INFANT CLASS SIZE PREJUDICE- YOU CAN WIN!

[custardpants]

I have just won an appeal and overcome the class size prejudice rule, based on inaccuracies on behalf of the council. i suggest to anyone out there, keep fighting you can win and get in contact with your local MP who can also work with you and give you information on how to approach these things. County Councils will tell you there is no point appealing and will say no appeals get upheld on the infant class size prejudice rule. please keep hope, if you have the right information and tackle in the right way you CAN win. I WANTED TO MAKE OTHER PARENTS AWARE THAT IT IS NOT A POINTLESS BATTLE- YOU CAN BEAT THE ADMISSIONS AUTHORITY AS QUITE OFTEN THEY DO NOT IMPLEMENT THE ADMISSION ARRANGEMENTS CORRECTLY, PARENTS ARE NOT GIVEN THIS INFORMATION SO PLEASE REQUEST FROM YOUR LOCAL MP WHO CAN HELP YOU!

I think CustardPants is right: LAs do their best to give the impression that an appeal is pointless because of the class size, even when they have not applied the admissions criteria correctly.

Why should parents have thier rightful choice denied due to LA incompetency?

In this situation the problem is with the LA, NOT the parents.

My DD was in a class of 34 and DS was in a class of 33 when they first started school . I t took until Y4 until DD class went down to 33 and stayed that way until the end and in DS class it finally got down to 30 in Y5 he is now in Y6. My youngest DD is now in Y2 her class size was restricted to 30 when she started school so far no-one has left.

Like in real life, things will occaisonally go wrong and so it is with the admission system. It is not perfect and every LA is wrong to say there is never a mistake, but the number of mistakes is actually very small in comparison with the number of applicants. Obviously some LAs are better than others and some LAs are much better at admitting their mistakes than others.

Every admission panel has to do two things in part 1 of the appeal. They have to be convinced that the admission authority has actually carried out the admission process correctly and they have to decide whether the admission authority have proved their case that the school should not admit anmy more pupils.

The first part should be covered by the admission authority detailing how many applicants there were, how the places were allocated, how many places were accepted, how many were declined and how many were admitted from the waiting list. The panel will normally ask questions about the admission arrangements and the parents are quite at liberty to ask specific questions about the process.

Over the years I have seen a good number of cases of admission to schools when it is supposed to be infant class size regs because of mistakes such as wrong distances, incorrect application of the admission arrangements, a mistake on timing of filling from the waiting list etc. The list is endless but the fact is the vast majority of appeals that are infant class size do not result in any appeals being successful, because the admission process is correct.

If parents worked as hard to improve their local school as they do to argue and bend the will of the LA, there would BE no failing schools!

it is certainly not the parents job to improve the schools, it is the government's job without question! what a totally ridiculous thing to say! i am in the horrendous position of facing an upcoming infant class size appeal for my ds for a place in reception in september. i have been attending this school with my other children for the past 13 years, the eldest being 17 now. ds is our youngest and last child and he also has a sister currently in year 6 there. of course she is discounted under the sibling ruling as she will no longer be there in september and our long standing and strong involvement in the school has no bearing here, the council just aren't interested. it is also the closest school to our home, being only a short walk away, less than half a mile. this is the first year the school has been oversubscribed and we have missed out on distance by 0.025 of a mile (about 40 metres). we have simply been pushed out and despite having the school itself, the chair of governors and our local councillor on our side (who is so angry about the injustice of it she is prepared to lose her post to fight our cause) there is nothing we can do. we are met with a cold brick wall of legislation every time we phone admissions. they are not interested in us, our situation, our ds or anything else for that matter. the system is wrong wrong wrong!! i have found the whole admissions process to be the most devastating, soul destroying and upsetting thing i have ever had to face and there is no help out there for parents like me. its a case of, you've been treated unfairly, yes its a disgrace but no we can't help you. get used to it and get over it! it feels like the dark ages where no one had any rights. we've been allocated a school much further away and one that we don't want. we've been pushed out of our school after all these years like a discarded old boot!!!!!

It's an awful situation djjc, and hopefully your ds will be top of the waiting list and get in that way.

But, if you don't have a sibling link any more, unfortunately, why should your ds get a place above someone living closer? Parental involvement with the school just isn't in the admissions criteri

In many ways, Pronoia has a point. But what do you do when a headteacher has an active policy of discouraging parental involvement? How can you work to improve a school when even gently phrased and softly expressed suggestions of improvement are taken as disruption? And when the governors are completely bullied into submission by the head?

I would have loved to have "worked to improve" dd's school. But I didn't exactly get thanked for my involvement. All the parents who had been active in the Parents Association in Infants and who had expected to carry on in Junior's had given up by the end of the first year as the head was basically denying them access to the school. And noone was going to get onto the board of governors who was known to challenge the head's decisions. So that let me out.

no furrycat, parental involvement may not be part of the admissions criteria, this doesn't make it a fair system though, does it? we have been pushed out by people moving into the area to be as close to the school as possible and by all accounts, people who have given fraudulent addresses also. it wouldn't be so bad if this also wasn't our closest school, but it is, and by far. our local council also adopts the policy of measuring distance in a straight line on a map, which gives some families advantage over us, even though they live much further away by road travel or walking routes. this policy may be much more convenient and be far less work for our council, but unfortunately it has no bearing on the reality of travelling to and from school. (not unless you can walk through rivers and buildings!) they also measure to the main gate of the school, even though the infant children are not allowed to use that gate and are directed to the infant gate on the other side of school (my side!!!) which again, may be convenient but has no bearing on real life. my ds also attends the school nursery and suffers from extreme shyness. the school have offered to support me in that they feel that if my ds is sent to a strange school, his social skills will be affected greatly and he will suffer a major setback. are the admissions department interested in my ds? absolutley not!! the point i am trying to make, furrycat, is that the admissions system is terrible and it may have been acceptable in medieval times to treat people purely as a number and not take any circumstances into consideration, but in this day and age, i think it needs a major update! do you think someone who has moved or lied to get in the school deserves a place above my ds? because i certainly don't think its right they are given higher priority, admissions criteria or not!!!!

If they measure to the main gate but infants aren't allowed to use that gate you have possible grounds for an appeal. You can argue that the LA has made a mistake by measuring to the wrong entrance. I would argue that, as infants are not allowed to use the main gate, the infant gate is the main gate for the normal year of entry and therefore the LA should be measuring distances from that gate.

If you are aware of anyone using a fraudulent address to apply you should notify the LA. If the LA find that someone has used a fraudulent address to gain entry they can withdraw the place.

djjc, clearly I don't think someone who has lied deserves to get into the school above your ds. And the rules on working out distance from school sound bonkers.

BUT I don't think you can say someone who has moved into the area, and intends to carry on living there, should have a lower priority because you have a history with the school. Sorry.

Infant class size of 30 seems too big, DD2 is in a class of 23 (max size is 25 here) and in P2 they are reducing the size to 18 max(P1-3). So new P1 will have five cleases this year.

furrycat, you therefore think along the same lines as the admissions department, that someone who has moved into the area should have higher priority over someone who lives literally a few doors away, but has been waiting for a school place for a considerable time. fair on paper in terms of admissions criteria maybe, but fair in reality? personally, i think not.

So what do you suggest is done about it djjc? If you made a rule eg that people had to have been living in their homes for say two years before that address was taken into account for admissions, you'd only get people moving 2 years earlier.

It would also mean that people who had to move for a good reason within that time wouldn't get a place....

I think so long as people plan to stay in the area, it's fair enough. It isn't fair if people move in, get their place and move away again. Or lie, obviously.

i think in some instances the council should use commonsense as to who should be more eligible for the place. things are not always black and white. how would you feel for example if you had been waiting for a school place for a long time and then someone moved next door but were given higher priority than you, even though the distance was negligible? would you say they deserved it more than you? in certain instances, common sense and fairness should prevail over legislation, surely?

I'd be furious, obviously, but if the council were allowed to "use common sense", they'd be opening themselves to all sorts of problems as it would make the admissions code subjective rather than objective.

As I said in my previous post, I think you have an arguable case for appeal on the basis that distances should have been measured to the infant gate, not the main entrance. It is certainly worth a try. If I were in your situation I would certainly appeal on these grounds. If the appeal failed I would refer the case to the Local Government Ombudsman to see what they think about the LA's approach to measuring distances.

I'm afraid the LA are constrained by the law. They are required by law to give someone moving into the area the same chance of getting into a school as someone who has lived there for ages. They must have clear admission criteria and they must follow them. I understand in your situation why you think that common sense and fairness should prevail over legislation but not everyone agrees as to what constitutes common sense and fairness. In any case, the LA CANNOT ignore the legislation. If they do they will be overruled by appeal panels, the Local Government Ombudsman and the Courts.

DJJC,
You need to focus on getting a successful admission to the school, not on berating anything and everything about the system. The system is there because it works for most people and you need to work it to your advantage.

PRH has indicated a really good arguement to use at the admission appeal. You need to check how the LA are measuring to the main gate of the school. The computer systems used have a datum point that can be positioned, so it is important to check which school gate is being used. If they are using the wrong main gate then you also need a document from the school that states all infants must use the infant gate. Given that the distance you are short of is 44 metres, which i suspect is probably less than the distance between the two gates then the admission appeal panel will have to consider whether the admission authority have carried out the correct process. It obviously all depends on the wording of the admission criteria, but some sense has to be applied and if the infants don't use that gate officially then this is very relevant.

Please also be aware that you need to control your feelings when you go to the appeal hearing. Panel members are well used to people losing their temper (we are human and realise the hurt it can cause) but it will not improve your case one bit. A controlled dismantling of the Local Authority case wil be much more effective.

thanks, i appreciate your comments. apologies for the rantings, i am just feeling very defeated and brow beaten at the mo. realise i can't let this show at the appeal, but really needed to let off some steam somewhere.
will try to chill out and concentrate on the appeal......thanks again

I empathise with all the parents who are trying to get their children in their catchment school. We almost had to go to appeal but were lucky that a place has just come up this week and my DD1 will be able to go to her local school. We had moved in august, missed the admissions and had to drive 8 miles to a different school every day, dragging 3 younger children along, which was really taking the toll.

In our case the problem is that our local village school is massively oversubscribed because people drive miles and miles to get their kids into that school.

I think that they should leave one or two spaces for families like us who move into the area, as it can be awful for the kids not having places at their local school.

Whether they speak english well or not (we are not local and I am not english, so maybe a bit touchy!) I don't think it matters, does it. The children surely have a right to go to their local school, near to their new family home, wherever that is. People move all the time.

Well done that's brilliant! Our LEA were the same when we loved here and in some ways I wish I'd pushed it and appealed but we've now found a brilliant school that can take both DCs, they are very happy there, only downside is the hour round trip school run

We have moved to stop having to go through this every 2 years. (Military family) I will never have to move them again! Only a dentist to find now

What are the reasons people have won infant class size appeals, please?

The only reasons that you can win an infant class size appeal are

1. you prove that it is actually not an infant class size appeal
2. the admission authority made a mistake that meant that if the mistake had not been made you would have been offered a place on the initial allocation of places.
3. That the decision to not offer a place was unreasonable. For unreasonable in legal terms you need to read a completely perverse decision. What you consider unreasonable is not what legal would be unreasonable, so there are very, very few cases where this is actually the case.

Merrylegs Squidward

If someone wins an appeal for place its because the council made a mistake. It maybe its your child who should be kicked out to make room for the child who should have got a place.

I read this article this morning and it just goes to show that you can't win no matter what you do!

Our eldest daughter who is currently in Y1 has to go to school in a taxi because, since moving house, we haven’t been able to get her into any of our nearest schools due to the infant class size legislation and catchment area restrictions. Essex County Council’s transport policy is: until the end of Yr2 transport is provided if the nearest available school is 2+ miles away but from Yr3 it has to be 3+ miles away - not sure what we'll do then to be honest. We are a one car family and my husband uses that every day to do the 60 mile round trip to work and back. Before anyone slams us for not trying to use public transport to get her to school, for quite a while we did and it cost us approx £170 a month using First Essex buses which became a real struggle. Frustratingly, our youngest daughter will be starting Reception in September at the nearest school which is only 350 YARDS from our house. There were 60 places available yet they had received 296 applications!! Oversubscribed much?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2689503/Taxis-taxpayer-Theyre-increasingly-used-children-school-ferry-prisoners-ambulances-Guess-picking-multi-million-tab.html