Faith School Farce .... what are chances of appeal?

[MrsOB]

Hi all

My son has just been turned down for all 3 of our preferences for infant school. The first 2 preferences were for faith schools. We are committed Catholics and attend mass every week with our son.

In the 2 catholic schools we applied for there was a supplementary form which needed to be completed. This is where the priest confirms your family's attendance at church. We submitted this form.

I was recently speaking to a mum at my DS's nursery who told me that, whilst her son is baptised catholic, she never attends mass, nor does the son. Her way around the supplementary form was to get her mother to give it to the priest on the way out of mass - he signed it and hey presto, she has a valid form.

I found out yesterday that her son got a place and I am thinking I should appeal. If this is the method of getting this form signed then surely it is not right? Her son manages to get a place whilst we are told we don't have a place (they live closer to the school than we do). In my opinion this is fraud. How can it be right her son gets a place when they never attend mass but my son doesn't when we attend every week?

My son is currently second on the waiting list for this school. Would you appeal? Has anyone had this experience?

Any advice appreciated.

B x

Well no, dreamteamgirl, obviously there will be no need to bother your priest seeing as your "nearest state Primary is excellent".

I thought faith schools needed their special admissions policies because Catholics absolutely must have a Catholic education for their children. Turns out they just want a good one like everyone else. Who would have thought it?

Zephrine

Our priest is a friend and my mum and I are Catholic, but as DS doesnt go to church I wouldnt be able to send him to faith school anyway

I went to Catholic school till I was 10 and if DS contnues his interest I will start taking him to church and see from there. So that arguement (the must have Cathloic education one) doesnt really apply to me yet

And yes of course 'we' want cracking schools- we are parents just like 'you'- difference is regular church goers put a lot into their local schools- church and state ,but mostly the church ones- and a lot of state schools dont seem to have parents who do that.

We raised huge amounts of money through sales, fetes, sponsorship, coffee morning etc so the two defunct schools could be knocked down and a brand new one built (I wont pretend to understand the funding issues, but I know we raised tens of thousands of pounds) and I think the people that did that SHOULD have a right to use it ahead of those who didnt, yes. Why shouldnt they?

i would be cross too, but if the priests are lax in signing the forms then it just goes on distance.
our school serves 4 parishes and is very oversubscribed, 146 applications for 90 spaces this year, all of whom had baptism certs and signed priest referrals.

2 of the 4 priests are very careful about signing forms but the other 2 aren't, so it just ends up going on distance.

a friend of mine is the treasurer for the diocese - didn't get his son into our school despite attending mass all the time, forever.

DreamTeamGirl. You seem to be suggesting that parents should be able to earn the right to preferential treatment when it comes to state school admissions. It's an interesting idea (and sounds rather like something you might expect from Cameron's "Big Society"), and very attractive to those of us who have the time and resources to put money in the collection plate and organise a few tombolas. But even if it were open to all, this could only lead to deeper social division within the state school system, with one group of schools populated with the children of resourceful, involved parents, and the others left to deal with everyone else.

As it is, it's not open to all of course, but only to those who happen to be of a particular faith, and who are willing and able to make a public declaration of that faith. So it is not only divisive, but grossly unfair. The whole thing is a nonsense.

Would love to get any views and advice on our situation. We got our 2nd place Catholic school for our DD - which is a great school. Our first choice was for a hugely over-subscribed girls school with strict criteria based on points around mass attendance, sacraments and involvement in church life. We lost some points because she was not baptised until she was 20 months old, but this should have been balanced out by our work within the parish - reading, altar serving, leading children's liturgy, communion minister, fund-raising etc etc. We fell short by 1 point, didn't make the cut and are 9th on waiting list.
After lots of thinking we decided to appeal as the points thing just wasn't adding up. We have just received back-up paperwork from the school to justify their decision and have found that our priest forgot to mention some of our activities on his reference depriving us of 6 very valid points. He had been ill - so this could explain it - but I'm now not sure where we stand. School followed its rules and so has not made a mistake. We definitely should have qualified for a place - but human error on the part of our priest meant this didn't happen. Is this enough, with a new letter from our priest and back-up in the form of parish records - to get the school to give us a place? Will this be a convincing argument at the appeals process? Anyone got similar experience?

Thanks

it sounds like they have really worked out the criteria and that you have a valid point. however i would expect the class is full and there is nothing they can do at this point. However the appeal may push you to the top of the waiting list, which is definitely worth it if you really want the place. Someone may drop out between now and sept or a place may come up very quickly.
if you are in SW16? then like most areas of SW London there is high movement of people, a place will come up v soon.

SW16 - were you given the opportunity to review the priests reference (and therefore an opportunity to spot he omission) or not?

If not then I think you have grounds for appeal, as the school are using the lack of points as their "defence" as to why to didn't get in. There are never any guarantees at appeal, but there is a reasonable possibility that the panel will think that you should have got the place if the points had been done properly & the reason that they weren't was none of your doing. Did you submit your own list of church activities etc with your application? If so that is another point in your favour, as you can argue that the school should have followed up any discrepancy between what you said & the priest said.

The appeal can't "move you to the top of the waiting list", it doesn't work like that, but if you have confirmation of the new points you should have had & don't win the appeal then they will place you on the waiting list based on the new points total, which may move you up the list (waiting lists are held in same order as the admission criteria) In fact they should do thi as soon as they have confirmation of the new points total, ahead of the appeal being heard.

I'm sorry this is such a difficult situation.

I would go on the waiting list and write and tell the school how much you like them and think they're great.

We are not Catholic but our daughters go to a Catholic primary school because we were on the waiting list and were eventually offered a place. We have noticed that children come and go from this school much more frequently than the state primary school that our elder daughter was previously at hardly anyone seems to leave.

Our daughter moved in Year 1 and never looked back. And then our younger daughter got in as a sibling.

Play the long game and you might well end up with the school that you really want. Reception is pretty similar wherever you go ... good luck.

Hi yes I would think it's definitely worth appealing. Even if the appeal isn't successful your dd should move up the waiting list with the reviewed points total.

just for some perspective SW16 - our catholic primary school is a 3 form entry and by Christmas in year 1, 5 children had left and new joiners started.

Catholic schools have a high proportion of europeans/south americans who are only in the UK short term

Also worth noting that some take the Catholic school offer as best in their locality but after a term move their children to a private school, thinking at the start that it will be as good/better than private school, then decide after a couple of terms that actually it isn't.

just to add to my earlier post.

IF the school admit a mistake was made with the points they should (if they follow the schools admissions & appeals codes) admit you without the need to even go to appeal, however that rarely happens in practice, so you usually end up at appeal anyway.

Thanks BetsyBoop and amidaiwish.

I'm hoping that the school or the appeals board will think as logically as us! I will call the school on Tuesday and then discuss with our priest, who I think will be mortified when I explain the situation with him. We didn't get a chance to review his reference and there was a discrepancy between our application and his reference, so sounds like it should be a no-brainer, but these things rarely are... Hoping we don't need to go to appeal - but will keep you posted.

SW16
if it gets to appeal you need to show in your case papers (I'm assuming it's an infant class size (ICS) appeal - what is the published admission number?) that
a) the admissions authority (I presume this is a Voluntary Aided school - so this will be the school itself) made a mistake in implementing its admissions criteria (ie it did not allocate you the correct number of points)
and/or
b) it did not act reasonably (it should have noticed the discrepancy between your info & priest's reference & sought clarification)
AND
(this is important) that if it had been done correctly that your DC would have had a place (it is not enough just to prove an error) - so assuming that points is the tie-breaker - that the last child admitted had less points than your DC should have had if it had been done correctly.

The school should tell you the points of the last child admitted if you ask them.

You can of course include all the supporting info about how it's the perfect school for your DC & how much you want a place, but that doesn't really carry any weight at an ICS appeal.

it's worth getting familiar with the admissions code & appeals code, available here (links on LHS) - you can quote the relevant paragraph numbers if you want - but it helps you know exactly what information the panel are looking for to make their decision.

Like I said before, I think you have a good chance at appeal as there are errors that denied your DC a place, but; particularly at ICS appeals; you can never guarantee the outcome.

Let us know how you get on, good luck

As the extra points that you believe you should have had would have given you a place at the school it may well be worth mounting an appeal.

There are two issues as far as I can see. Firstly if it is an infant class size case the school as the admission authority has to have made a mistake to allow admission. To my way of thinking they have not made a mistake. They took the information from the priest's submission and converted it into the correct number of points for what the priest stated. So the mistake is with the priest not the admission authority, unless the priest was involved as part of the governor admission panel with the deciding of the points for each individual pupil.

The second issue is what input you as parents had into the priest's submission of the score. If you pointed all the salient facts out to him and he has not scored it properly you have more of a case. If the priest was somehow supposed to know all about your family then I am not sure that this is fair way of administering the point scoring exercise. He cannot know everything, so was it in your submission to him?

I think that on a strict ruling the school as the admission authority have done their job correctly but the priest is clearly in a moral dilemma as they have inadvertantly stopped you getting a place at the school. This is not a case I would want to be on as a panel member as it is going to be a difficult decision to make, unless the school admit there is fault.

Having said that I actually believe that this is a case where the admission process is flawed. The process should not depend on the priest having to remember what individual familiies did or did not do. Surely it should be based on the parents having to submit information to allow confirmation of the points total. Hence I believe a flawed process. If yours is wrong there is a fair bet there are others who are in the same position arguing that their points total is too low.

admission - from what SW16 is saying they submitted the information to the school & the school also got the reference from the priest (which they didn't see) - the information didn't match & I would assume no one queried it (or the priest would have gone the "oh yes I forgot about that"!). So the school used the priest's information to calculate the points even though it didn't match the applicant's information.

I agree with you that I wouldn't like to be the panel deciding this one, but seeing as you are a panel member , what do you think about the school not following up on the discrepancy in the applicant's and priest's submissions?

It seems a very convoluted process to me too, in an attempt to be totally fair they seem to have ended up with something that is so complicated that it can easily come out with wrong answer...

Thanks admission and Betsy - all makes sense. I realise that I may have misled you by posting on this thread in the Primary Educatiuon forum - we are actually applying for Secondary Yr 7 places, which I think may make it easier for us, from a class size point of view.

The school's Published Admission number is 190 - but Yrs 7,8 and 9 year sizes are 193,194 and 193 respectively. I am going to confirm these numbers with the school or LA tomorrow, along with currently filled places for September intake.

Minimum points required to be offered a place was 60. We stand at 59 - the 6 extra points we should have got take us to 65 - so we would definitely have been offered a place.

Re your point admissions - our priest asked us all to fill out a generic form at the beginning of our process, detailing all this info, which he clearly did not refer to whilst completing the reference. It's a small parish and he knows me well - it really was just a mistake.

I agree that this does raise questions about the process and I wonder why the school asks applicants to list out all the things they do for the church if they are only going to take notice of what the priest writes in his reference. A question I will ask...

Many thanks again - this has helped a lot. Fingers crossed!

SW16 - if it's a secondary place then most definitely appeal, you stand a very good chance of winning without the "hinderance" of infant class size regs.

The extra numbers in other years helps your case as the school can obviously cope with a few extras over their PAN.

Infact I would hope the school wouldn't force you to go to appeal once they have confirmation from the priest that it was his error that denied you the place you should have had...but we will see.

fingers crossed.

If you filled in a form that detailed all your items that would you give you points then any admission appeal must take this into consideration. Please tell me you have a copy of the form you filled in that you can present to the appeal panel?

Get on to the priest and see what he has to say about the situation, especially if you can indicate to him the differences between his form and yours.

It is difficult to know without seeing the detail of the admission criteria what has priority, your form or the form of the priest.

As a secondary school you should definitely appeal. The numbers in years 7,8 and 9 would suggest that a number of appeals are succesful each year. I wonder whether these are also mistakes on the points tally?

"Yes, faith schools are paid for by yours and MY taxes, and as such have additional elements to the admissions process which are supposed to weed out those who are just trying to get into a better school."

Weeds out?

Crikey.

Yes, says it all really.

Betsy - As, ahem, a panel member and a member of a VA school's admission panel, I tend to agree with Admission that the error in SW16's case lies for the most part with the priest and so it is questionable whether the school can be said to have erred in its decision.

My experience of VA school admissions is that there is often a discrepancy between what parents say about their involvement in the parish and what their priest says: parents talk up their involvement and say "we are lynchpins of the parish and attend every week", priest says "occasional attender" and so on. Priests do usually know who's there every week and who isn't. So, I'm not hugely surprised that the school acted on the information from the priest and didn't follow up the apparent disparity between that and the information submitted by the parent.

That said, I do think SW16 should appeal, especially if she can obtain confirmation from the priest of all the activities which weren't mentioned on his reference. (And for the future, I think the school would do better to have a supplementary application form for the parents to complete with all the relevant details of their involvement in parish life, which the priest then countersigns, rather than (by the sound of it) the priest creating the reference and possibly overlooking the information given to him by the parents).

We are practising Catholics and attend mass every week. My daughter does not to go a Catholic primary school because the one that is local to us is not that local to my mum, whom we rely on for child care responsibilities. Because of this, we have been denied a place at the local Catholic Secondary school, which I might add is outstanding and very oversubscribed!

Our Priest backed up our faith in a letter and said how angry he was at the way that the system let us down. We are appealing but to be honest we are not holding out much hope.

However, this could potentially have a huge knock on effect because the Priest has said he is considering refusing to baptise children between the ages of 8 and 12 because he knows that the vast majority of them are using the church to get into the Catholic secondary school! He is, of course, right on the whole as there are those who just appear in Y5, attend church a couple of times, get baptised and then never return.

This is wrong for those of us who are seeking a Catholic education for our children.

Can I add another perspective here on the OP?

I see two grandparents in my Parish who attend Mass weekly with their preschool grandchildren. I met the mother and grandmother at the session to get the forms signed by the priest and the mother is not a regular Mass attender (she confirmed this). However the children attend weekly and the grandmother is clearly taking on the faith role in that family.

The priest signed the forms and I think he was completely right to do so. Be careful of judging other people as 'better' or 'worse' Catholics than yourself as the real situation isn't always so clear.

Plus they live closer..

Mammy,
I would agree with your sentiment entirely that you need to be careful about judging people. That comment also must be addressed to the priest who is signing the forms. They need to know what the admission criteria says before they sign forms for anybody.

Looking at a local school to me their criteria talks about attendance levels and then defines parents attendance at church as being either parent but then goes on to define a parent as the person with parental responsibility or care of the child. That would not be the grandmother in the situation you describe.

I agree completely with Admission.

Priests should be aware of how pivotal their reference is to the admissions decision and how important, therefore, that it is accurate. It is also important that the school's oversubscription criteria spell out exactly what is meant by the 'family' attending church - our school, like the one near Admission, stipulates that the child should be going to church with one or both parents. Going with granny would not fulfil the criteria.