Primary School Appeal Help

[DastardlyandSmugly]

I have an appeal date for our closest primary school on 21st May and I'm looking for help.

To recap we applied to 4 of our 5 closest schools and were not offered a place at any of them. Our appeal is a class size appeal for our closest school (I know these are rarely successful so am going in with eyes open). We're appealing on the following grounds:

1. We are in dispute with the LEA about the distance from our house to the school gate. They are using some online tools and come up with a distance of 635m. We have hired a measuring wheel and walked the distance which is 607m. This doesn't get us directly into the school but does get us much higher up the waiting list.

1. Last year the school had a three class intake. This year it's only a two class - so the school clearly has capacity for three classes. Given that there is clear pressure on places in my area (I have council papers acknowledging this) and 421 children were not offered a place on offer day, this seems to be terrible planning on the LEA's part. I've been told by a local politician that the council are not averse to putting an additional class on at the school but are waiting to see how the land lies.

1. My husband works away a lot so I am frequently left taking the DCs to school by myself. I work full-time and don't drive. DD attends a nursery a 20 min walk from our house and we walk past this school on the way up there. Surely it's unreasonable of the council to make it more difficult for me to attend work?

1. The Admissions Code states that 'The Government is keen to promote sustainable, healthy travel to school (for example walking or cycling). It is while children are young that habits of a lifetime are set. If children habitually walk or cycle at primary age then we maximise their chances of choosing healthy travel options in the future. Where possible, the admission authorities for primary schools should ensure that their admission arrangements encourage children to walk or cycle safely to school, and for other schools, admission arrangements should support sustainable and healthy travel.' The options that the council are currently proposing is that we apply for schools quite some distance away which would involve using transport to get there and back.

1. We want our DS to be part of a local community. Almost all his friends from nursery will be attending either this school or one of the others that we applied to. We know a lot of people in the area and we would like our DS to have close access to his friends and his school.

Overall we feel like the LEA have let us down badly. Of the schools in our ward we can't get our DS into a single one. We seem to live in a no man's land, and this is despite the fact that one of the governers at the school we're trying to get our DS into lives on our street.

I'm hoping some of you with experience of this (legal or personal) can help with how we might conduct the appeal and what kind of things we might need to take in there. We're very nervous about it.

Thanks in advance.

The problem of shortages of YR places in London doesn't look as if it's going to go away any time soon. I was at a meeting with our LEA's deputy director of children's services where he argued that the planning is made more difficult by net inward migration and so on but, even so, one might expect LEAs to have a better grasp of likely demand for places in future years.

I agree that you're on a hiding to nothing if you just argue that your measurement with a trundle wheel is more reliable than the LEA's GIS measurement. However, if you can show that the LEA hasn't stuck to its own published method of measuring distance - eg, has overlooked a pedestrian footpath which complies with any conditions about being lit/tarmaced etc - then you may well be able to demonstrate that there has been a grave error in denying your child a place.

Bulge classes have all sorts of effects on admissions. As has been pointed out, schools which have capacity for one bulge class in one year don't necessarily have capacity for another bulge class in the following year. Then there is further pressure on places when the bulge class creates a bulge in sibling numbers a couple of years later, and the distance at which the last place is awarded for children other than siblings then shrinks.

Are there any schools in surrounding boroughs which are close enough to get to?

Swaffield has a PAN of 60 according to the Wandsworth Directory. There is no obvious mention of the number actually admitted in 2009 other than it was on distance criteria.

The interesting bit is that in January 2009 the school only had 368 pupils, so unless they have been piling them into the school in other year groups as well as reception the school will not be over its net capacity. Whilst this does not actually immediately help your appeal it does beg the question as to what happened last year to accomodate the bulge of 30. Did they put a mobile on site or did they just utilise a spare classroom?

Still believe that proving that the shortest route has not been used is the best bet for the appeal but given they are using the council street lighting as the criteria you can bet they are going to argue very strongly that they are right and you are wrong!

prh47bridge, panelmember and admission thanks for this. I do have the booklet at home but couldn't find it on the website when I looked recently - it looked like it had been moved.

The bugle class was in the main school building. I don't know if this meant one of the other classes was moved outside but we certainly weren't shown any temporary classrooms when we visited the school in November.

I do understand that the school might not be keen to add another class this year but I'm really shocked that the LEA are allowed to leave us in this position - with no place, no help and no hope if the lists don't move enough. We followed their process to the letter and we're still left with nothing.

admission - does the booklet also have the school's net capacity?

I also can't believe that the distance stated in the booklet is the distance once they added the bulge class - it seems more likely that this is the original offer distance.

As it stands at the moment it seems that, because of where I live, I'm not entitled to education within a local distance - that can't be right can it?

I also agree they are never going to concur that they ahve the distance wrong. They've already been really quite aggressive with us when we've questioned it before.

Sorry I'm a bit all over the place now as am getting more and more upset.

Dastardly - It's hard, I know, but try to keep calm and concentrate on gathering all the information you need for the appeal.

It's certainly worth checking whether the distance at which places were awarded, as published, does or does not take account of the extra places for the bulge class.
It may not be of any direct help for your appeal, but it does add to the picture of the shortage of places.

The difficulty here (and it's very similar in my LEA) is that enabling children to walk/cycle to school is an aspiration that LEAs in areas like ours often find it difficult to achieve. That's probably why the bit of the Admission Code you quote uses the words where possible. What happens in our LEA - and it sounds as if Wandsworth is in a worse position - is that schools aren't big enough to accommodate all the children for whom they are the nearest school. So, when places are allocated on distance, some children don't get places at their nearest school and are allocated places at schools which are farther away. Our LEA has created lots of bulge classes, so this year managed to offer every child a place, but I've heard of other boroughs that are likely to have children without schools.

By all means start a campaign for more school places in the borough. The LEA will point to the practical difficulties - lack of space for expansion in many schools (and sometimes opposition from parents of children already at the school, who want to keep it small), planning issues if the school is a listed building (as quite a few Victorian schools are), lack of money. And so on. A vocal campaign may encourage the LEA to summon up the political will!

Dastardly I really feel for your situation & the LA should be doing a lot more to help.

Having 21 pupils they couldn't off any school to is not good, having 421 in that position to is just mismanagement IMHO. It just really isn't good enough.

I can't understand why they are still thinking about maybe talking about bulge classes now, there is no way 14+ classes worth of places are just going to "appear" out the ether before September...

Try not to let this upset you. I know this is a difficult situation but you need to stay calm.

The booklet doesn't state the net capacity for the school. I can't immediately find that information on the school's website either. The LA will know the answer. However, an admission number of 60 would suggest that the capacity is 420. As admission says, that indicates they are operating well below their capacity at the moment.

Are you going to tell the LA that you are planning on making a statement to the press as Admission suggested? I think that could well produce some action.

Hi Dastardly - have been following your thread in the local section too as I'm in the same borough as you.

if you do decide to go to the press, I would suggest casting your net wider than the local papers, which are considered largely irrelevant by local politicos - with good reason to be fair, the Borough News / Guardian is pretty feeble. So telling the officials that you might go to the press may not hold much weight

Would suggest you try the Evening Standard, and even one of the broadsheets - sort of thing the TImes is interested in, and the Guardian might like to run with it given that hte Council is Conservative.

Hi all thanks again for responding to this and I'm sorry I'm so emotional. My DH is the rational calm one and I'm the one that just feels heartbroken that no-one wants my DS. Crazy I know but this is how it feels.

I got the LEA's appeal case this evening. According to their figures the school capacity is 420 and they currently have 381 pupils so it seems to me that there is definitely scope for an additional class. Is this an argument that we can use?

Are we also able to find out if there are any other appeals for this school that will be heard on the same day? I'm assuming that they won't tell us which parents are involved if there are so we can band together?

I've also found out from the papers that the council rep at the appeal is the official who sent me the arsey note a few weeks ago - this obviously doesn't bode well.

Another comment in the notes that interests me is the following:

"30 addtional reception places were offered in 2009 to meet acute demand in Southfields". Given that demand has risen this year (I will try and find out in which part of the borough the demand is although it's a bit late to get a FOI request in) do you think this is something I can point out?

I realise how futile this is. Council figures state that only 2.3% of class size appeals (2 out of 87) were successful in previous years.

Another thing that occurs is that in the papers in shows that we put this school down as our third preference - will that have any bearing?

Goingpostal thanks for keeping an eye on my threads and the info about the press. I need to discuss going to them with my DH and he's out tonight so it will have to wait until tomorrow. It's something that I fear but I almost feel that I've been left no choice.

Thanks again, I genuinely do appreciate this and I don't know where I would have been without Mumsnet.

Very quickly, as I need to go and do something else ....

Putting the school as your 3rd choice will have no bearing on the appeal - you can appeal even for schools you didn't apply for.

The key figure for the appeal is the PAN, not the capacity. Because of the infant class size rules, the panel cannot (say) require the school to take your child as the 31st child on the grounds that sooner or later, wastage will mean that the class goes down to 30 again. Nor is it the panel's role to adjudicate on whether the school ought to create an extra class or whether the LEA has done enough to ensure that every child has a school place. However, you have nothing to lose by questioning why the school isn't full. The potential flaw (as far as your argument is concerned) is that 39 vacant places dotted round the school doesn't necessarily mean that there is a spare room in which to house a bulge class. So, it all comes back to whether you can identify any error which means that your son ought to have been awarded a place.

The author of the "arsey note" is probably someone from the school admissions unit. It is usually people from that unit who present the school's/LEA's case at the appeal. S/he's just doing a job. Yours is to represent your son's interests as best you can.

I know it's easy to say, but don't take it personally. LEAs have to employ admissions criteria to decide which child gets which school place. It isn't a judgment on you or your child.

You can use the argument about capacity but it doesn't really help much in an ICS case. The panel has to work with the admission number and the fact that the school is planning for 2 reception classes. However, in this situation I'd throw it in along with all the stuff about the number of children without places and the sentence you highlight about what happened last year. Within the rules none of this really gives the panel a reason to admit but panels have been known to admit children when the rules say they shouldn't.

By the way, don't worry about a FoI request to find out where the demand is. Ring them up or email them and ask. They won't want to have the appeal overturned because they didn't answer your questions so I would expect that you will get a quick answer.

You can ask the LA if there are other appeals for the school. The fact that they haven't told you suggests that it won't be a grouped appeal where all parents are present for the LA's evidence. They certainly won't tell you which other parents are involved - that would be a breach of the Data Protection Act.

The fact that the council rep has been arsey with you doesn't necessarily make any difference. If he/she starts being arsey in the hearing it won't impress the panel.

The fact that you put the school down as your third preference is irrelevant as far as this appeal is concerned. It makes absolutely no difference to the panel whether this was your first choice or your fiftieth choice!

It is true that infant class size appeals are rarely successful because of the strict rules that surround them. However, you may be lucky. I suspect, however, that your best chance of success is in pushing the LA to do something about the shameful number of children without places.

PS I imagine the LEA could tell you whether there are any other appeals for the same school but for data protection reasons won't tell you who the other appellants are. Have you got your ear to the ground?

DastardlyandSmugly nothing to add to what other more knowledgeable posters have said other than to add my sympathy for you being in this horrible position. I thought the LEA had a duty to educate and so would have to do something. Everything crossed that something comes up soon.

Yes I've met/heard of a number of other parents in my position but only one for that school and I don't know whether they are appealing.

Thanks again. I don't have much hope but I do appreciate the help.

Is it worth trying to bring out the personal at all at the appeal? That there is a real flesh and blood kid without a school at the end of all of this?

As I said, you've got nothing to lose by highlighting the personal. And clearly it is true that your son needs a place at a school. What that still doesn't address is that the infant class size rules don't permit the LEA simply to cram a few more children into every reception class. The panel has to be quite detached, in considering whether the admission procedures have been adhered to. But, who knows, they might take the view that your need is severe enough to override the infant class size rules.

Thanks BakewellTarts. Apparently their duty doesn't actually kick in until the child turns 5!

Thanks Panelmember. I don't think our need overrides other members of my borough in the same position but I'm prepared to do as much as I can to sort out something for my lovely DS.

Well, for that, you need to start some sort of local campaign, to (ahem) encourage the LEA to get its act together and ensure it has enough places in future years to avoid this sort of mess.

I don't want to add to the stress you've already experiencing but thought I'd share what I know from the situation we were in last year... we're in Lewisham which calculates home to school distance along a straight line, so different from Wandsworth. We applied for DD to start Reception at the school where I teach (and she attended nursery although neither points have any bearing) which was approx. 650m away. We didn't get a place there or at any of the other schools we listed but were allocated one 2.8 miles away in the opposite direction at a school that had been expanded, eventually permanently although their 2010 Reception intake will be smaller because of building work and a lack of spare space on site.

The 2.8 miles is two buses from here and because of the route crossing railway lines was more convoluted than some. My husband and I are teachers, he takes the car as he teaches further afield and I walk. The school DD was allocated had no before or after school provision and no local childminders did drop-offs etc. so far away (no real surprise but we did check!). We declined this place and initially said we would be reserving the right to postpone her start in Reception until she reached Statutory School Age (Jan 2010). The admissions person got all het up and admitted that wasn't an option on their form!?! I suggested she record it as home-schooling for the time being. Meanwhile we asked to be added to the waiting lists of my school and a very unpopular but very local school.

However, as a back-up we'd also applied for a school out of borough but opposite where my husband teaches knowing that it had before and after school provision so if absolutely necessary she could travel with him (he leaves at 0630) each day. It wasn't what we wanted long-term but if it meant that we could both continue to work (part-time) we'd have done it as the other option was for me to give up work to spend 3-4 hours walking to and from the allocated school each day (prams on buses aren't terribly welcome and DD2 was 13 weeks old when DD1 started Reception). Bizarrely we were offered a place at this school; 5+ miles away and accepted it.

A few weeks later we were also offered a place at the local but unpopular school so accepted that and decined the out-of-borough place. DD1 started Reception and had a very happy term there until Christmas... by January she'd moved to the top of the waiting list for my school and a vacancy arose. She re-started at my school in January. For various reasons (people moving out of London, a child's parents deciding to home-school and another being offered a place at a 'special school') other vacancies have come up too and been filled immediately.

What I'm trying to say is that this will feel terrible at the moment and it is but there is a lot of mobility in urban schools (as a teacher I have never in 10 years started and finished the academic year with the same group of children) and chances are you will end up with something in the short-term and a more preferable something in the long-term.

Re: bulge classes, there will have been a thorough feasibility study conducted to identify which schools have the capacity to take a bulge class in any one year. Some schools may be permanently expanded but the costs of the rebuild that may be necessary are often considered prohibitive. Some schools may be able to accommodate a temporary/demountable classroom which will be used year on year (for Reception 2009, Y1 2010, Y2 2011 etc.) but having one of these will often reduce playground space. School halls may be able, at a squeeze, to fit in an additional 30 children but that may mean that parents aren't able to come and watch class assemblies because there is no space to accommodate them, dining halls and kitchen capacity mightn't be large enough to get everyone through in a sensible time, the areas available for breakfast/after-school clubs won't suddenly expand regardless of greater need for the provision plus there is bound to be a knock-on effect in later years when siblings of the 'bulge' intake are given priority over new entrants who live on the doorstep of the school etc. etc. Physically many schools will not be able to cope with a permanent expansion because it's not just about 30 5-year-olds because they grow up and need more space.

Schools are directed to take on a bulge class, the Governors will submit a response to the proposal but if the LA needs the spaces in that area and deems the school able to cope then there is little the school can do but get on with it. Lewisham has announced somewhere in the region of 12/13 bulge classes for this September but most of tose schools would not be able to accommodate an additional intake of 30 permanently because the space just isn't available. Next year it is likely to be a different 12 primary schools that are directed to accommodate additional children and this will continue until more schools are built/rebuilt.

I do sympathise with you and would encourage you to look further afield for a place but would also urge you to think carefully about how you'd feel if your local schools were pushed to take yet another 30 children and, as a result parents couldn't see their 5-year-old in the nativity because the hall was dangerously overcrowded or your 5-year-old regularly came home hungry because lunch had to be gobbled so 400 children could be fed between 1200 and 1310.... that's not something to bring up at appeal but perhaps something to bear in mind if you do get involved in local action to expand schools.

Sorry for extremely long post.

SE13Mummy I do understand where you are coming from I really do. It doesn't really help though as I cannot give up work and cannot spend three hours a day commuting to a school. I haven't even considered before and after school or childminder provision yet as I hoped this would be sorted out by now - I can only say that I need these facilities and need to sort this out soon.

Our only alternative would be to move out of London.

I cannot believe that this can be acceptable. How can my house, which was not cheap btw, be designated a no education zone?

I feel that my LA should find a local solution. They closed schools in this area in the early noughties as birth rate went down. They have now admitted that that was a mistake. I'm now ruing the day I ever moved into this borough.

When does your son turn 5? The Early Education Grant (free nursery provision for 3-4 year olds) can be used at many private schools so maybe that's something to consider in the interim? Is he currently at the same nursery as your DD... he may be able to remain there until he reaches statutory school age which won't solve your problem but may buy you some time.

Once he's of statutory school age then the LA must find him a school place if that's what you would like. I've not heard of anyone suggesting to an LA that they fund private places for non-SEN pupils as a result of lack of places in state primaries but I'm sure it would work given the reduction in private Reception places being taken up....

If you have the information for the appeal, this should tell you how many people are appealing for the school. If you are the only one down on the list then I would expect are the only one appealing. That is certainly how it is done in my LA, there is a clear expected timetable for any grouped multiple appeals showing the time the LA will present there case and then an expected time for each parent to present their part 2 case. Thats the idea but each case takes what it takes and therefore the timing tends to be best guess.

The net capacity of 420 is not unexpected for a 2 form entry school and having 381 in the school says that they have classes that are probably 3 or 4 below the 30 expected in some classes. As others have said it does not solve your problem because the panel can only take consideration of the 60 PAN and this has been reached. Only a mistake in the admission criteria is going to be effective in achieving a place at the school.

The admission appeals code in section 2.12B states that the admission authority must provide all the information reasonably asked of it by the appellants. Must means a legal requirement. I would email them and ask for the actual route that they have measured to get to your measurement. Hope that is not the same way that you believe is shorter and therefore open to challenge. Alternatively the admission authority person being "arsey" will refuse you the information, which should create an interesting problem for the panel. Section 2.20A states that where distance criteria have been used to allocate places admission authorities must demonstrate how this was applied to the appealants' application compared to those offered a place. They have to convince the panel that they have measured the shortest route if you are claiming that it is not the shortest route.

This is my draft letter to the councillor and Director of Education. Would any of you mind reviewing and making amendments:

Dear Councillor Mrs Tracey and Mr Robinson

My son is one of the 421 children in the borough of Wandsworth who on March 18th did not receive the offer of a place at any school for reception commencing in September 2010.

We have an appeal on 21st May for one of the schools we identified as a preference, Swaffield, but I must point out that I am absolutely dismayed at the scale of this problem, the lack of assistance from the LA in finding an acceptable solution for our son, and the seeming lack of realisation that something urgently must be done to resolve this and prevent it happening in future years.

It simply isn't good enough, in my opinion, to expect parents, with no experience in dealing with the admissions system, to navigate the process to obtain a late place for their child when there are 421 other children also required to do this. It appears to me that you are expecting a large part of this shortfall to be made up by parents moving away, home educating or transferring into the private sector and I believe in this you have failed to meet your responsibilities to children in this borough.

I would like to give you notice of my intention to contact the press following our appeal to highlight the scale of this problem and I wanted to give you this opportunity to repond to my concerns in advance.

I would appreciate your urgent attention on this matter.

Yours sincerely

DastardlyandSmugly

I think this is a good letter. It doesn't say that you will blast them if you do not get a place at Swaffield it is saying you think they have not addressed a problem across the borough. But it does give them enough information as to how negative press could be averted by responding in the next 7 days by arranging places for the 421 pupils.

It may not give the most favoured option of a place at Swaffield but it might just give a place within easy walking distance.

I would run with this letter.

Thanks admission. I'm just going to run it by my DH and if he's happy I'll send it.

Thanks again for all your help.

Agreed. Excellent letter. Hope it has the desired effect!