endagering personal safety, be believe that the location of the Academy schools has less criminality rate

And yet you named this school as your third preference on your CAF? Which means, you actually applied for a place there.

You should have received a) back on 17th April, a letter explaining why you didn't get the schools you named as a higher preference than the one you were being offered, and whether the refusal was based on Infant Class Size legislation.
And b) as you have submitted an appeal, the school's written defence statement should set out details such as its PAN, class organisation, the admissions criteria and under which criterion the last offer was made, at what distance. If any of this information is missing and the Independent Appeal Panel fail to ask for clarification, you can ask for these details yourself when questions are invited from the parents appealing. Also re any subsequent offers. Remember that after initial set of offers, all late applicants must be ranked in their correct place according to the school's oversubscription criteria.

Childcare issues etc may be why you personally wanted a place a particular school, but are not something which will ever form part of a school's admissions policy- it's something that parents are responsible for sorting out for themselves.

I speak as a governor of years of experience. I can’t see any reason you have listed as a good reason to consider a place.

if the distance was measured at 0.4 and was actually 0.04 miles and the furthest distance out was 0.2 that I would consider. However your correctly measured distance is out of the 0.2 so a moot point.

crime rates, the nanny not being able to drop off etc or a child not being with their friends - none are relevant.
23 rd on the list - unlikely to happen

preparing the night before - nope

them not follow procedure (their own) maybe grounds but you haven’t even printed it off.

I am concerned that some of the things you say is actually social snobbery and the fact you are saying you work 7-8 pm and weekends - who raises your children? The nanny?

I won a school appeal at a greater distance but mine had a sibling at the primary school next door to the senior already allocated and there is no bus. Both children had gone through an assault and had a restraining order against the adult that had assaulted them. It was vital they were together so one didn’t have to walk alone and I could pick them up together. They had court orders, a letter from the court asking that the LA considers the assault when allocating a school place and their safety, this was then doubled up with a letter from the GP and their previous headteacher explaining the circumstances.

it was a ‘proper reason’ and despite being oversubscribed the school took her on those grounds.

Check the distance, get someone else to check the distance. If there is a mistake there you might have a case.

You are getting angry on this thread but you are basically appealing on the basis that you aren’t getting what you want. You think another child whose sibling goes to the school, or lives closer than you should be inconvenienced rather than you. That isn’t grounds for appeal.

Everyone has the right to appeal for any and all reasons. The Admissions Appeals Code sets out the circumstances in which an appeal should be won. With prejudice appeals, the panel has some flexibility to decide what they consider the strength of a case to be. A sympathetic panel can sometimes be persuaded that a particular child 'needs' a place despite the argument for it being poorly stated, for example. In Infant Class Size appeals there is no such discretion and no flexibility. The rules are very strict and unforgiving.

I do hope you feel heard today, @monyk12 and that you are able to put forward all the points you want to. That is what the appeal is for. Unfortunately, even in a prejudice appeal, where there is discretion and flexibility, your appeal would be extremely likely to fail. That is because the points you are making are either ones that are outside of the consideration of the panel (travel), or unacceptable (no panel can agree that a school is 'bad'), or unrelated to the child (your work arrangements), or irrelevant (fair allocation is already established by the admissions criteria being submitted for review, and sibling priority is deemed fair).

Don't feel bad when you lose. In an ICS appeal, without a mistake in the process, you were never going to win.

OP So you would expect your child to get a place over a sibling who lives further away from the school? How on earth would you expect a parent to get their kids to 2 different schools for the same start time?

Nobody is going to be able to give you any advice to get the place overturned because as previously pointed out, it will only be overturned if a mistake was made.

A few in our area did not get their closest catchment school due to high intake one particular year, sadly it happens.

Gently op, because you're clearly stressed, but how can you possibly think for example 'high crime rates in the area' can help you? That's the same for every child!! You aren't going to succeed by detailing that your Annabel can't possibly go to school in a high crime area, but it's fine for someone else's Sally.

They set their criteria. If they have decided siblings have priority, then siblings have priority, whether you think that should be the case or not.

If the furthest away child admitted lives 0.2 away and you live 0.4 away, then you're not close enough.

When you go to your appeal, don't ramble on about anything that isn't specific to your child. Otherwise, if you have got a valid case, it will get lost in the muddle of noise.

Distance first - 0.4 miles from our house
Last year distance was 0.21 miles. So I don't think is improved this year.

I'm not sure you realise that that is a point that goes against you. You are 0.40 miles away, last year the furthest distance to get a place was 0.21 miles, i.e. closer to the school than you. It is likely that there is a similar situation this year, i.e. you are still some distance further away than the last child to be offered a place.

The safety argument is hopeless, you would have to demonstrate why the other school is so much more dangerous for your child than it is for anyone else.

I appealed as my son was the only child in nursery not to get a place in Reception. There was the additional issue of SEN and he had a lot of support already in place. To my shock, I was told pretty much as I entered the room that I had no chance of my appeal succeeding. They all chatted about it for a bit but I felt I was being humoured. It was an unpleasant experience. As it turned out, the move was the best thing that could have happened for my son. The other school went rapidly downhill while he thrived at the new one. It was also a good school in a not great area. I wish I hadn't bothered looking back.

You’ve had good advice here. I wish you well but think you need to prepare yourself for not winning.

getting a place through the waiting list might happen though, especially if it’s an area where lots of parents are likely to opt for private. Round here there is usually a lot of movement on waiting lists but typically not until the very beginning of term.

The panel will not have taken pleasure in it, but your grounds were based on prejudice, which has no place in an ICS appeal.

What is the waiting list like for your second preference? If you are high up the list this might be a better option to follow up. Eg stay on the wait list, check the distances

Please listen to the good advice from Lougle and others.

You haven’t confirmed (as far as I can see) whether this is an infant class size appeal but, assuming it is, the grounds for winning are very limited and the bar is set very high. Do your best here, but you are unlikely to win unless you can pinpoint an error of some sort which has cost your child a place.

You've known since NOD that your child hasn't been offered a place at your preferred school, yet you wait until the day before the appeal to start building your case. If you were serious about the appeal you'd have asked these questions weeks ago.

Unless the LA has made a mistake, there's no point in appealing.

Is there a reason your nanny will leave if your child goes to the other school?

To be fair to @monyk12, @EmmaGrundyForPM , we have no idea what LA she is under. Some are better than others at giving information about the process. I'm in Hampshire, and all appellants are given a comprehensive guide to the process, including the statistics on success rates.

Most people think that an appeal is an opportunity to plead your case for admission. They don't realise that there is a set of rules. Often, people think that they can tell the panel how lovely their child is and how good it would be for the school to have them.

@Lougle My appeal was not based on prejudice at all. It was based on several factors including distance, the fact my child had diagnosed special needs, that the school he had settled into had an amazing package of support, that he was the only child not to get a place etc. It was actually the school who suggested the appeal as they felt I had strong grounds. As I said, it was an unpleasant experience despite the evidence and work I put into it. As I also said, it ultimately worked out for the best for us but I know plenty of people where it doesn't.

In terms of appeal, "prejudice" refers the the balance of prejudice, ie assessing if the prejudice (ie detriment) to your child from not attending the appealed-for school outweighs the prejudice/detriment to the school and its existing pupils by going over numbers.

That is not a permissible grounds for an ICS appeal

And with the factors you mention and thar the panel said that it cannot succeed does suggest very much that your argument was seen as one of prejudice, and the panel (whatever they may have thought of the merits of your case) simply had no grounds to approve your appeal, as it was outwith the three permitted grounds for ICS appeals

Those are all prejudice grounds. You were saying that it would do more harm to your DS to not be admitted than it would do to the school by admitting an extra pupil.

The panel may absolutely have agreed with you on all the points you raised, but because it was an ICS appeal, they were bound by the regulations that prescribe the grounds on which such an appeal can be won. They would have been acting unlawfully to allow your appeal.

In my LA, at the beginning of an ICS appeal, the Chair reads out the grounds under which an ICS appeal can be won - so I can see if this happened, it could feel a bit like you were being told you had no chance; because in 99%+ of ICS appeals, honestly, you don't. It's not intended as a lecture, just to remind appellants of the required grounds, and also means if an appellant then spends ages talking about how they don't want to drive to school, the Chair can legitimately suggest they stop because it isn't relevant...

The panel doesn't take any joy in this - there are often circumstances where you think, in a normal prejudice appeal, this child would get a place - but ICS legally forbids it.

Yes, that’s been my experience too. When I read out the grounds, I usually say something like “so that’s what we’re looking for today”, so the parent knows they should focus on anything that looks like it might be an error or is so unreasonable that it ought to be reversed.

I feel we’d get along!

Are you ok OP?

Dear all,

To those who replied: many thanks, greatly appreciated.

To those who accused/bashed me in different ways: many thanks too, that's an experience to see how we are penalised for having an opinion. And yes, I trully believe that if you have two kids or more, you shouldn't be entitled to get the same school. If you have 15 families by two kids each, you are already occupying half of the allocated places, which really is not ideal. Luckily, the school that we appealed for are not prioritising siblings👌.

To those who actually had practical points to include in the appeal: I am humble to thank you and I am grateful for each of your intervention, it definitely help and our appeal went smoothly.

And latest point: WE WON THE APPEAL! 🎉By being humans, explaining our situation clearly including some personal touches, our appeal was beutifully defended by both me and my husband. And those who actually commented harshly, negatively had a constructive effect in our case, as we prepared for rudeness (EG: who is raising your kid if your schedule is that long?)

Thank you all once again.

@ezzysmom : Yes, thank you for your concern. We have won the appeal and we are over the moon. :D

Is good to read the grounds as a reminder, but I believe the system should support parents earlier and better to prepare for this.

I also think is important that formal preparation is offered by authorities in advance - meeting and sessions on how to appeal and present your case, as some parents really don't know how to do it (in my case, for example, despite me and my husband being professionals, we shouldn’t have to prepare for this alone as this is also minimising our chances to win; Luckily it didn't, but of course schools life is long and is so difficult to have to prepare for what it should be a kids right). Thank you for your contribution.