Primary School Appeal

[Cloudyday91]

My daughter will be starting primary school in September in Reception class. We got rejected from our first choice and got given our second. The first school isn’t classed as our catchment but is two miles closer than our catchment.

We are appealing the decision as my daughter attends the nursery attached to choice one. I rang the first choice primary school today as we are on the waiting list. They were at full capacity in April but said people have since declined offers and all the spaces were given away to late applicants in that catchment instead of those on the waiting list.

This doesn’t seem right to me, I would have presumed the waiting list would have priority at this stage. Has anybody experienced similar? Im struggling with this as all of our friends will be attending choice one, so it’s a lifestyle curveball too.

But why are there so many late applicants in catchment? That seems so weird too.

Didn't the OP say its a new build estate, so maybe the houses are only just coming available for people to move into?

Yes but that would be a one off thing and the op seems to think this is an ongoing issue that's happened for several years?

It must be an exception for the building and planning of the estate. It is odd , normally after allocation, if a place becomes available then late applications and wait list will be scored against the criteria and offered in order

The estate will be huge in terms of houses, but even so I hope where you’re coming from with the sudden influx in a number of months. I can see from previous years on their paper work they have given we will say 10 places to catchment and rejected everyone else out of catchment. Some won spaces on appeal only.

To make matters worse, the catchment primary school that my daughter has been given is 3 miles away. All those children at that school will be going to their catchment secondary school, which ISNT our catchment secondary school. Essentially we are sending her to a primary where none of the children will be moving to secondary with her. I’m beyond frustrated at this point.

Do your children get priority for your allocated school over children from new estate, or is that done purely on distance so they effectively get a choice?

I would presume so, but they have a choice over their catchment school and our catchment school. Therefore some of them are choosing not to attend the new build school. It feels frustrating that we aren’t being given the same option to choose.

I used to be a school governor of a newly built school to serve a lot of new build housing

It was a much more tricky situation than being an established school with a settled population

The purpose of the school is to serve the local catchment but when we first opened and had free places we would get every kid from anywhere around being bused in as we were the only school with places. The children and parents were unhappy and of course they left as soon as they could get a local place causing a lot of disruption to our school. If they stayed as an out of area child then all their siblings would also have the right to places often for many years reducing the places for the population the school was built to serve. We therefore tried to avoid this scenario happening again.

We were planned to be 2 form entry but opened as one initially and it was very tricky to decide when to go to 2. Financially a school cannot run a half empty class. You can't pay the teachers salary unless you have the class close to full because funding is per child. The only way we could do that was if the LA gave us extra 'growth funding' to open another class and compensated us for it being half full. We had to wait for them to instruct us/ offer funding to open the next class or it would have been unaffordable.

So yes we did keep the PAN to 30 for a while when theoretically it could have increased to 60 and that was to prevent the financial drain of a half full class and to prevent the half full class being filled by lots of unhappy temporary out of area families and to make sure the local authority gave us the growth funding. As I recall that was our decision as governors and the LA could not force us to up the PAN although they asked us to. We resisted this as a tactical move to force them to give us the growth funding.

In a number of years we filled up to the PAN of 30 and then later on the LA realised they needed more places and asked us to open another class late in the day and offered funding to do so. Places were then allocated in the extra class as per the admission criteria.

I am wondering if it's possible that's what is happening in your area.

We found it was perfectly possible to have an influence of 30 children if the new build housing opened a new phase of the scheme and everyone all moved in at once.

Sorry not helpful, just curious, why does everybody from your village wants to avoid the catchment school and go to the new development one?
It definitely sounds like something dodgy going on though, with the PAN not being updated. Hopefully you can get a place!

Thank you @ThePure that is very interesting and insightful!

Thank you for taking the time to explain, that gives a better insight to why could be happening and it does sound like this may be a similar situation. I’m surprised that the new build estates don’t have to follow similar criteria to that of other schools.

That's really interesting @ThePure - it's nice to hear of housing being built with appropriate facilities for once! All sounds very sensible, and I'm sure that school served the new community very well. (Sorry OP, I know that's not what you want to hear!)

So we genuinely were full and over subscribed to the PAN of 30 until we were offered funding to open another class of 30. Not changing the PAN meant we had the option not to open two classes if we didn't have the demand.

From the LAs point of view there's a huge level of complexity because they also didn't want us opening two classes to take children away from existing local schools so that they then become financially unviable. If we had expanded too quickly that might have happened.

Lots of parents do seem to prefer a shiny new looking school over a 1970s one although in my experience the new school had a lot more difficulties than the long established one that I had also been a governor at.

Our catchment school is three miles and isn’t walkable for our child at a later date as it’s a dangerous route. The new build estate is also opening a new secondary school, all this will be within one mile of our homes with new walking routes.

I imagine it’s difficult to gauge how many families with children of primary school age will move into a new build estate, so I agree with @ThePure. Our new build school had to have a two classes in one year group, but reverted to one subsequently as the PAN is 30.

We did at all times play 100% by the rules but we may have somewhat gamed the system by holding the PAN down for a few years but it was for good reason. I would say there aren't any different rules for new estates but essentially the LA wants everyone to go to the catchment school. I'm afraid school choice is mostly an illusion and most people get their catchment school as that is how it is planned.

Possibly you could ask the LA about redrawing the catchment boundary if this feels like it really is your local school but it would be too late for this year

It is really really hard to figure out how many families will move into a new estate and when. The LA tries to work with developers but schemes get held up a lot for various reasons. Another wild card is that if there are very expensive houses some may go private whereas if there is a lot of social housing that's unlikely.

We also went 'backwards' one year and had one reception class after a few years of having two. We were glad to have kept the PAN at 30 so we could legitimately do that.

We were carrying a lot of unfilled places higher up the school because of that effect of some of the original out of catchment families leaving for places closer to home and we could not afford to open two reception classes that year even with the growth funding. That funding only lasts one academic year so if you open a class and it doesn't fill then the school has to bear the financial burden in subsequent years. After a few years of that happening we were going into deficit so we had to say enough is enough.

A new school hasn't built up any financial surplus buffer and in the current school funding climate it's hard to balance the books. We were very keen not to leave local children without a school place but equally we had a duty to those already in the school to have enough money to educate them properly.

It's also very hard on the head and other staff to manage numbers going up and down all the time. Juggling opening extra classes, mixed age classes, getting staff at the last minute, children coming mid year and having to be assessed and catch up etc etc so in part having a year where we didn't expand was to give them a break from it and some consolation time too.

Does the official admissions criteria give priority to catchment children?

What might be happening, if they are their own admissions authority is -

• official PAN of 30, so they fill to that. They don't have to take any more but...
• they can choose to do so, to what ever number they want, but only off the waiting list (or won appeals of course). If the criteria give precedence to those in catchment, they could be waiting until a catchment child applies and goes top of the list, and then admitting them, then stopping until another catchment child applies, admitting them as they are top of the list, and so on. This would technically be legal as they only have to fill to PAN, and catchment children would leapfrog others on the list.

An appeals panel is likely to take a dim view of this though, as it's really not in the spirit of the admissions code at all- and if they have 59 in two classes, it's not an infant class size appeal, so you need to focus on the reasons why the detriment to your child is greater than the detriment to the school of taking another child. At 59 in 2 classes, that is a low barrier.

Hi OP, a few follow up questions-
Has the PAN for 25/26 been set at 30 or 60?
What is the oversubscription criteria for 24/25?
Looking at the published admissions policy for 25/26, have they made any changes?
In terms of the information they have provided to you, have they set out children offered places under each category for September 24, such as (just giving an example, each admissions authority sets their own criteria in accordance with the admissions code) -
EHCP 3
Looked after children 1
Siblings in catchment 10
Children of staff 1
Other children in catchment 10
Siblings out of catchment 4
Other children out of catchment 1, last applicant admitted 1 mile (17 refused)

I see - I hope you get a place at the end!

I’ve just looked at a new school near me. They will admit 60 but will admit dc who are intending to live in catchment. That’s not usual elsewhere. This category is above one sibling category (there are two different dates) and medical and social need. Last is out of catchment (and presumably not intending to live on the estate). As this is administered by the LA, one assumes it’s legal and they obviously do want to fill up. This could help other schools if they are full.

PAN doesn't get updated immediately. School can submit that it needs to be changed up or down but it can take up to 3 years for the local authority to actually change the PAN. Sounds like that may be what is happening here.

This only applies to community and VC schools. Other types of school control their own PAN and can change it without needing any involvement from the LA. If they want to reduce PAN they have to go through a consultation, but no consultation is needed to increase PAN.

Whilst this is not directly against the Admissions Code, admitting pupils on the basis of an intention to move into catchment is likely to lead to problems for the school defending its position in appeals. What is to stop parents claiming they intend to move when they have no such intention?

@prh47bridge my experience of this was with a free school, so not community or vc