Hello
Thanks for all the advice, a report back which may help others in the future. We had our appeal hearing two weeks ago on all three schools and got the results the end of last week.
We broadly got what we expected when we set out but obviously would have wanted more. We were awarded a place at our third choice school which was the school we were in the PAA for. On the other two schools the panel didn't uphold our appeal but did indicate that they thought the admissions authority had incorrectly measured the distance from our house to the schools, however all this should do us move us up the waiting list - as we were outside the PAA.
Our appeal was on the following basis: -
1/ The local authority had incorrectly measured the distance from the house to the schools, because: -
- They had used the private road to exit our estate whilst ignoring the private footpath nearer our house.
- They had not used a footbridge over a railway line despite one of the schools being next to another rail footbridge - which must have been in distance calculations to that school.
- They had ignored another footpath.
We supported this with documentation of walk to school campaigns the authority were running and I think importantly Education Department guidance issued April 2007 to admissions authorities that admissions arrangements must promote children walking to school. We also located minutes of a meeting of the schools admissions forum where they acknowledged the criteria as they stood were unintelligible to everyone outside the highways team. They made one change to the criteria following this meeting adding two specific paths and agreed to consider others on a case by case basis - when I put this to the admissions officer she indicated we should have submitted our paths to review of 2010 admissions arrangements that had started in 2008!
2/ The local authority had known they had a problem with rising attendances as early as 2007 and when adding 30 places to the school we were allocated which wasn't on our list they had not reviewed the PAA for that school or adjacent PAA. This meant there were children going to our PAA school who lived closer to the school we had been allocated. In response the admissions officer, said they didn't have a capacity problem in our area - which they clearly did and that they were reviewing the PAA in the area. On questioning they had been reviewing them for four years and still hadn't finished.
Ultimately, I think they second point on no PAA review and its unintended consequences was a strong point but opened up to many issues for the local authority if it had been upheld so in our appeal they went with the distance and gave us the PAA school.
It will be interesting to see what happened on other appeals where they didn't have a distance argument - were they rejected? My understanding going in was the local authority can't amend the PAA once the admissions process has started but I assume the panel can? The panel commented that it did not believe it could consider the PAA point as part of the appeal as the authority were undertaking a review - but how long is reasonable and if you take an action (+30 places) that impacts the PAA can you hide behind the fact that you are reviewing them? It would seem that in not amended you had disadvantaged a number of children - surely not acceptable.
I hope that helps someone, thanks for your help.
Now to moving up the waiting list on the other schools......
Tagun
One other interesting point the admissions criteria state they use roads and footpaths adopted by the 'Highways Team'. On questioning the LA representative indicated this meant the Hounslow team. I pointed out that this wasn't strictly the case as they were using roads maintained and adopted by TFL - which no one would dispute but it did show they allowed themselves flexibility when interpreting the criteria so why not us? Also were we going to argue about who among different branches of govt maintain a road when deciding school admissions - Hounslow, TFL, National Rail, Hounslow Homes, Private Road....
And another, Hounslow admissions criteria and computer software take no account of previous panel and Ombudsman decisions as the route they gave me to the school were allocated ignored a subway despite the council losing a major appeal on this some years ago in relation to another school. The officer, replied well that was another school - to which the panel just looked dismayed - did they LA representative really think that the Ombudsman wouldn't make the same decision again? Reason for relaying this is that you may be able to recycle an old appeal as they clearly don't update criteria in response to successful appeals.