Can I appeal based on distance?

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Dd ws given our last preference.

It's two bus journeys away, with waiting time it is an hours journey each way, it is about 4 miles away but no direct bus route. You have to go into town and then out again.

The third preference, ie one up from the one offered is a direct bus journey and would be a 15 - 20 minute journey.

I cannot take dd to school and pick up as I work full time and my place of work is in the opposite direction.
I have to be at work for 8.30am and dont have a car either.

Any advice would be helpful.

Sorry, should have said, the other school is slightly closer as well.

You can appeal but, from what you say here, your chances don't sound particularly good.

Essentially, you need to demonstrate that the prejudice to your daughter in not getting a place at your preferred school(s) will be greater than the prejudice to the school in taking an additional pupil. Panels wouldn't generally expect a secondary pupil to be driven to school, so the argument that your daughter will have to travel by bus won't (I suspect) carry much weight. Nor is it unusual for secondary pupils to have to take two buses to get to school so, again, I don't think any panel would regard that as an exceptional hardship. You have nothing to lose by appealing, but you might fare better, though, if you can identify other things that your daughter needs (pastoral care, a subject specialism, sports or music facilities etc etc) which your preferred school can provide and the allocated school can't.

And make sure you are on the waiting list for any other schools which suit you better than the one you've been allocated.

You can appeal on any basis that you want for any school that you want. If you are going to appeal on the basis of the difficulty of getting to the offered school then you need to be very clear in your appeal document about exactly what the time issues are, that is specific times and buses that dd would have to take.
If I am honest any argument on that basis is not going to be a particularly strong argument but you should appeal, you have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

Why did you name the school as a preference at all if getting there is such a problem? You didn't have to use all your preferences.

Thank you. so have I been misled about journey times?

A teacher friend told me this morning that a journey over 45 mins is considered unreasonable?

Am trying all angles!

I need to add, the fact that you did put it on the form as a preference will indicate to an appeal panel that you were prepared to accept it at the time of application. Have your circumstances changed since then? If not, your chances of success are minimal.

We were told we did have to use them all. We had a presentation at the primary school for parents before the caf had to be in.

The strong advice was to use all choices as we don't have enough places at secondary level in our area and the head was basically saying you are more likely to get a school place if you use all your choices.

Obviously I now know that is incorrect.

Well, the head was right, because you have been given a place at a school of your choice. Unfortunately, this has backfired on you because the school is not suitable. If you had not used the fourth preference, you may still have been offered that school (depending on admission criteria) or you may not have been offered a place at any school at all. But, in either of these scenarios you would have been in a stronger position to appeal against the decision and win a place at one of your top three choices.

Sorry if that is not what you wanted to hear but, having been to appeal and lost, I do know a little of how panels operate.

Thanks, I'm aware we re not in a strong position, like I said, we will consider all angles. We have nothing to lose.

This is all I can find in the School Admissions Code (available here) about travel by public transport:

Distance between home and school and ease of access by public transport

2.36 In establishing their oversubscription criteria, admission authorities should take account of the time it will take to travel to school, as well as, the safety of the route, the need to encourage cycling and walking and the availability of public transport (see paragraph 1.8) in establishing their oversubscription criteria.

2.37 Distance between home and school is a clear and objective oversubscription criterion and is often used as a tie breaker in oversubscription criteria. It has the benefit of ensuring that children will not have a disproportionately long journey if access to their nearest school is not possible. Admission authorities must explain clearly how distance from home to the school will be measured including the points at the school and the child?s home from which distance is to be measured (for example, the main school gate, the front door to the home, how flats will be treated). Admission authorities must use a reliable and reasonable system which parents can easily understand. Where a child lives with parents with shared responsibility, each for part of a week, the admission authority must make clear how the ?home? address will be determined in a fair and considered way.

2.38 It is good practice to give priority to children who could reach one school (but not others) by public transport, or to children who would have a disproportionately long journey to another school if denied admission to their nearest school.

2.39 As with all oversubscription criteria admission authorities must take account of factors that might unfairly advantage or disadvantage one child compared to another. If using distance
as an oversubscription criterion, admission authorities should ensure in their admission arrangements as a whole that families who are less able to afford property nearest the school are not excluded as a result.

I haven't heard of this 45 minutes criterion - is it in your LEA's school admissions booklet? Or is it connected with the LEA's rules on help with transport costs? To be honest, I've heard too many appeals where parents have been given completely duff (mis)information by teachers and school administrators who are not as familiar with the admissions code as they pretend to be, so unless you can get a source for this 45 minutes thing I would not rely on it.

On the question of using or not using all your preferences (and remember they are preferences not choices), it can work both ways. The fewer preferences you express then - unless you can be absolutely sure of getting one of those preferences - the greater the chance that you will be allocated a school which has vacancies but which you did not name on the form. In an extreme case, parents who name only one school thinking this will 'make' the LEA give them a place at their school usually fail, as their application does not get any additional priority simply on the basis that they've made only one preference. But, in your case, naming a school which you don't really want may (I fear) work against you. You will have an uphill struggle to convince an appeal panel that it's unreasonable to expect your daughter to attend this school, given that you named it as one of your preferences, even if it was your last preference.

Thank you so much for your help and time.

I agree that we will struggle to justify naming the school, the only mitigation I can give is that I had use of a car when we made the choices and felt that if the worst came to the worst we could manage by using the breakfast club, ( enabling me to drop off before work) and then after school club before I collect.

With no car that's not feasible and dd will have to get the bus. It precludes any after school clubs though as she would be able to get a bus into town but would then miss the last bus home. ( buses stop fairly early to our area.)

Anyway, I'll have a think over the next couple of days and make a decision.

Let us know how you get on!

If it's a 4 mile journey, would it be possible to cut down on the waiting time by walking one of the legs rather than waiting for the bus? A 2 mile walk doesn't sound excessive for a healthy teen and if it saves an hour of tedious waiting it might be worth it.

Hi again.

Sorry, should have explained better. The school is only four miles away but it doesnt have direct bus route from where we live.
Dd would have to get a bus almost 5 miles into town from home and then a bus just over 6 miles to the school.

Anyway, alls well that ends well. I spoke to the planning team to ask about waiting lists etc and a very lovely woman spent ages talking through why we weren't happy, what we wanted from a school etc.
She then came up with a very lovely school that we had considered but not listed as we are way out of catchment.
They had a place so she has sent out an offer letter for reallocation.

Dd is over the moon and I am ecstatic. It has fantastic outcomes for it's pupils and is fairly rural so has some really wonderful extracurricular activities on offer.
The best part is that the journey p, although farther, is very easy and takes less time than a journey to the other school would.

Thank you so much for all your support, it is very much appreciated.

Further! Don't know where farther came from!