Not offered any of my 3 choices for infant school

[SarahSharp]

Hi
I'm new to Mumsnet, and am really looking for some advice.
We've just been found out that we didn't get any of the 3 choices of school for our little girl and we've been allocated a terrible school, which although reasonably near to us is further away than one of our choices.
I've already refused the place, the school is awful, described by Ofsted as "a school that has a considerable amount of children from a highly disadvantaged social background" as well as many children with a statement of special educational needs and learning / behaviourial difficulties.
We are going to appeal but just wondered if anyone has any experience of this and under what terms you appealed?
Looking forward to hearing from you.

I don't see that the number of SEN children or level of social deprivation is relevant - do the children thrive there? Are they happy? What's the quality of teaching and learning like? Have you been to see it? Apologies if you have, but don't make assumptions based on stuff like SEN and Free School Meals.

If the school really is dreadful, all you can do is appeal to the LA (their website will tell you how), hope for the best and remember that lots of people will move house between now and September. There is always a lot of fluidity in these things.

That's a fair point and I agree that the number of children with SEN shouldn't dictate whether your child attends that school if the school is good, but it's not and that's really the point. The children do not thrive and that's why I've refused the place. We've both visted the school and unfortunately, it's reputation is well known locally!
Didn't mean to cause offence , and thanks for coming back to me so quickly.

Well, first of all, do not, and I repeat not use the motivation that your assigned school is awful in the appeal:

a) this is not the way to make the LEA take kindly to your request

b) this absolutely does not explain why your child deserves the good schools any more than any other child in the area

Remember, it is only to you that your child is specially important: in the eyes of the appeal panel, every child is as deserving as any other child.

Imagine if you were on this panel: how would you react to a parent who wanted you to overrule your decisions "because it's more important that my child goes to a good school" than that other children do- would that make you favour that child above the 300 others whose fates you also had to decide?

Besides, having many children with SN/from a disadvanaged social background does not make a bad school and you will absolutely not make friends anywhere (certainly no on Mumsnet!) by saying so. Some of the best state schools in the country fit this description. There is no way any self-respecting LEA will take this seriously.

Instead, you have to focus on why your particular child needs to get into this school. First of all, check the admissions criteria. The most common way of getting in on appeal is if you can prove that the LEA have failed to follow their own criteria, in other words let another child in when yours should have been higher on the list according to their own stated criteria. A common order for admissions is:

Children in care.
Statemented children.
Children in catchment with medical or social needs.
Children in catchment with siblings already at the school.
Children in catchment ranked according to distance from school (and every LEA has its own way of measuring which you have to check out).
Children outside of catchment with medical or social reasons.
Children outside of catchment with siblings already at school.
Children outside of catchment ranked according to distance.

But remember that the LEA can apply the criteria correctly and still not be able to admit every child who is in one of their top categories, as the schoo quite simply gets full. Also bear in mind that if the LEA consistently start over-filling schools, the good schools will not remain good schools. And that in Infants, there are rules about class size.

Even if the LEA have applied their criteria correctly, you can still have a chance of winning an appeal, if there are very special reasons (usually medical or social) why your dd needs this particular school. We got dd into (admittedly) secondary school by showing that it was the only school that could meet her medical needs and we're hoping to do the same for ds; a friend argued that their preferred school was the only one to offer special counselling support that her dd needed. Anything like this has to be documented and supported by expert evidence.

Oh but I suppose children like ours are exactly what would put you off a school.

Good post Cory.

Refusing the only place that you got was probably not the best plan because now you are going to have to justify why that school is not suitable as well as why the other one is.

On a personal note, I sent my dd to a school with an outstanding ofstead which was considered to be the bees knees and took her out after six weeks. The teacher was complacent and lazy and the head dependent utterly on the parents doing everything. Her experience there was akin to waiting in the queue at the bank. So very dull with some un-sharpened pencils and an empty sand tray on a good day.

I sent her to a socially deprived school where she was the only child with startrite shoes and a John Lewis pinafore- I did bake my bread in a loaf tin so it was square like everyone elses which I felt helped.... She thrived and learnt to read in the first half term.

The first thing you need to find out is whether it is going to be an infant class size appeal. If the school for which you are appealing has 30 children in each class in Reception, Y1 and Y2 (or would have if each year was full), it will be an infant class size appeal. In that case an appeal should only be successful if the LA have made a mistake and your child would have been admitted if they'd got it right. It is still worth appealing - appeal panels occasionally get it wrong and admit a child when they shouldn't - but your chances of success are low.

If it is not an infant class size appeal your chances of success are much better. However, as Cory says, you should not talk about the assigned school being awful, mention league tables, etc. Those are not valid reasons for winning an appeal. You need to show that not going to the preferred school is going to prejudice your child's education. Look at any needs your child has which will only be met by your preferred school. For example, does the preferred school run after school clubs which would be beneficial for your child.

My experience, by the way, is that I won an infant class size appeal because the LA were attempting to apply infant class size rules incorrectly. It took two appeals and two references to the Local Government Ombudsman but I got there.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond, I appreciate it very much and your responses have been very helpful.
I honestly did not mean to cause offence, but can see that I have and for that I apologise unreservedly. My comments were insensitive and I clearly did not think through the impact of the post.
It genuinely is about the quality of the schooling and nothing else.

I do see where you are coming from, even if not very sensitively put , but by refusing the place YOU have put your child in the position of having no school place. The LEA have fulfilled their statutory obligation and are likely to view your refusing the place in a very unsympathetic light as an attempt to blackmail them into giving you want you want. I hope you have a back up plan if you don't win on appeal.

Appreciate apologies.

Unfortunately, even if you know the assigned school is dire, some children still have to go there, so if you want the LEA to make an exception in your case, you need to explain why your child should not be one of them. (don't use child's academic ability as a)you can't really know much about that at such a young age b) it is not clear that academically able children need good teaching more than less able children do)

First port of call should be a list of their admission criteria.

Agree that refusing the assigned school was a mistake- but it's easy to see these things with hindsight.

Good luck!

we didnt get our choices either and our daughter has been at the school she was assigned to since september we put her on the waiting list for others but no luck as so did alot of other people!.
The school had a report which was pretty much like the one you described high level of special needs etc. She is actually ok there although I would say that we have not been TOTALLY happy with the school in general it is not as bad as it sounded its just that the class does have around 6 children with behavioural problems and in my opinion they could do with a few more assistants to help the teacher as there have been a number of incidents where a bit more supervision could have been used and once my daughter has been injured by a boy who punched her in the face when he couldnt get his own way - she just happened to be near him. BUT as I say my daughter likes it there in general and I dont think the reports and reputation it has been given is entirely deserved.

Why would you think having socially disadvantaged / SEN children would make the school awful? You sound like a terrible snob.

She has apologised, MissJackson.

So she should.

As someone who's child has recently been assessed as having SEN well into Junior school, I find it odd that you can dismiss a school on the grounds of it having lots of SEN children there.

Firstly, how do you know your own child won't have any SEN and therefore be well placed in a school well versed in dealing with such needs? My DD was ahead of her peer group in reception, developing normally and then suddenly lagged behind from Y2. So you never know what's round the corner.

Also, IMHO the proportions of kids with SEN are actually roughly similar in each state school - based on the law of averages. It's just some schools are much better than others at identifying and assessing needs so that these children are actually properly recorded on the register and have more access to support. So in my experience it's a sign the school is serving the needs of its children well, if anything.

My DD goes to an Ofsted outstanding school which flies in the League Tables and is massively oversubscribed. They consistently ignore her needs and our concerns. My sceptical theory about this is that they didn't want her on the register or to take up any of their precious resources as it didn't look good in their statistics. They have failed my DD as far as we are concerned.

Lots of excellent advice here already.

Refusing the school place you've been offered will not help you to win your appeal. You will get nowhere if your argument is "that school is good enough for other people's children but not for my own". You need to focus on why (in your view) only your preferred school will meet your daughter's needs. If (as I assume) this is an infant class size appeal, the bar is set even higher and you need to demonstrate that there has been some sort of error which has denied your daughter a place.

Have a look at the admissions appeal code on the DCSF website and all the other recent threads about appeals.

It was pointed out quite forcefuly, lou031205, and the OP did apologise.

Oftsed is very unlikely to say that 'many children have behavioural problems'. It is rarely that specific re: SEN. In addition, unless the school is completely failing and Ofsted have ripped it to shreds, there is unlikely to be public information available anywhere which says 'this school isn't coping well with it's SEN pupils'.

In my experience, schools with high numbers of statemented children aren't 'the problem' (if there is a problem??). Schools with high numbers of children with undiagnosed/unsupported SEN are much more problematic for everyone (and let's remember, SEN can range from profound developmental conditions like ASD, to milder and ragingly common issues like dyslexia).

Which is all by the by. I have heard one time too many parents talking about schools being undesirable because they have high numbers of:

a) children from socially deprived backgrounds
b) children who's first language is not English
c) childrenw ith SEN

It is snobbery. And it is totally wrong. Unfortunately, it is an attitude that is reinforced by the whole system in this country, where 'choice' of school has somehow become almost a consumer issue, and middle class parents feel they have somehow been done a disservice if they do not get their child into an out of catchment 'outstanding school', rather than any one of their loal schools.

Apologies to the OP if this is not an accurate description of her circumstances, but it is an all too common situation I see time and time again.

local schools

actually the school is well out of our catchment area. all the schools we applied for have an afterschool club at the same nursery that my daughter has attended since she was six months old. the school she has been given is on an impprovement notice. my colleagues wife works as a teaching assistant there and she advised us that itwas not for our daughter as the level of education was pretty poor and that she was leaving soon as she could find another job.