Reception place withdrawn mid-year - help!

[QueenofWhatever]

My DD (now 5.3) and I moved to our local city in August to get away from my abusive ex. This meant she lost her place at the local village school.

Schools here are very oversubscribed and she was given a place at the only school left with availability even though it's a bus ride away. I put her on the waiting list for the local school which is 350 metres from our house. It's a great school, Ofsted rated as outstanding so very sought after.

On Wednesday the council phoned me to say a place had become available. I had to accept it there and then with her to start after the Easter holidays. We had a meeting there today (Monday), but this morning I got a call saying the child whose place she had got had changed their mind and was now staying.

They'd confirmed it in writing, I'd told my DD that she was going (super excited), rearranged childcare and her place at her existing school has been offered to another child. Can the Council do this?

That's an interesting one. Is the council the same one for both schools? If so, they have retracted your new place so they should retract the offer made to another child on your old place to be consistent. At least you'd have a place then.

If I am reading your post right, you were offered the place verbally on Wednesday by the Council and verbally again told this morning that the place ahd been withdrawn.

As you alos have it in writing I would immediately go back to the Council and tell them the offer was made in writing and as such the place is yours and not the child who changed their mind. The time span is also such that the place should not have been withdrawn (3 working days).

Make the point that it is not your fault that the child changed their mind. I suspect that the response will be that there was a misunderstanding at the school. I would quote paragraph 1.36 of the school admission code 2010 at them, which says "Headteachers or other school officials must not give parents an expectation that their application was successful, or tell them that their child has been given a place at the school, before an offer of a place has been made formally under the co-ordinated scheme." This applies equally to LA officials and there is clear legal precedent that where such an offer is made that the place must be confirmed.

The other question that I am not clear about from your post is what has happened to your current place, other than it has been offered to somebody else. Are they going to play ping pong knocking back a whole host of agreed placements, which would be stupid. They should accept the problem happened and admit your child to the new school. Also if they start quoting infant class size regs, simply tell them that your child can be admitted as an excepted pupil. That allows them the rest of the this academic year to have 31 in the class.

Would be inclined to agree that if you have it in writing then they can't make you give up the place.

Friend's daughter didn't get a place at local school because the distance to school had been wrongly measured. When the error was corrected and friend's daughter was given place, the school had offered 31 places in class. Fortunately, another child/family gave up their place for personal reasons, but school would have had to have honoured the offer of 31 places if necessary.

Stick your ground here!!! You have written confirmation that the place was allocated to you. Even if you only had it in writing since Friday, that is 3 days that you had the piece of paper, which means it is too late for them to change their minds, whatever the reason.

www.dcsf.gov.uk/sacode/

Agree with others. Stand your ground. An offer was made. The LA cannot withdraw the offer 3 or more days later. Paragraph 1.50 of the School Admissions Code makes it clear that there are only very limited grounds for withdrawing an offer once it has been made. A change of mind by the child who was leaving is not one of them. They should have told the child who was leaving that it was too late as the place had already been offered to someone else.

The LA may argue that they can withdraw the offer in these circumstances. Stand firm - they can't.

They may try to fob you off with an appeal. I would not accept that. An appeal is not appropriate and, although appeal panels should know that places can't be withdrawn once they've been offered, I can imagine an appeal panel getting this one wrong.

If they refuse to honour the place you were offered, you should make a complaint in writing (email will do) to the Admissions Manager and the Director of Childrens Services. Refer to the Local Government Ombudsman frequently in your complaint. Give them a limited time to respond (7 days, say) and, if they still don't give in, refer the case to the LGO.

I am also puzzled about your comment that your daughter "lost her place at the local village school". The LA cannot force you to remove your child from a school just because you move. If you voluntarily removed your daughter from her original school that is fine - that was your choice. However, if the LA or the school told you that you had to remove your child from that school they were wrong. That would be something else you can kick up a fuss about.

I would say you have a legally binding offer. Stand firm - it's the LEA's stuff up.

Thank you, that's really encouraging. Their attitude has been very 'oh well, just one of those things' but it really upset me to take DD to the new school yesterday as arranged just to be told 'sorry, computer says no...'

I've drafted a letter to the admissions manager which I will send recorded delivery tomorrow. She does still have her place at her current school, so it means another child has been affected.

Good advice about not letting them fob me off with an appeal. That will just take more time and I don't then want to move her mid-term. I'm just so angry and upset for my daughter.

prh - when I say she lost her place at the village school, it's because we moved and it was too far away (and too bitchy a village with my ex still living there). So technically I did give up that place, but it's where she went to pre-school and she's had a lot of upheaval in the last year.

Just received a letter from the Council saying they stand by their decision to withdraw DD's place. The letter the admissions manager sent is incorrect in a number of facts about who contacted me when. But overall their argument is that the original child changed his/her mind and therefore they can't give me a place because of the Infant Class Size Legislation.

He also says section 1.36 doesn't apply because it was a mid-year application. I can see them dragging this out for most of the summer term which is very frustrating.

Is there anything I can do apart from write back correcting their inaccuracies and restating my case?

My next step would be to complain to the Local Government Ombudsman

They are usually pretty quick at responding to school admissions complaints.

As has already been said, they can't withdraw the offer because the parents of another child changed their mind. They shouldn't have offered you the place unless they were 100% sure the child was moving & made clear to the other parents that there was no going back. It's simply maladministration on their part.

(There is a world of difference between contacting you and saying "there might be a place coming up are you still interested?" and saying "there is a place now, do you want it yes or no?" - and then confirming it in writing...)

PS

Did they offer you right of appeal?

If not that is another point you can raise with the LGO.

I agree with BetsyBoop. You've lodged a complaint with the LA. They have rejected your complaint. You are now entitled refer the case to the LGO.

I don't think the admissions manager is right about paragraph 1.36. However, whether he is or not, paragraph 1.50 definitely applies and says that there are only limited circumstances in which an offer can be withdrawn. I would be very surprised if the LGO agreed with the admissions manager on this one. They have previously ruled that an offer cannot be withdrawn 3 days after it is made so it would be inconsistent of them to rule against you on this one.

As BetsyBoop says, they shouldn't have offered you the place until they were certain the other child was going to leave.

Ring the LGO today! They will write back to you. You should then make a written submission setting out the facts, referring to paragraph 1.50 and pointing out the factual errors in the admission manager's letter where they are relevant. And let us know the outcome.

This happened to a friend of mine, she was moving to Ireland, gave notice and then suddenly wasn't. The Catholic school was at said tough you gave notice, somebody else is starting you have to find another school - they went private in the end.
The council have handled this appallingly I think in your case I'd turn up at the new school on Monday, it's not your problem it's theirs.

The LA is completely wrong over section 1.36, they cannot be selective over when its applies, it is in the code and it applies all the time!

They can give you a place, despite the infant clas size regs, by deciding that your child is an excepted pupil for the rest of this school year. They are simply using different shields and legal jargon to try and bullsh*t you into submission.

Somebody made a mistake, the school, the LA, the child, it really does not matter. You received a valid offer of a place and accepted it and therefore to now withdraw the offer is unacceptable.

I agree with others your next stop has got to be the LGO. I would simply write back to the LA and tell them that you do not accept the situation, that there are material facts wrong in their case and that you have referred the matter to the LGO.

I spoke to the LGO this afternoon. They say they cannot get involved until I've had an appeal turned down and were surprised I hadn't been offered an appeal. Unfortunately they also said that schools can withdraw a place under these circumstances and it has happened before. However, they did give me a case number and asked me to get back to them.

I'm just frustrated because there is now no chance she will be able to start there after the holidays. I agree, the child confirmed in writing they no longer wanted the place and then changed their mind. I cannot understand why my daughter and I are being penalised for that.

Unless you've spoken to the person who will be investigating your complaint, I wouldn't pay too much attention to what you've been told at this stage. When I complained the first person I spoke too was doubtful that they would take the case and said it was extremely unlikely that I would win. They were wrong on both counts.

I've been following this thread from the start and, like everyone else, I'm appalled by the way the school is treating you. Since they are all being so slippery I would recommend getting some professional help with any appeal if you can possibly afford it (and if you still want your daughter to go this school after the way they have behaved towards you both ).

In your submission to the LGO, I would refer to paragraphs 1.36 and 1.50 of the School Admissions Code, mention LGO case 99C01876 where the LGO ruled that a 3 day delay in withdrawing an offer amounted to maladministration and point out the relevant factual errors in the Admission Manager's letter.

The person who is allocated your case will have a much better understanding of school admissions cases than the first person you spoke to when ringing the LGO.

The initial team who deal with enquiries at the LGO are not clued up at all and in my experience frequently get it wrong. If it was the York office you spoke to they are particularly bad. Don't let their advice put you off - use prh47's advice.

QueenofWhatever,
Please submit a formal complaint to the LGO, because it is an important principle that is at stake here. The LA made an offer and must stick to that offer, not play fast and loose with people's emotions.

You should do it if for no other reason than you will always wonder whether you should have been given the place. By all means go to appeal over it, but the LGO are the only people who can give a definitive legal opinion.

I do want to take this to the LGO (I agree about the point of principle), but can't until I've had an appeal turned down by the LA. It annoys me that I have to go through this rigmarole first when it's the LA at fault, but the LGO said I couldn't complain until that has happened.

I'll write again over the weekend and copy in the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People.

QofW,
My personal opinion is that you ought to put in writing the salient facts to the LGO and ask them to comment on whether this should go to appeal before it comes back to them as a complaint.

The reason I say this is that the School Admission Appeal Code is quite clear that the LGO can investigate written complaints about maladministrtaion on the part of a panel hearing appeals. This is not a right of appeal. Maladministration covers issues such as a failure to follow correct procedures or a failure to act independantly and fairly, rather than complaints where a person feels that the decision taken by the panel is wrong.

What you have got is a complaint against the LA for maladministration of the admission arrangements, not maladministration by an appeal panel.

At the very least you will have signposted to the LGO that a complaint can be expected after the appeal and if they have said go to appeal first, they can hardly say that they can't get involved afterwards.

Whilst you wait for the LGO to confirm one way or the other, progress an appeal for the school. So you have lost nothing in terms of time.

Section 1.50 here would seem to apply if the local authority who offered you the place is also the admissions authority.
I would speak to a solicitor or the CAB pronto .Definitely don't get dragged into the appeal thing.

Have you spoken to the person assigned to investigate your case? They will decide whether or not they can take the case. As Admission says, you should argue that this is maladministration of the admission arrangements by the LA.

Until the person assigned to investigate has told you that you must go through an appeal, don't make any assumptions. The people who answer the phones and assign case numbers routinely give incorrect advice in my experience. However, as Admission says, get your appeal under way but make it clear to the LGO that you are doing so under protest as you believe that, under the School Admissions Code, the LA must honour the place that was offered.

Get onto your MP. It is election time and they will want to pull all the stops out and a quick look at the rules would appear to make this a no brainer.