Lost Primary Reception Appeal

[SKM777]

We lost our appeal for my daughter (reception) to be at the same school as my son (yr 1).

In Sept my children will be in two different schools one which local to us and the other is 4 miles away from us.

We moved into the catchment area after the schools in take and the local school had no places for my son even though he went there for nursery, resulting him to go to a school 4 miles away from us and sitting on a waiting list. We should have moved into our new house in January but due to solicitors problems ended up moving in July, missing out on any offers in between, admission where aware of us moving but where unable to offer us anything until we had moved into the house and then we had to have a welfare visit.

Currently I am driving my son to a school 4 miles away and then dropping of my daughter at our local school for 9.00 am - she is always late. When I am struggling I rely on my friends who have children of their own, we have no family to help us.

We wanted our children to be in the same school 4 miles away as my son is in yr 1 and settled we had the opportunity to move him (18 months later) to the local school, but due to his behavioural issues and health issues (stress and hair loss) we chose to leave him there and move our daughter over to the school he is currently at.

But because we swapped my daughters choice of school over on 10 Feb even though offers were made on 25 Feb it was classed as a late application (no one informed us about a cabinet member) resulting my daughter to sit on a waiting list at no.3. Even though she has a sibling at the school she is priority no. 3, children in the catchment area or moving into the catchment area have priority, which means she can move up down and stand no chance of getting into the school.

Logistically it is impossible to be at two places at once. One school starts at 8.55 - 3.15 pm and the other school starts at 9.00 -3.20 pm up to year 2 and then year 3+ both schools start at 8.55 ? 3.30 pm. It takes me approx 20 mins to get my son to school and 25 mins back due to traffic to get my daughter into school ? she is always late. I am putting my life at risk and my children?s life at risk getting them from one school to another on time.

We can't afford childcare costs as my husband has had to have a major pay cut to save jobs, he?s having a third operation on his foot in the summer and will be off work for 3-4 months as he was last year. My health is in a bad way at the moment due to all the driving around, stress and depression. We will be financially broke come September due to the extra expenses. I am currently seeking work but due to my daughter only being in nursery half days it is impossible to find anything and even if I do find work everything I earn will go on childcare costs!

We had a supporting letter from our doctor, MP and my husbands company. When we presented our case I was nervous and didn?t manage to get all our main points across and ended up crying and getting all frustrated when the panel asked me questions and when admission presented their case to the panel. It was a daunting experience and I now wished I got a representative/solicitor etc. involved. I have spoken/heard of parents who have won their appeals due to logistic reasons and late applications. We can?t appeal again but can get in touch with ombudsman/solicitor (very expensive).

I am beside myself at the moment thinking away around the whole situation and even thought about getting a solicitor involved and borrowing money from the bank! I can understand what you are going through!

It seems like these are your options: (I am not counting the option of borrowing money that could end in finacial ruin for you)

1. Move your son to your local school
2. Leave your daughter on the waiting list - people move around a lot and a place could well come up, someone could even move before September after getting a place (I did).
3. Continue as you are.

Your options now are to refer the case to the LGO or apply for a judicial review. The LGO is free and will be relatively quick. A judicial review will be much slower and more expensive.

If this was an infant class size case, i.e. there are 30 children in each Reception class at your preferred school, the panel was only able to admit if a mistake had been made in refusing admission. Your logistical and childcare problems would not justify admission.

Even if it was not infant class size, logistical and childcare problems are not generally good reasons for admitting a child.

The chair of the panel should have asked you if you had any additional points you wanted to make. Did that happen?

did you argue on logistical issues?

A relative appealed successfully using the argument that a longer travelling distance would mean schoolwork would suffer significantly.(however, this was a journey of over an hour each way for the school that was offered)

The chair of the panel did ask us if there was any additional points we wanted to make but I was so upset my mind went blank, even though I had prepared to tell them about our logistic problems and costs involved.

No I didn't argue on the logistical issues specifically. I just said to the panel `that having our children in two different schools would present us with great difficulties, in terms of journeys, school time tabling, out of school activities and pure economics'.

If your daughter is only in nursery there's no reason to be stressed about the journey/lateness at the moment. She and the nursery know why you're late so don't bust a gut trying to get there.

I don't understand why you put her down for the local school in the first place? Anyway, third on the list is nothing really. The first two may just go for another school. Yes, others may move in but try not to dwell on that. Why do you think the local school would not be suitable for your ds? I think this would be your best bet taking into account all the other things you have mentioned. Good luck anyway.

Nothing you have posted suggests you have grounds for a referral to the LGO, I'm afraid, and I doubt a judicial review will get you anywhere. As Hocuspontas says, if you are third on the waiting list you have a good chance of getting in.

We put my daughter down for the local school assuming we would move our son over when an offer came up. But when an offer came for him to go to our local school 18 months later when the school had just managed to settle him down. We thought by moving him to the local school would disturb his learning and we would be back at sqaure one. We always worry about his health due to his hair loss via stress.

When this happened we changed my daughters choice of school straight away. Yes I can kick myself and say I should have applied for her to go to the same school as my son.

Our LEA uses distance to school as a criterion, rather than catchment areas, but I have seen other threads on MN where the younger sibling of a child attending an out of catchment school does not get a place because children in catchment are a higher priority - this is the downside, it seems, of sending your child out of catchment to school.

If this was an infant class size appeal (ie 30 children in each class in key stage 1) then you would have needed to show that there was a grave error which deprived your daughter of a place. It does not sound to me as if there was such an error. The appeal panel does not have the power to require a school to admit a child solely on the grounds that it is inconvenient to have two children in two different schools.

Did your doctor's letter - or any other document you submitted - explain why you do not want to move your son to the school you've been allocated for your daughter? That's probably the other point on which you would need to convince the panel/the LGO/the court. I doubt that the panel would have been swayed by a letter from your MP or your husband's employer, simply because they are not part of the admissions or children's services structure.

If you believe that the appeal hearing itself was not properly managed - if, say, you were too disstressed to speak and weren't allowed time to compose yourself - you could try to convince the LGO that the panel should be reheard or overturned. As has been said, judicial review is slow and very expensive.

Do you mean that your daughter is the 3rd child on the waiting list at her brother's school or is in the 3rd category on the waiting list? How big is the intake at the school? Being 3rd on the list for a school with (say) an intake of 90 would give you a pretty good chance of getting a place before September.

And have you sought advice from the Advisory Centre for Education?

I would stick it out on the waiting list. 3rd on the list is good, people always move away/change schools.

Our local nursery turned away 22 catchment children for September admission this coming year, they said it is a high birth year.

The doctors letter 'xx suffered stress and depression when he started private nursery'. xx has recently also been having behavioural problems associated with the children being educated in separate establishments'.

My daughter is the 3rd child on the waiting list. The intake for reception is 60.

Before we made our appeal I spoke to the ACE over the phone who thought we had a case, but I haven't spoke to them since.

I also emailed the Principal Democratic Services Officer after we were unsuccessful and explained the logistic reasons to her and she replied 'I can appreciate that you are disappointed with the outcome of the appeal, but I am afraid there is nothing else I can add to the decision letter you received'.

This might mean nothing:-

Originally when we made my daughters reception application we spoke to admission asking for advice as to which schools we should put down on her application and in which order - due to my son attending xx school and being on a waiting list for the local school.

We were advised by admissions to put down the local school as no. 1 and the school my son was at as no. 2.

Admission reasons being 'it's easier to get my daughter in the school my son was in due to it being a rural school and all the other years above reception have spaces, and its very hard for children to get into the local school, as it is very popular'

Now that is definitely a problem. The advice you were given by admissions was wrong. Putting your local school as number 1 doesn't increase your chances of getting in. It does, however, mean that you would have got the place at the local school if both schools had a place available. This is not what you wanted.

My immediate reaction is that this advice is maladministration. Did you get this advice from them in writing? If it was a phone call it is obviously harder to prove.

You say you swapped your daughter's choice of school over on 10th February. Was that from the order suggested by admissions to your actual preferred order? If so I think you have good grounds to argue that you have been disadvantaged by incorrect advice from the LA. That would, in my view, be a reasonable case to take to the LGO. I also agree with Panelmember that if you weren't allowed time to compose yourself properly that may be grounds for a reference to the LGO.

But - originally when you did the application for your daughter, you did want a place at the local school, right? In which case the advice was correct. You changed your mind after the first application was put in. Presumably when you changed your application, you put your son's school at no 1?

If she's no.3 with an intake of 60, I would think her chances of getting in quite quickly are pretty good anyway.

Our order of preference when we applied for daughter was 1. local school and 2. the school my where my son is currently

Yes when applied we did want a place at the local school for my daughter assuming that one day that our son would be there too.

But due to the choices we had to make with our sons education it resulted us to switch my daughters choice over in Feb.

Due to his behavioural issues with change and past health issue it made more sense to leave him where he is currently and to move my daughter there with him.

Admissions said in the appeals the reason why they said that was because it was the school that we wanted for our daughter/son on our application and we moved into the area for the school.

Which yes we did but they did advise that to put the preference of schools in that order.

But I can see where you are coming from.

The reasoning given by admission for placing the local school first is clearly flawed. However, if the local school was your preference and you said that to them their advice was correct even if the reasoning was wrong.

With regard to the current waiting list, your child should be down as a priority 2, child with sibling at school not a priority 3 - you need to clarify this as that should make her no.1 on the waiting list instead of no. 3

If they are difficult about it ask them what would happy if someone moved into the area and got a place at the school for 1 child and not the other would that child be a priority 2 on the list or not? If so you could take your dd off the waiting list and then put her back on so she then had a priority 2. hope that makes sense.

Priority 1a/b = Exceptional Circumstances

Priority 2 = Children who live normally in catchment Area

Priorty 3 = Children who have sibling brother or sister at the school or linked school at the start of their school

Priorty 4 = Based on distance/straight line

Admin also told us that if children move into the catchment area then my daughters position will go down! We are 4 miles outside the catchment area.

the admissions authority will have printed and supplied you with guidance about the admissions process and how it all works.I can't understand why you put the local school down as first choice?
Wwe are in the situation where we have 2 DDs at schools 5 miles apart.DD1 was being bullied to an extent where it was affecting her health and her Paed said she had to be moved.
The upshot is that DD2 is late for school every single day.And in the evening she has to hang about with the teacher for 15 to 20 mins at the end of school.But I refuse to pay for childcare because DD2s school has created the problem by letting DD1 be bullied and they can damn well deal with it

We don't really have a leg to stand on do we!

we don't have catchment areas so didn't realise that was your priority 2!

TBH I think you need to make a tough decision, move house or move your son

I think at least one of my children will be late for school every morning and the other will have to sit and wait from me in reception for 20 mins for the rest of their schooling lives! If we can't afford before and after school club what can we do! More to the point what can the LEA do?

In year 3+ they can have more than 30 in a class so there is hope that they will increase the class size then and your dd will get in?

We explained our situation to our MP/Admissions/Panel what else can we do, like my husband said do they want us to pay for before and after school clubs or do they want us to put dinner on the table for our children! Since my husband has had to take a pay cut of 15% to save the unemployment figures from rising we have struggled and if he loses his job we will be forced to sell our house and will have to either rent or move to a cheaper house! And having two children at two different schools does not help us at all.

What most people do if they can't make the school run is to employ a childminder. That is what our LEA would expect you to do. I do appreciate that your situation is very frustrating though.