How to get a school to increase their numbers?

[BMITW]

Hi, I am new to Mumsnet, so hoping I have posted this is the right place, if not please let me know.

I really need help please, my son is currently in yr 2, I need to apply for a junior place for him, the school where I want him to go have this year reduced their numbers by 15, so 15 children in yr 2 will not get a place in the junior school. The junior school is foundation, so we are finding it very hard to get help from the local council to get the number increased again.

I am posting on here in the hope that someone reading this will have some advise on how to go about it.

Thank you.

Why are they decreasing the spaces? How many is it currently and what is going down to?

Is it to force children to go less popular schools?

They are decreasing as they want class sizes to be 30 and not 35, they used to take the whole 105 from the infants but have this year dropped to 95. No not forcing children to go to less popular schools, just had a disagreement with the infant school!

There is a chance you will get in on appeal then unless the LEA are supporting the school.

What are going to be their admissions criteria? Are you likely to not get in?

Normail admission, looked after children, medical, sibling, distance. Not sure if we'll get in, hoping so, but 15 of his friends won't so we are trying to get the school to put the numbers back up. When it all started 5 years ago parents tried then, but obviously with no luck, we are the first year that will lose out on places, which is why we want to try again.

Well if it's been on the cards for 5 years then I'm not sure if you will get far.

What is their published PAN?

Sorry what is a published PAN?

it is their admission numbers as publicised by the LEA.

How on earth was the infant school allowed 35 in a class, I guess they had a full time TA in each class?

Even with a full time TA it is illegal to have over 30 children in a R/KS1 class if there is only one qualified teacher

What on earth makes you think that 35 is an acceptable number for a primary school class? It's just too many to guarantee a good education for the pupils.

30 is the accepted limit. Why should they increase it back to what they've presumably agreed is too many?

primarymum dds reception class has 31 was the LEA cocked up (1 person rightly got in on appeal due to the LEA mistake), they don't have 2 teachers though

The infants have a shared class 15 from yr 1 and 15 from yr 2. So infant classes are 30 or less.

What makes me think 35 is ok is they have been doing it for the past 5 years with excellent results. Anyway, don't think I have to justify why, I was asking if anyone knew how to appeal it.

Not sure on LEA will be looking in to it though.

clam actually there is no limi ton number sin a juniro class as far as I am aware.

Certainly 35 is not unusual. DD's yr 3 class was 33 as was DS1's yr 4 IIRC.

Sorry OP no idea what you can do tho. I assume the school's PAN is now 90?

CarGirl, There are what are called "permitted exceptions", special categories that allow children in above the 30 limit, and LEA cock-ups are a permitted exception! Others include looked after children, SEN children with specific needs, children where the alternative school is completely inaccessible etc.

primarymum that does make sense to me, but I am horrified that someone I know was left haning around being told their wasn't a space for her foster daughter at there local school (there was for her older siblings) when they could have been a permitted exception for her! It's not like with their PAN of 90 that it would have been for long....!

No limit, except for the unacceptable workload imposed on the teachers. Which impacts negatively on those already there.

I think you would have a very good chance at appeal .It would ne very difficult to argue that they cannot accept the sme number they used to accept if nothing else has changed.

Sorry meant to say you should get hold of Ben Ronnets book which will give you chapter and verse on this

Ben Rooney

30 is not the accepted limit for junior school classes. Most schools I know have a class limit of around 35.

Thanks for all your comments, I'm going to try and contact Ben Rooney, have found an e-mail addy for him, hopefully he'll be of some help.

Found out today that there is no chance if changing for the 2010 intake, but not putting us off as it's more the point that 15 children have to be uprooted and go to a new school where they have to leave all their friends and go to a school where they now no one.

Just to add insult to injury we won't find out until 1st May if our child has a place.

Just re-read that, looks like I should go back to school the spelling mistakes I've made, way too tired, sorry!

BMITW just be prepared for the arguement that parents were aware of this when they put their children into that infant school. Also you need to argue it from an education point of view primarily.

Children going on to different junior schools is the norm in many areas.

You may also find that the LEA wants to school to have a PAN of 90 so that on appeal it doesn't have many more over 30 in each class rather than having to run extra classes.

Our LEA is now actively try to create primary schools and having all the PANs in numbers divisible by 30 so 30 60 or 90 IYSWIM.

I would be asking the junior school their reasons for reducing their intake 90.

It is too late to get the admission number changed for September, so I'm afraid the only way forward is for the affected parents to appeal once places have been allocated.

You are unlikely to win an appeal on the basis that the admission number has been reduced unfairly/incorrectly UNLESS you can show that the Authority has failed to follow the correct process before changing the admission number, e.g. they have failed to consult with parents. If they have not followed the correct process, you MAY be able to argue that the change of admission number is invalid and that the old admission number should apply. If you do try this, be prepared to refer the case to the Local Government Ombudsman if you lose the appeal. Faced with an argument over the regulations, many appeal panels will believe that the Authority has a better understanding of the regulations than parents. This happened in my own case. Thankfully I knew I was right as I was being helped by the person who wrote the relevant part of the regulations!

If the Authority has followed the correct procedure for changing the admission number, your argument (as CarGirl says) must be on education grounds. You must avoid saying that the preferred junior school is better than the one allocated (e.g. higher place in the league tables). You need to find specific reasons why it is more suitable for your child. You are trying to show that the prejudice to your child's education in going to the allocated school is greater than the prejudice to the school in admitting your son. If nothing has changed at the junior school to trigger the reduction in admission number (no reduction in classes, for example), you may be able to use the fact that the admission number was higher for many years to suggest that the prejudice to the junior school will not be that great. I would agree with CarGirl that you need to find out why the admission number has been reduced.

A Junior school we particularly liked had only 30/class because physically the classrooms were just too small for more than that; they had tried higher numbers/class for a while, but found it unworkable.

You need to know WHY the reduction in numbers, can Head not tell you?