Appeal this morning

[loopylulu30]

Hello,

I have a primary school appeal this morning for my son, who did not get a place at the local catholic school, the PAN has been dropped from 45 to 30 despite it being a very popular school. There are 15 familys appealing.

Does anyone know if the appeal can simply stop at the 1st stage, say the Board say the school is full, and they decide that they cannot allow anymore children in and its not worth going through to the 2nd stage?

Many Thanks

no they will always complete part 2 for everyone. Even if the school is full the panel will admit if they feel the admissions authority made a mistake - which might come out until part 2.

Obviously if it is ICS and you don't have firm evidence of a mistake having been made with your application, then the chances of success are low, but you never know...

Good Luck

Just to add to BetsyBoop's comments...

The panel can stop the appeal after the 1st stage if they decide to admit all 15 children on the basis that the LA has failed to show that it will prejudice the school. They cannot refuse an appeal without hearing the 2nd stage.

yes PRH is right, I'd forgotten about that possibility Suspect it doesn't happen very often though...

and just spotted my typo

which might come out until part 2.

should be

which might not come out until part 2.

Too late now but my immediate reaction to your post is how have they reduced the PAN from 45 to 30. Did they remove classrooms from the site or convert them into something else?

If not I would be tempted to say the PAN might be 30 but the availability in classrooms is 45 as is the class structure through the school. An interesting decision for the panel as the basis of the school not being able to admit any more is not we have reached the PAN but that having reached the PAN we cannot admit further pupils because.......

Hi,

Just got back thanks for your comments.
The panel questioned the reason for lowering the pan, and the head replied it was beacause many Indian and Fillipino familys who were working at the local hospital had ended there contracts, and moved or emigrated.

However there are 43 pupils in the current split reception classes, and this year there were 74 applications, 47 from catholic familys.

The panel went on to say the school has space for more children, and the at the moment an extra teacher, who is due to leave in the summer.

They also found there was flaws in the allocations, as no proof was required to say you attended church every week for 1 year.

So although I feel it went quite well, Im still unsure, and don't find out till Monday

So a weekend ahead of worrying!

That is not an appropriate reason for reducing the PAN. The appropriate reason is actually that the classroom has permanently been taken out of use because they anticipate that the number of future applicants will be lower because of the reduced number of indian and fillipino families. Whilst that might be the official answer it does not seem to tally with the figures does it.

Loopylulu can I ask how many of the 15 appealing for the school were present? Were they all present during stage 1 and then you went individually as stage two of the process or what?

Did they state that this was an infant class size case or not?

Hiya Admission,

It ended up being nine that actually appealled, as other familys must have decided against it.

Seven familys turned up, one brought there child, which I don't really agree with.

All seven familys went into to stage 1 and 2.

The panel stated that this was an Infact Class Size Predjudice appeal, however they did a lot of questioning of the head about when she changed the PAN etc,and could she cope with the extra numbers to which she replied she could,as they have coped before. However, there would be no funding for the additional children until next april.

Thanks

Under the rules parents are allowed to take their child to the hearing. Personally I wouldn't recommend it.

Yes I know thats what I thought, we were there for almost 4 hours and I think its a long time for a 3/4 year old to sit.

Maybe they had no childcare because the little one attends afternoon nursery.

This becomes an interesting case. If the panel work strictly to the admission code the PAN is 30, therefore it is an infant class size regs case and therefore the only reason to admit is a mistake or the LA is being unreasonable.

You could argue that the LA is being unreasonable in that the PAN of 30 is an artificial figure and there is clearly classroom space to take 45 in each year group. I am not sure that is a strong case as the LA will presumably have gone through the correct process to reduce the PAN and the legally agreed levek should be used.

The other question for the panel is the comments of the head that she could cope with the extra numbers. Does this alter their peception of whether this is an infant class case or not? I don't know.

Actually the comment about the funding for extra children is a complete red-herring. The funding for the period from April 2010 to March 2011 was determined by the number in the school on a set date in January 2010. So if current year 6 has 45 in it and then they get 30 in September the school will actually be funded for 15 pupils that do not exist from September 2010 to March 2011. It would only be from April 2011 that the true funding based on numbers in school in Janaury 2011 would occur.

Yes, I totally didn't think about the funding. There is 45 in the current year 6 class.

I wonder if the panel picked this up. They were very good, going into depth about the date they decided to change the PAN and why etc... they seemed to be very much on the side of the parents but I suppose it could still go either way.

They also mentioned about free transport as the school we have been allocated is an 8 mile round trip.

Thanks for your help

The panel cannot take the 8 mile round trip into consideration unless there are specific reasons - parent / pupil has mobility issues etc. However the LA will have to provide transport for your child to get to this school as it exceeds the normal 2 mile cut off and they allocated you the school.

It could very much go either way but from my perspective the good thing is that you at least believe that the panel were doing a good job.

The panel should be aware of how funding is handled. Equally, the head teacher should not have made a false statement to the appeal panel. That falls short of the standards that should be met.

PRH you might assume that the head teacher would know exactly how the funding was derived for their school but that is not necessarily the case.

In fact there should not be any consideration by the panel of the funding of pupils. The only time that finance will raise its head is if the school is in deficit and having to make savings, which almost for sure will be in terms of personel now. That then would somthing for the panel to consider if the school is having to cut back on staff will admitting a further pupil make things worse.

Admission - I'm not assuming the head knows how funding is derived. I just think he/she should have been more careful about making such statements.

I agree with you regarding what the panel should do. However, I was involved in an appeal where the LA tried to justify an ICS case on the basis that the school was going to have to reduce the number of infant classes due to an alleged funding shortfall despite the fact that the school was not in deficit. The panel swallowed this argument and rejected the appeal. Thankfully the LGO sorted it out.

Hi-

Just to thank everyone for there help.
My appeal has not been successful.

Thanks