appealing on grounds of mum's health condition, not child's

[sophlondon]

hello
I wonder if anyone has any experience of appealing primary school admissions on infant class size grounds because of their own medical condition, rather than their child's?

In short, I had an injury during birth of second child, which left me with a lifelong condition with very unpleasant daily symptoms, which are worse in the morning, and which make pushing buggies long distance ill advised.

We applied for the 3 nearest schools and to our shock, didn't get into any of them. we didn't include info first time round on my condition as there's not been a problem with admissions for kids in our street before - it never occurred to me I needed to.

Learning Trust says I can appeal on grounds of my own condition, and I have letters of support from my GP & hospital nurse consultant.

But not sure what I can expect in relation to the appeal itself about this? We have a car but my husband needs it to get to work (he has to go in way before school start time). Even if I could have the car, the nature of the symptoms means a long car journey might be as much of a problem as a long bus journey.

Plus, how much detail will they want on my symptoms on the day? They're rather... ummm... embarrassing? I don't relish the thought of having to relay them in graphic detail, though if that's what it takes, so be it.

any thoughts most welcome. Apols for long post!

No experience, but given that you have letters from medical professionals I hardly think that it would be appropriate for them to question you in detail. I think you have excellent and well-explained grounds just on the info you have provided here. Hoping someone with experience comes along and confirms that.

Hello again, SophLondon.

I have just found this in the admissions code 2010 (on what was the DCSF website), having failed to find it last night. This is actually more promising from your POV than I had expected, as it makes specific mention of parents with disabilities. Even so, much will still depend on your school's/LEA's criteria. One question you could ask at the panel hearing or before is whether the school/LEA does include parents with disabilities under the heading of social/medical need and if not, why not.

Social and medical need

2.27 If admission authorities propose to give higher priority to children for social or medical reasons they must ensure that in doing so they are not failing to comply with paragraph 2.16(g) of this Code, which prohibits the use of oversubscription criteria that discriminate against or disadvantage children because of their special educational needs or disabilities.

2.28 Admission authorities must not use this criterion to give a child a lower priority in obtaining a place at the school, but it is acceptable to give higher priority to children or families where there is a social or medical need (for example, where one or both parents or the child has a disability that may make travel to a school further away more difficult).

2.29 If using this criterion, admission authorities must give a clear explanation of what supporting evidence will be required ? for example a letter from a registered health professional such as a doctor or social worker ? and how this will be assessed objectively. Admission authorities? decisions must be consistent and based on this objective evidence. The supporting evidence should set out the particular reasons why the school in question is the most suitable and the difficulties that would be caused if the child had to attend another school. Admission authorities must not give higher priority to children under this criterion if the required documents have not been produced.

As panelmember has said there is a specific part of the admission code that deals with issues relating to one or more of the parents of a child.

The problem is that as you did not mention it in your initial application the LA can
obviously not have had any knowledge of it. The probability is that they have applied the admission criteria correctly and therefore if it is an infant class size regs case you are unlikely to get a place as the admission authority did apply the rules correctly. If it is not infant class size then this is a quite reasonable reason to appeal.

I agree that the difficulty is that all appeals are looking to see whether the original decision was correctly and properly taken - especially so with ICS appeals, where the only scope for winning is (broadly speaking) to show that the original decision was flawed. As Admission says, the appeal panel in this case may conclude that there was nothing wrong with the initial decision. But there is always the (remote) possibility that the appeal panel will try to turn back the clock, and second-guess the decision which the admission authority would have made if it had had the information which is available now, and might then order the child to be admitted.

It's no consolation to the OP, but I think the lesson to be drawn here is that any special circumstances which (in the applicant's view) make them a priority case for admission to the preferred school should be disclosed at the time of the application. By the time of an appeal, it may be too late.

thanks so much for the really helpful feedback everyone.

the appeal guidance we've been given by Hackney Trust is self-contradictory on that last point. But according to the form they've given us, following an appeal court decision, they can take account of fresh evidence that, ahad it been available at the time of the allocation, would have rendered the original decision irrational). I'm not entirely sure whether that means we are appealing Infant Class Size or not!

Re: appealing on grounds of my health rather than my child's, again there's some self-contradictory information coming from teh Trust. The admissions criteria specifically excludes parental health concerns. Yet the Trust itself has advised us that we can appeal on this basis.

i think Panelmember's right that the key learning for future applicants is that if you have a particular need for a local school, you should include every last scrap of supportive information at the original application stage, even if you think you're a shoo-in for your nearest school(s).

Meantime, we shall press on with the appeal just in case and keep people posted if we learning anything useful for future applicants along the way.

Any further comments or insights always welcome, and thank you so much for making time to share your thoughts!

Two years ago, I won an appeal on the basis that as I can't drive due to my epilepsy, it would be physically impossible for me to get my (then) 6yo to one school in one direction by bus, and my (then) 4yo to another school in the totally opposite direction ALSO by bus, and manage to get them both to school on time, or even get one of them there before 9.30am. They accepted that the prejudice to my child of not being at school until 9.30am every day due to my disability was GREATER than the prejudice against the school of admitting an extra child. Good Luck.

The court case I think they are refering to was specifically where fresh evidence was confirming what had been quoted by the appealant as a reason for admission. That information had not been available at the time of the original application and the LA did not follow up to check whether this information became available, thereby disadvantaging the applicant.

The problem is that in your case, as understand it, you did not make any comment on the original documentation about your medical situation. So you can't really expect the LA to take notice of something they knew nothing about.

As far as the admission criteria is concerned the admission code is very specific about parental health being a possible reason for considering priority under a medical criteria. So the admission criteria is simply incorrect. If it comes up in an appeal hearing then the panel would by law have to refer this to the schools adjudicator if they agree that the criteria does not meet the admission code.