Infant School Appeal

[beth13]

Hi all,
I know there are several threads on this subject already, which I have read with interest.
Just a quick question or two and I wonder i anyone can help, please ?
My daughter has not been offered any of our three choices and has been offered a place at our catchment school, which is not great. However, I need to ascertain whether we actually have any grounds for appeal. Our second choice school has put 'n/a' under the 'infant class size refusal' part of the form, so I am guessing that she wasn't rejected because the class was full ? Does anyone know what this might mean ? Also, I want to find out where she is on waiting lists for the schools we applied for - do I ring the school or the LEA ?
Thank you for reading !
Beth x

Rouso,
I think you are missing the point or I have got this very wrong. The school you want has an admission number of 30 - the fact that it was something else a few years ago is irrelevant. The admission authority have allocated 30 places to the admission number limit and are not allowed to offer any more places under normal circumstances.

The 30 limit on the school is also the limit for any one infant class with one teacher under the infant class size regs. As such the admission authority simply has to confirm that to admit more pupils that corrective actions would be necessary and that would be a further teacher in the classroom. If the admission arrangements were correctly carried out to the panel's satisfaction the panel cannot admit any more pupils no matter what other reasons are given and no matter how good those reasons are.

I don't believe from the information that you have given you are going to find anything wrong with the admission arrnagements and therefore you will not win at the appeal.

Rouso

I think you are trying to mix the two "issues" which isn't how it works

Yes you can appeal for your preferred school, by as it's an infant class size appeal then unless you can prove a mistake was made in the application of the admissions criteria AND your DC would have been admitted if that mistake had not been made, then your chances of success are slim to zero. What you think of the allocated school doesn't really come into it for the appeal. It's also irrelevant how many the school did or did not admit in previous years, only the PAN for this year matters. (There are separate processes for consultation about and challenging of PAN changes - but these will have already happened for any PAN changes for Sept 10 admission)

If it wasn't infant class size appeal you could also put the case why your preferred school ,and only your preferred school could offer what your DC needed. The appeals panel in an "ordinary prejudice" appeal are trying to balance the prejudice to the school in admitting another pupil vs the prejudice to your DC in not being admitted - but again it's not really relevant to "rubbish" the allocated school - and runs the risk of turning the panel against you.

You have separate issues with the allocated school which you need to take up with the head of the LA and/or pursue other school options with the LA - but you already know there are no other local-ish schools with places. As has already been said if you refuse the allocated school the LA don't have to offer another school - so if you do that it's down to you to ensure your DC is being educated by compulsory school age either privately or home ed.

I know it's probably not what you want to hear, but that's the system as it stands...

PS
PAN = published admissions number

just to be clear, in an infant class size appeal you can of course still state the case why your preferred school ,and only your preferred school could offer what your DC needs, but it's not likely to make any difference as the panel will only admit an additional child if a mistake was made or the decision was "perverse" in the legal sense.

The rules are that open-sided covered areas cannot be used as part of the capacity calculation, nor can any other area that isn't intended to be secure and reasonably weather resistent. That doesn't prevent them being used as teaching spaces - they just don't count towards the capacity. It is unlikely that the LA has got this wrong. In any case, as I've already said, this is irrelevant.

This is an infant class size appeal. The rules on such appeals are clear. You can only win the appeal if the LA has made a mistake in operating the admissions process by, for example, placing your child in the wrong admission category or getting the distance from your house to the school wrong. In an infant class size appeal that is the ONLY thing which matters. Nothing you say about the allocated school will make any difference. Even if it was using unqualified teachers and cramming 300 children into a garden shed, the panel still could not use that as a basis for admitting your child to your preferred school.

Even in an ordinary appeal, going this negative about the allocated school is unlikely to help you and may damage your case. The panel would be interested in reasons why this was the wrong school for your child, i.e. factors that specifically affect your child. Something like a mobile phone mast affects all the children and therefore doesn't help, otherwise it would justify successful appeals for all of the children admitted to that school.

However, this is an infant class size appeal so nothing you say about the allocated school will make any difference.

If the school is breaking the law and gets closed down tomorrow, the LA will have to find places for all the children currently at that school and all those due to start there in September. That STILL wouldn't be relevant in an appeal. It still wouldn't be a basis for a successful appeal to get your child admitted to your preferred school.

Nothing you have said so far suggests that the LA has made a mistake. You have my sympathy if the allocated school is as bad as you say but I'm afraid you are almost certain to lose your appeal. You have rejected the place that was offered to you. The LA is under no obligation to find an alternative place for your child. The next nearest school with a place available is too far away. There is, of course, a chance that you will get a place via the waiting list if you are near the head of the list but you need to start thinking seriously about what you are going to do if that doesn't happen. It is now up to you to find a school place for your child.

I think you are confusing two issues here.

If the school is using the outdoor space as a teaching space that is within the law. That is completely separate from the capacity calculation. The school saying they are using this space so that they can accommodate extra children does NOT mean that they have counted it towards the capacity.

The capacity of the school was almost certainly set several years ago. It is highly unlikely that this has been incorrectly calculated. What has probably happened is that, in order to cope with more children applying than there are places, the LA has agreed with the school that it will set a higher admission number than that indicated by the school's capacity. The school is coping with the higher admission number by using this space as a teaching space. That is entirely legal.

I must again repeat that nothing you can find out about your allocated school will help you win your appeal. In an infant class size appeal the ONLY thing that matters is whether or not the LA administered the admission process correctly with respect to the school for which you have been refused admission. Everything else is irrelevant, including problems with the school you have been allocated.

Rouso - I've been worrying about my last answer here - not because it is wrong but because I may have failed to clear up the confusion. Let me try to explain with an example.

Suppose a school has 7 classrooms each of which is big enough to handle 30 children. Other things being equal, this school will have a "net capacity" of 210. For a primary school, you would expect the admission number to be one seventh of the net capacity. That gives an admission number of 30, which sits nicely with the classroom sizes and the infant class size regulations. We therefore have a school with a net capacity of 210 and an admission number of 30.

Then the LA realises it has a problem coming down the line so it goes to the school and says, "We need more places. Is there any way you can take more children in reception".

It will help the school if they get more children as that will mean more funding, so they say to the LA, "We've got a covered over area which we could use as a teaching space at a pinch. That will allow us to accept more children."

The LA say, "Great! Let's do that then and set the admisssion number at 60."

The school still has a net capacity of 210 but LA wants to set the admission number at 60. As they are changing the admission number at setting it higher than indicated by the net capacity, the LA has to go through a consultation process. Once that is complete, the school has a net capacity of 210 and an admission number of 60.

All of the above is perfectly legal. In this example the school will eventually end up with 420 pupils if every year is full, despite having a net capacity of only 210. Provided they have followed the correct process at every step they are allowed to do this.

The school will then confuse parents like yourself by saying they have used the "covered over area" to increase their capacity. They have in the sense that they are now able to accept more children into Reception but official net capacity of the school remains unaltered.

I hope that clarifies things.

Rouso

You have an infant class size appeal. Legally the only grounds on which the appeal panel can admit your child to your preferred school is if the LA has made a mistake with the admission process to that school and your child would have been admitted if they had followed the process correctly. The kind of mistake that results in a successful appeal is where the LA has placed your child in the wrong admission category or has got the distance from your home to the school wrong. Whether or not your child should have been admitted to the allocated school is irrelevant. Nothing you have said indicates that such a mistake was made so I'm afraid your chances are minimal. However, panels do sometimes admit children when they shouldn't and it is always possible that something will come out during the appeal that will show a mistake has been made.

You can try bringing these matters up but it is unlikely to help you. It tells the panel why you consider that the allocated school is unsuitable but it does not give them a reason to admit to your preferred school as opposed to any other school in the area.

I would imagine they increased the intake based on an assurance from the school that they could cope in order to deal with a shortage of places within the area covered by the LA.

You are entitled to the information requested under the Freedom of Information Act. They certainly aren't delaying because of your appeal - they will be aware that it isn't relevant under the rules. If you want this information, put your request in writing and make it clear that it is a Freedom of Information request.

If the LA has admitted children that the school cannot accommodate they will have to solve that problem somehow, either by supplying more accommodation at the shool (e.g. Portakabins) or re-allocating some of the children to other schools. Even if they did re-allocate some children there is no guarantee that your child would be one of those re-allocated. Any children re-allocated will be sent to the nearest school with places available. That is not your preferred school as that school is full up. If there are no places available the children would be sent to whichever school was best able to cope with additional pupils.

Yes, it is possible to justify an appeal on those grounds but that is still about the decision to refuse admission to the preferred school. The decision to admit you to the offered school may have been completely unreasonable but that doesn't mean the decision to refuse admission to your preferred school was unreasonable. And the bar you have to get over for "unreasonable" is very high - you have to show that the LA has acted irrationally in refusing a place to your child.

Even if you convince the panel that the LA's decision to admit you to the allocated school was irrational, they have to say, "The LA shouldn't have admitted your child to the allocated school. They should have admitted your child to some other school. But that doesn't mean they should have admitted your child to the preferred school. As your preferred school is full they should have found your child a place somewhere else. So, under the rules, we have to reject your appeal."

That, I'm afraid, is the way the system works. For an ICS appeal the panel is (or should be) ONLY interested in the LA's decision to refuse admission to your preferred school. The alternative school to which your child has been admitted simply doesn't enter into it.

Personal circumstances only really come into an ICS case if you are suggesting that the LA has placed your child in the wrong admission category. For example, if one of the categories is for children with a special medical or social need and you provided evidence that your child should be in this category but the LA did not agree, the appeal panel may decide that the LA got this wrong. Personal circumstances are generally not relevant for ICS appeals.

Your chosen school may have extra space but it has 30 in each infant class. It can't go beyond that unless they have more teachers and/or more classes. That is the law. If they do go beyond that they will have to employ an additional teacher. This will cost them much more than the funding they would get from admitting your child. They may have enough space to have 35 in each class but they can't do it legally without employing extra teachers and the panel won't admit on that basis.

The comments you report from the business manager at the allocated school indicate that there is a problem. You have my sympathy that your child is caught up in this. Unfortunately it doesn't get you into your preferred school. However, you should certainly be complaining about this. If you have the statement from the business manager in writing, I would make a formal written complaint to the Director of Children's Services at your LA - I'd be tempted to complain anyway but it strengthens your hand if you have the statement in writing. It may be that you will be able to force them to offer you a place somewhere else. However, even if they do, the LA will decide where this place should be. It will not force them to admit your child to your preferred school.

Here is my take on your last questions but prh47 is clearly the expert (and no, I don't think she sounds tough- just sticking to the rules as a panel should):

The whole admissions/appeal process is based on the assumption that every child in the school will be disadvantaged if the school takes on more than its designated number of pupils. It follows that the only sensible reason for doing so anyway is if the disadvantage arising to one particular child is so great that it outweighs this disadvantage caused to all the children. (or of course if the LEA has made a mistake).

Most panels would not think that going to a school with slightly less music provision would be such a huge disadvantage for a child- parents can always provide music tuition outside of school and indeed that is what most parents, even of very gifted children, have to do.

"Ok I am sounding desperate here but the distance measured for the preferred school was as the crow flies. I found out today that someone I know was accepted at the school who is closer than we are measured by as the crow flies but actually has a longer journey than us, is this fair and would that be taken into account?"

By now you should have the list of admissions criteria- the LEA will adhere to those. So if the criterion is "as the crow flies", then they can't change that in the case of one child to be "longer de facto journey"- if they did they'd have re-do the whole admissions process to make sure they were doing the same for everybody. The criteria that are published are the ones they will stick to.
(In the case of our school, this led to rather bizarre results as children who lived in the same road as the school (out of catchment) were rejected while children who lived at the other end of the parish were admitted because they were in catchment. Parents complained but were told that they cannot change the criteria during the admissions process).

"Would they not have to offer me a local school or are they within the law to offer me any available school even if it is too far?"

That depends on the definition of too far. They have to offer a chance of education= a school that your dc can actually get to, but if it is too far to walk, they may offer transport.

"In order to avoid the preferred school spending extra money for a teacher, would placing my child on top of its reserve list be a possibility regarding the circumstances of the offered school, the stressed that it has all caused and that there was no other school with a place at the time that I enquired?"

Only problem I can see here is that all the other children on the reserve have equally been rejected, are equally faced with the choice of less satisfactory schools and can be expected to be equally stressed.

"As I mentioned in a previous message we need the after school clubs that the preferred school offers but also the help of a friend whose child goes to this school who would help with childcare for free. Unfortunately we cannot afford to pay for a paid carer to do the school run and after school care."

Again, lots of parents could argue this, lots of parents are struggling financially, lots of mothers cannot afford to go back to work because of the cost of childcare: it would be hard to prove that similar problems did not equally affect all the children on the reserve list. In fact, most people do not have the luxury of having friends who can do free child care, so it would seem unreasonable to the LEA to give your child priority because you are so lucky.

Agree with prh47 that the threshold is very high for proving admissions mistakes. The panel did not accept that the LEA had made a mistake when they refused to place our wheelchair bound dd into the special considerations category and allocated us a non-wheelchair accessible school: their reasoning was that we should have provided more medical evidence than just a letter from the GP. We still got in on special considerations, because this was secondary, but wouldn't have done if we had had to rely on the mistakes argument.

Rouso I don't think PRH is being tough, just telling it how it is. PRH has also provided some excellent expert advice on capacity etc.

I know I said this before, but I'll reiterate...

Your appeal (as it is infant class size) is all about whether the admissions rules were followed for admission to your preferred school. If they were and you don't have a MAJOR reason why that school and ONLY that school can meet your DCs needs then you WILL lose the appeal. As Cory said, music provision and childcare issues don't come into it. Also if the admissions criteria say "crow flies", then "crow flies" it is, it's irrelevant how far by road the actual journey is. Also the appeals panel will look at the evidence the admission authority had at the time the decision was made, citing new reasons now will probably fail as they should have been included in your initial application. The appeals panel CANNOT influence your position on the waiting list, their decision is purely whether to admit (IF they decide a mistake was made) or not.

You have separate issues with your allocated school, which you need to address with the head or the LA. The LA should work with your to resolve issues or may (I say may as legally I don't think they have to if you decline the allocated school) offer another school. However you don't get to chose that school or how far/close it is (the LA may offer free transport where appropriate).

You can apply for and/or go on waiting list for which ever other schools you chose, even if they are full. You can appeal if they don't admit you, BUT you will more than likely be up against the same ICS issues, and again any issues with the allocated school don't come into it, only whether the admissions authority followed the process properly.

I feel for you in your situation, I really do. I'm trying to be honest as to how the system works, because if you think you will win the appeal for your preferred school because of issues with your allocated school then you are in for a big disappointment.

Have you found out your position on waiting lists? When is your DC 5? One other option is to sit it out & hope that you get a place from the waiting list before compulsory school age (start of term after 5)

Thanks to Cory and BetsyBoop for their defence! As they say, I'm telling it how it is. I have a lot of sympathy for your position but appeal panels have to work within the rules laid down by the government. Every appeal panelist can tell of cases where they sympathised with the parents but couldn't do anything about it because of the rules. I may have come across as tough but only because I'm trying to be realistic about the way the appeal panel will look at this.

Cory and BetsyBoop have also given good advice so I'll be repeating them somewhat but this is my take on your questions.

Legally the situation is that the LA has offered you a place which you have rejected. They are under no obligation to offer another place. If your appeal fails it will be up to you to find another school or home educate. Having said that, if the situation with the allocated school is as you describe and the allocated school can't take the number of pupils that have been admitted, I would hope that the LA will try to find another school for you. If they do offer another school it could be anywhere. I'm afraid they don't have to find you a place at a local school. Infant class regulations still apply - they can't have more than 30 children in an infant class with a single teacher. However, if they offer you a school which is more than 2 miles from your home via the shortest walking route they will have to provide free transport.

The regulations on the waiting list are clear - positions must be determined by the admission criteria for the school. Neither the LA nor the appeal panel has any authority to change that. Sorry.

If the admission criteria say that distance is measured as the crow flies then that is how distance is measured. The fact that shortest walking route may produce a different answer is irrelevant. A lot of LAs use straight line distance as it is less likely to be challenged than shortest walking route. Those that use shortest walking route risk getting appeals claiming that there is a shorter route than the one the LA has used, e.g. because there is a short cut the LA didn't know about.

I sympathise on the childcare and music fronts but I'm afraid there isn't anything the appeal panel can do about that in an infant class size case.

I hope you strike it lucky in the appeal. There is always a possibility that something will emerge in the hearing that changes the complexion of this case. If not, I hope you can sort things out with the LA and arrive at a satisfactory outcome for your child.

No, not annoying at all. Persistent yes, annoying no . I hope your persistence bears results.

As your DC is a summer baby you might want to ask about delaying entry to January or even Easter if they will allow it. That gives more time to sort matters out and without the possibility of having to move schools once he's already settled in and made friends.

not annoying at all (and I have the same stubborn streak... )

I'm sure you did a fabulous statement to go with your application as to why you wanted that school, but to get classed in the "Children with special medical or social circumstances affecting the child where these needs can only be met at this school" (or whatever similar words the school uses) category - virtually always requiring a statement by a doctor/psychologist/social worker/etc saying "in my professional opinion little Johnny has to go to this school because..." None of the reason you have stated would be likely to get you classed in this category, the bar is set very high. (As per Cory's example even the fact that her DD needed a wheelchair accessible school wasn't initially classed as in this category )

The fact that your DC is a summer baby is in your favour if you don't mind waiting for a school place, as you have time to. There is usually some movement just before September when people going private "release" their "just in case" state place. Often by the time half term in the Autumn term arrives, people are reluctant to move their DC, as they are settled in the allocated school & have made friends, the school isn't as "bad" as they first feared etc, so they don't accept a place if it's offered anyway. Sometimes you can move up the list quite quickly. Also in a lot of areas the waiting list is only maintained for the Autumn term anyway. Obviously there are no guarantees, but you are giving yourself as many options as you can getting on waiting lists.

Also check as the LA often accept evidence of exchange of contracts as a "new" address - so it moves you up the list a week or two earlier (probably won't make a difference, but it just might!)

I also used the emotional argument, but that needed to be backed up by a letter from the Children's Mental Health Service showing that dd really had the emotional needs I mentioned and had been having treatment for them- that was another thing we missed in our application and had to add later.

But still feel i should complain that a school offer was made that clearly shouldn't have been made.

Absolutely complain, from what you've written it sounds like there are real issues that need to be addressed.

Yup, complain!