School Admission Appeal - Anyone Been There

[Robeena]

Hi,

I will post this under education as well. I Finally have three appeal dates for my three schools that I want my son to attend.

We fall into Hertfordshire education authority.

Please can anyone offer advise on how to present a strong case to the panel of people and what to say / not to say.

Any advise is appreciated.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Managed to beat the local authority on an infant class size case (because they'd got the regulations wrong and were trying to claim infant class size were it didn't apply). Mind you, I had to go to the Local Government Ombudsman twice to get the correct result.

From my own experience and advice that was given to me:

The authority will argue that the school will be prejudiced by admitting your son. You have to show that the prejudice to your son by being educated elsewhere is greater than the prejudice to the school.

Concentrate on any needs your son has which will not be met by the allocated school. Assuming the Authority hasn't made a mistake, that's your best chance of success. Think widely when considering needs. For example, if the allocated school is a long way away you can argue that he will find it harder to integrate into the school and his local community, damaging his social development (I can expand on that privately if it helps).

If the Authority argues that it is an Infant Class Size appeal there are only limited grounds on which you can succeed. Your best chance is showing that admitting your child won't cause Infant Class Size prejudice (unlikely but that's how I won). If you can't, you will have to show that the Authority has made a mistake, broken the mandatory provisions of the Admissions Code or behaved unreasonably.

Do NOT say anything about league table rankings or similar. Do NOT say or imply that your son will get a better education at your chosen school. It may be true but it isn't a reason for allowing an appeal and may turn the panel against you.

Do NOT take a photo of your son to the appeal. The panel will feel like you are trying to blackmail them.

Make sure you understand the Authority's case fully. They have to send you a copy of their written submission before the appeal (if they haven't done so already). Look for any weaknesses in their case and make sure you've got a list of questions to ask.

If the Authority makes significant points which are not covered in their written submission, complain. They aren't supposed to do that as it stops you from preparing properly. Similarly, make sure you submit all your evidence properly in advance. Don't try to ambush the Authority at the hearing with documents they haven't seen.

Make sure you understand the School Admissions Code and School Admission Appeals Code (both available for free download from the DCSF website). You would be surprised how often Authorities get things wrong. If they have got something wrong, you may be able to use this in the appeal. If you lose the appeal, it may give you grounds for going to the Local Government Ombudsman.

Good luck and feel free to contact me direct if you have any questions.

You need to know PAN sizes in this year and previous years too. (Published Admissions Numbers)

The previous poster gives good advice too, although my experience was to hold onto documents until the last minute - in our case -photos.

Good luck

I appealed on the grounds that the LEA hadn't applied their own admissions criteria correctly, as DS2 had 2 siblings attending the school, and children out of catchment with no siblings attending had been admitted before him. They admitted DS2, despite the fact that it then breached Infant Class Size regs, as I had a very good case. (the out of catchment children, a set of twins, that had been admitted were the child of a governor whose older child had left 2 years previously, so no sibling link)...

That was naughty Loudlass.

Net capacity is another factor to consider. You can get info. from the LEA.

prh47bridge,

Please can you let me know how I can contact you directly about this.

There are a large number of factors to take into consideration here and it may well change from school to school in your appeal hearings.

First consideration is whether any of your preferences are any faith schools, as different admission arrangements will apply to those that are the standard admission criteria for Hertfordshire. The standard admission criteria for community schools in Hertfordshire is based on looked after children, then siblings, then schools for which they are the nearest schools and then distance from the preferred school.

Distance is based on nearest route which can always be slightly contenscious, so I would ask the admission authority for the route taken to the schools concerned.

The admission number for the school is important as that will suggest whether the appeal will be based on an infant class size basis or not. So any school that has an admission number of 15, 30, 45 or 60 is almost certainly infant class size appeal, when different criteria apply. Without getting too technical you will in effect have to show at appeal that the admission authority made a mistake in not allocating you one of the available places. The level of mistakes made is very low in comparison with the number of places allocated. The other possible reasons for admission in an ICS case is that the admission authority was unreasonable in refusing you a place. For unreasonable consider perverse and that is the level of unreasonable it has to be. Very few cases are won on these grounds.

I think you need to know exactly what the admission authorities case is before you can construct your best argument for admission. What I would say to you is that each admission will be different, with a different panel so you have three bites at the cherry. I would also say that you should submit an appeal for the school that is nearest to you if it is not one of the three. You do not have to have chosen it as a preference to appeal for the school.

How do I get confirmation that children living further away than us got accepted into the nursery despite not having siblings in the school.

All three schools have 60 as an admission number for the year. The infant size class is 30 - how do I know that the school hasn't used up it's quota of 60 admissions?

The only reason I knew is because I personally knew the governor, and SHE was shocked that her twins had been admitted and my DS2 hadn't. You can't actually get confirmation on this from any other source than the out of catchment child/rens parents as it would breach data protection rules.

Can I ask a stupid question?
Presumably the school you are appealing to has filled its quota -be it 30/60/90.
What happens if you win the appeal- does another child lose its place?

I'm not sure how the nursery places allocation would be relevant as the procedure is usually separate to the Reception Admissions with no guarantee of a place for those who attend - unless the cireria specify otherwise. Don't you need to be arguing that the declared criteria for a Reception place have not been fairly applied to your child .

Robeena - Sorry for the delayed response. I'm away from home this week.

You can contact me by clicking "Contact poster" - I've enabled that now. I think Mumsnet charge for that. If you want to avoid paying, say so here and I'll post a temporary address - I'm not too keen on posting my real personal email address in a public forum.

And to answer your question, if the admission number for the school is 60 and you didn't get a place, they will have admitted 60. If they haven't, they've made a mistake.

When you talk about nursery place, I presume you mean reception places. You won't be able to easily find out if the authority has got the distance criteria wrong. However, as Admission says, you need to know the route they used as you may be able to argue that they've got that wrong.

Deaddei - When an appeal is successful, the child is admitted. No-one else loses a place. It means the school goes over its admission number that year.

Roobeena,
With an admission number of 60, any appeal will be an infant class size appeal. You have to understand that the only two criteria for a successful appeal are that the admission authority made a mistake and your child should have been offered a place. The other possible reasons for admission in an ICS case is that the admission authority was unreasonable in refusing you a place. For unreasonable consider perverse and that is the level of unreasonable it has to be. Very few cases are won on these grounds.

Assuming that you child is not a looked after child (that is a child in care) or has an older sibling then the only area for discussion is the distance criteria. Hertfordshire operate on two levels. Firstly Rule 5 Children for whom it is their nearest community or voluntary-controlled school and the rule 6 Children who live nearest to the school.

I suspect that rule 5 does not apply to you and that your three preferences were not the nearest school. Look at the data on the Hertfordshire site www.hertsdirect.org/docs/pdf/u/orpri09
This gives the number last year who were admitted under rule 5 and rule 6 on the first round of place offers. It will give you an idea of how likely it is that you may get in from the waiting list.

Admission gives good advice - not surprising if she is who I think she is. I believe I came across her on another (now closed) discussion board where she went under the name Admissions Expert. If that is you AE you may like to know that the school still has 6 infant classes, so the Authority's case that it would go down to 5 was wrong.

Assuming the schools have two reception classes, your appeal would be infant class size on the facts given. As Admission says, the most likely grounds for success is that the admission authority has made a mistake and your child should have been offered a place.

You won't get detailed information about the children who have been admitted from the authority because of privacy/data protection concerns. You may, of course, bump into parents with children who have been allocated places at these schools so you may be lucky and find out something.

Personally, I think your best chance is if you have been dealt with under rule 6 for all three schools but you should have been under rule 5 for one of them. There is also a slim chance if any children were admitted under rule 6. The fact that they are using the "shortest designated route" opens up the possibility that there may be a mistake in calculating that and that you are actually nearer the school than some children who were admitted.

If it were me, I would ask the authority the following questions before the appeal:

• Which is your nearest school according to them?

• What is the shortest designated route to that school and what is the distance via that route? Once you've got this information, I would check the route to make sure it complies with the authority's definition of "shortest designated route" (see www.hertsdirect.org/infobase/docs/pdfstore/detadarr1011pdf p16). If it doesn't, e.g. because it uses a footpath that doesn't have a proper made-up surface, you can argue that the distance to this school is further than the authority say.

• What is the shortest designated route to each of your chosen schools and what is the distance via that route? Again I would check the route, but this time I would be looking for shorter alternatives that comply with the "shortest designated route" definition, e.g. because a footpath now has a proper made-up surface but the authority haven't noticed.

It is possible that this will allow you to argue that one of your chosen schools is the nearest school and you should have been dealt with under rule 5 for that school. Of course, that won't help you with your appeals for the other schools but it gives you a good chance of success with that school.

If that doesn't work but you are still able to show that there is a shorter route to one of the schools that meets the authority's "shortest designated route" definition, I would try asking the authority how many children were admitted to that school under rule 6 and what was the distance along the shortest route for the furthest child from the school (hope that makes sense).

If you can't show that one of the three schools is actually your nearest school and you live further away from the school than any of the children that have been admitted (or no children were admitted under rule 6), I'm afraid it is unlikely you will win unless you can identify some other mistake the authority has made.

Primary School Admission Appeal lost - can anyone help me with whether or not I have a case for the LGO?

We were not allocated chosen schools on basis that they are all over subscribed - ie PANs reached - then appealed for nearest/preferred and first school on list and lost.

Points we raised were (1) health: widespread mouth ulcers our son gets when nervous stressed (supported by doctors letter), (2)admissions criteria: PAN was 60 3 years ago, then 59 2 years ago (yet they still offerred 60 places, 59 last year (yet they still offerred 60 places) and 57 this year (with 57 allocated and another 3 given on appeal) - it appears they are really operating at 60 to me as an outsider and holding 3 places back for appeal (3) os map they use to measure distance from school to house does not show extension put on the house 10 years ago that moves house 4 metres towards school + paperwork says "from centre of house" but actually uses os point at furthest corner of house away from school(our attached neighbours have got into the school so every metre is relevant)(4) i work 8.30 - 6 2 days a week so need someone to take and collect my son from school - he is at preschool of nearest school so have plenty of friends to help if he goes there but not at offerred school and employer confirmed in writing that they cannot change my hours to allow for school drop off, and younger child will have to give us place at preschool as cannot be in two places at same time on 3 days i dont work.

sorry what a mouthful - does anyone see anything i hear i could take to the LGO.

It seems very odd to me that with at least 18 people appealling only 3 met their criteria - seems to me like they just allocated 3 to take it back to 60 and not over.

any help much appreciated.