Urgent advice needed, appeal in Harrow

[RedCabbage80]

Hello,

I am another desperate Mum currently preparing an appeal for a secondary school place for my son. I am so stressed and harassed :-( We live in Harrow and we always thought that we would get into my son's preferred school. Last year we'd lived within the boundaries of the school we wanted but this year we missed out by about 0.3 mile....so many more kids applied! My son's primary is one of the 3 feeder schools for the one we want, not sure if that has any relevance?

The one he got allocated was not amongst our choices, it's the worst school in the borough with 31% pass rate at GSCE level...nightmare....My son has been since the start one of the two best performing kids in his primary and can't stand being bored and not challenged - which he has often had to endure at hid middle-of-the-road primary.

The allocated school hasn't had the record of bullying as far as I know, it is just really, really bad academically. Now, I am not sure how to approach this appeal in the best possible way...We do not have any family in this country, not one, and for my son going to a school where almost all of his friends are going is so important - on top of the academic reasons.

I really wanted to know whether enlisting a professional is worthwhile? Just to help out with the statement, I want to attend the hearing myself. I just do not want to miss out on putting an argument forward which can make all the difference! I can't decide and need to act quickly!

I have ordered a book which is good, apparently, but I so desperately need to give this appeal the best possible chance of succeeding!

And also, my son passed 2 entrance exam for independent schools, as we were led to believe that family income would qualify him for a bursary. He was offered a full paying place which we couldn't afford, so we had another major disappointment to contend with :-( Not sure of we can use this fact to our advantage in the appeal?

Any constructive advice would be very very welcome!

Thank you.

I didn't want to leave your post unanswered as I was in the same position as you this time last year and can remember the desperation!

There are some very knowledgeable people on here who will be able to give you great advice. However, in the meantime, I think the general advice is first to check that there hasn't been a mistake - was your son in the right admissions category, have they got your address right, has the distance been measured correctly?

If all that seems right then your appeal will only succeed if the panel concludes that your son will suffer more than the school will if they admit him. You can't be negative about the school you've been allocated in your appeal. Look at the prospectus for the school you want and draw up a list of reasons why it's the right school for your son (specialist status, any special services/clubs/languages/sports they offer that are things your son could particularly excel at).

I hope that helps as a stop-gap. I'm sure someone with more specialist knowledge will be along soon .

I would not bother getting a professional. You have expressed yourself very clearly so I am sure you will have no problem with an appeal panel. You will get plenty of free advice on here from people who know the admissions and appeals processes and the relevant codes inside out. I therefore doubt that a professional will help and they could do more harm than good. Our advice may even be better than the book you are getting!

The main question at the appeal will be, as janeyjampot says, whether the damage to your son's education from not attending this school outweighs the damage to the school from being forced to admit an additional pupil. The term used is prejudice - the authority will argue that admitting your son to the school will prejudice the school, you will argue that not admitting him will prejudice his education.

Saying all his friends are going to the preferred school is not usually a compelling case. You need to explain why this is more important for your son than for other children. As Janey says, look at things that the preferred school has which are missing from the allocated school and which will be beneficial for your son. Concentrate your case on what is good about this school, not on how awful the allocated school is. It may be the worst school in the country but I'm afraid that doesn't help you at appeal.

The other thing you will need to do is weaken the LA's case that admitting your son will cause prejudice. There probably isn't much you can do on that right now but you will receive the LA's case before the appeal. If you post an outline of it on here you will get help to find the weaknesses in their case and come up with awkward questions to ask.

The kind of things you can do to weaken the case are: measure the classrooms, to show they have capacity for more students or as was done at my son's school, show that there was historically more children at the school. The other thing to do is to get a copy of the admission guidance and make sure you know whether they do have such a thing as feeder schools in your borough.

You can also get yourself put on the waiting list of any other State school which you prefer to the school you have been offered (including the one you are appealing for).

I wouldn't mention private schools or your son needing to be academically challenged. But do mention any special interests of your son that can be met by the chosen school, including extra-curricula clubs etc.

Thank you both for your replies! It does feel better when you can discuss problems and exchange ideas...

We got the LA's response together with the appeal form in the post yesterday. Unless they will send any more detail later one, after I have filed my appeal statement?

It is very basic, half a page explanation about how all of the places have been allocated to those children with a stronger claim under admission rules. They distance offered was up to 0.78 and we live 1.09 miles away. Last year we were within the distance offered, which just goes to show how quickly things change!

What I found interesting is that they put the school's net capacity as 1310. They've said that there are ten classes per each school year with an average class size of 26 - which amounts to 1300 exactly.

Therefore, they still have the capacity to admit 10 more pupils according to those rules.

The school plan was also included in the letter. I have read on some other forums that some parents, who have been successful at their appeals, studied school plans and successfully argued how a particular school could accommodate more children. I am staring at this plan in front of me and my mind is blank! I just can't seem to get my head around how I could use this plan to argue that the school could admit more children. Any help with this particular aspect would be most welcome!

I don't know if it is relevant, but the school in question had a £31 million refit and it opened brand new facilities in September 2010. The Council made a mistake with one of the purchase orders, so the the amount of taxpayers' money spent on this school was £6 million more than planned/necessary due to this mistake!

I have no idea if any of this is relevant, maybe the fact that the school has recently gone larger in size but still admitting the same number of pupils...I'm just toying with ideas and hoping for some more sound advice!

Thank you :-)

I'm in the same boat and can empathise with your stress levels. I've got (and hope to continue to get) very good advice and support here on Mumsnet. Also, I loaned from the library Ben Rooney's book How to Win Your School Appeal, and I've found it very good at explaining how to make your case.

Good luck, RedCabbage.

I am a little puzzled by the process they are following here. Have you already appealed? Did this information arrive with the letter telling you that your son wasn't being admitted to this school or has it arrived since you notified them of your intention to appeal?

Their submission to the appeal should tell you exactly how many pupils they will have in September and I would normally expect to see a full class arrangement. If you haven't got that I wouldn't get too excited about the capacity. It may be that they've simply rounded the average class size to 26 instead of stating that it is 26.2.

What is the admission number for this school?

I'm a little surprised they've sent you a plan at this stage. However, you can find some information on net capacity calculation here - ignore the warning about that it may not reflect current government policy. There is also a spreadsheet there that you can use to calculate the capacity yourself.

The most interesting thing you've posted is about the new facilities. If they have not adjusted the net capacity to reflect these new facilities that is certainly something to bring up at appeal as that would suggest that the net capacity (and hence the admission number) should be higher.

It would be useful to know if this is their submission to the appeal panel or just some information for you. I would call them and ask. You could also ask them how many students are currently at the school in each year. That would allow you to work out how many there will be in September. It will also be useful if it shows that any years are already over the admission number as that indicates the school can take a few more pupils in your son's year without undue difficulty.

I too am intrigued that the LA has sent out this information so quickly as they cannot possible have got the appeals organised already. I wonder whether this is the LA's attempt to try and reduce the number of appeals by trying to put off parenst from appealing for a palce.
The net capacity is a measure of the number of pupils that the school can take but it refers to all school years. Is this a 11-16 school or a 11-18 school?
The net capacity will inform the admission number for the school and this is the key figure. The fact that you think there are 10 spare places is not relevant to any appeal, you need to concentrate on confirming that the school has correctly admitted the right number of pupils and that the distance quoted to you seems correct.
10 classes with an average class size of 26 suggests that the admission number is 260 but is it actually that or another figure?
If you are 0.3 of a mile away from getting a place on 0.78 miles last admission then that suggests that there will be a lot of other pupils who have not got a place at the school if last year the distance was over 1.09 miles. I think there is a valid question to ask as to what the reason is for so many more pupils being near the school. Has something changed? Is there a very large number of siblings involved?
Sorry but there is no other way but to work your way through the available information and slowly build the best possible case.

I have experience with this LA, primary not secondary though and they definately make it as hard as possible to appeal

Make sure you are on the waiting lists OP, there is alot of movement in the area. DD got into the school of our choice in late Nov from the waiting list

Thank you all for your replies and advice!

Just to clarify a few things - no we have not appealed yet. We had sent the notice of desire to appeal and yesterday we got the information I described earlier together with the appeal form. The full class arrangements were not stated. Just the school's net capacity (1310), number of school years (5), number of classes per year (10) and the average class size (26). The school plan was included but now, reading some of the advice here, I would want to see the old school building plan and see how the capacity compares.

The admission number is 270, the same as last year. We got the information about the distance within which the places were offered together with the initial letter on the 1st of March.

So, do you think I should expect more info from LA once I submit my appeal statement? Or do I need to specifically request it?

I found one document online, on the council's website, dating a year prior to the finalisation of the building works. It was published by the school in question and the purpose of it was to discuss the travel arrangements of pupils and staff. However in the introduction it says that the school's capacity is planned to increase to 1500 once the works are finished. I wonder why that never happened and whether it could be used in my appeal?

The link to the net capacity calculator seems very useful, I will definitely use it - especially when comparing the old school plans and the new ones....I just hope I can get my head around all of this...worried :-(

@littleducks So glad to hear that you got the school you wanted in the end! I know that primary school appeals are far more difficult than secondary ones, but still it is discouraging to hear they are so difficult in Harrow :-( I've put my son's name on the waiting list of this school we are appealing for and another one as well. We will know on the 30th of March what's his position, that's what the council said.

You will automatically receive the LAs case for the appeal before the hearing. You don't have to ask for that. However, you can ask for as much information as you want to help you prepare your appeal and the LA have to answer your questions.

The document you have found is very interesting. If you are able to confirm that the works envisaged by this document have indeed been completed, you can ask some pointed questions around this as it indicates that the school's admission number should go up to 300. Do they have plans to do raise the admission number? If so when? Why haven't they put the admission number up yet? It would be worth asking the LA as much as you can about this prior to the appeal.

This document may be more useful than the net capacity calculator - that can be quite confusing to use if you haven't used it before. However, if the net capacity calculator confirms that the capacity should be 1500 that would confirm that there is a possible case to be made.

Thank you!

Do I need to collect all of the evidence and all of my thoughts to include in my statement then? Or is it OK to build on that for the actual hearing?

I would still love to hear from the people who have been successful at an appeal of this sort, especially when there are no compelling medical reasons or a sibling link (although I assume that siblings tend to get in without an appeal...)

We went to appeal earlier this year for a primary school place for ds and we in addition to on line research we did enlist the services of an appeal 'expert'. He was very good in finding the holes in the LEA case, what questions we should ask and helped us prepare answers for some difficult questions we were likely to be asked. This particular consultant offered three levels of service - firstly to look through the case and give general findings, secondly to go through our actual submission and a mock appeal (over the phone 2 hours) and thirdly to actually attend the appeal with and represent us. I felt the third option was abit OTT and might get up panel's noses so we stopped at option two which worked well.

There were eight other appeals on the day we attended and whilst we had a reasonable case we knew it would come down to how good everyone else was. At best the panel are only going to uphold 3 or 4 out of 9. We were lucky and ds has been at his new school for six weeks and loves it.

Best of luck.

You only have to state the bare bones of your case at this stage and include a comment that you reserve the right to expand at a later stage. You will then get an appeal date and really need to have all your evidence and full case ready and submitted a week before the actual date.

RedCabbage, what school are you appealing for? Is it Whitmore? It sounds like it from the 'refit' thing you have said, and also re: the PAN, but Whitmore went to 1.126miles last year, and 0.874 (NOT 0.78) this year - just a lot more applicants I suppose.

You also seem to be very confused about Whitmore's capacity each year group. Yr 7 has a capacity of 270, whereas Years 8-11 have capacity of only 260.

Hence the total school capacity is 1310.

The re-fit was because Harrow previously only transferred at 12+ meaning Whitmore only had Years 8-11. Last year they included a Yr 7 class PLUS a sixth form, so from what I understand, you won't win an appeal trying to say the school has capacity - it simply doesn't.

Also, feeder schools were abolished in Harrow two years ago, so your son is not a 'feeder' primary school.

Will come back and read over other comments later - I used to work very closely within Harrow and am well informed regarding their appeals process.

Hi Popolly, yes it is Whitmore. I have started reading the Ben Rooney's book and I think some of the advice there is really useful, particularly regarding classroom size, communal area size, specialist area size and teacher/pupil ratio....I have been studying the school's plan and, whilst I do have a lot more information to go through and get, there just may be a case of this school not being over-stretched by admitting more pupils....Or it can be wishful thinking, but I am going to do some serious preparations!

I'm not sure how I got confused with what they say is they net capacity. Surely average class size of 26 across 10 classes in 5 year groups is 1300...that is the average for the whole school.

And yes, I know that the refit was designed to accommodate, amongst other things, new Year 7. But the first ones were admitted last year, so I can see from the actual number of pupils on roll and current teacher/pupil ratio how are they utilising the space/resources (both human and physical) on offer. Also, whether all of this factors are proportionate to the situation we had before, when the school was smaller and didn't have year 7.

Lots to do...

Also, RedCabbage, I can only assume that the school you were offered was "Harrow High" from your description of it. In defence to the school, the overall pass rate at GCSE was 75% of students receiving 5 A-C overall. Also, the last ofsted report rated the school as OUTSTANDING*

They have a fantastic gifted and talented programme, which involves letting their students spend time at Imperial College. Whilst their GCSE grades do not match that of Whitmore, you need to look at the Contextual Value Added score for Harrow High, which explains the level that children arrive at, and the level they leave at. Many of the children there come from a less academically able background, so the fact their GCSE results are as they are is actually very impressive.

Let me know if you have any other questions about the appeals in Harrow - my old job was organising appeals each year, so you've managed to stumble on my speciality!!

Xposts!

Sorry, I mustn't have been clear first time round.

Net capacity is 1310.

Yr 7 has 270 - 10 classes of approx 27
Yr 8 has 260 - 10 classes of approx 26
Yr 9 has 260 - 10 classes of approx 26
Yr 10 has 260 - 10 classes of approx 26
Yr 11 has 260 - 10 classes of approx 26

So when they say average class size of 26, that is true for across the school that the avarage class size is 26, but this is not applicable to Yr 7, where the average class size is a bit larger.

I have millions of questions! I am sure like every parent in this situation....I don't know how much time you have but, maybe you can PM me with some of your experiences...

I am not sure whether you have actually witnessed any of the appeals in Harrow or read the reports/decisions? That sort of a knowledge of what constitutes a successful appeal, especially for this LA would be invaluable, bearing in mind again that I don't have any compelling medical reasons.

I completely understand if you have no time, but if you do, any tips and experiences would be very welcome :-)

I have visited the other school and I talked to my son's teachers and some parents...I do recognise an enormous effort that has gone into improving that school, but in my hear of hearts I know that is not the right environment for my son. It is more than just results, I don't want some results factory, it is the whole feel of the place which I do not think suits him.

@mamalocco Thanks for your reply. Do you think the expert was worth it? Did he or she draw your attention to any points you'd missed completely? Or was it more the case of psychological benefit because you felt you had someone experienced on your side?

Are thy very expensive, just for advice? I do not want appeal representation either.

The appeals process and rules are the same across all of England. Indeed, it is not uncommon for people to appear on appeal panels for more than one LA. So I wouldn't worry too much about local knowledge. Having been in front of appeal panels in a number of different LAs I am very firmly of the view that they are essentially the same everywhere.

You cannot read the decisions made by appeal panels. They are not publicly available. The only reports you can get will give very broad numbers, e.g. x appeals for this school of which y were successful.

I remain of the view that you do not need to engage a professional to help you. Any appeal panellist will be able to tell you of cases where the professional has damaged the parents' case. Indeed, Admission was on the panel for an appeal where the parents involved a professional. The appeal was successful but that was entirely due to the parents. The professional did not help them win the case at all. Despite this, the professional concerned lists the case on his website as one of his major wins.

It is also worth noting that occasionally people have come on here and told us the advice they have paid for. Some of that advice has been very poor.

Admission and Panelmember both appear on appeal panels. I have also been through a number of appeals, both for my own children and helping other parents. We will give you good advice.

In terms of the case you submit, you only need to cover the reasons why your son's education will suffer if he is not admitted to this school. You also need to submit any documents you want the panel to see - if you turn up at the hearing with additional documents it may lead to the appeal being adjourned to allow the panel and the LA to understand them. You do not need to talk about the weaknesses in the LA's case in your written submission. You can leave that until the hearing. And you don't have to submit it all straight away. You can continue to update your case and submit new documents until a few days before the hearing.

I think the initial consultation was £100, maybe £400-£500 for the follow up including mock appeal and another £400-£500 for attendance at the appeal itself.

I think it was more that my DH wanted some hand holding that resulted in us using this consultant. He prepared us for alot of difficult questions (which didn't come up!) and gave us some technical questions for the LEA (which I think irratated the panel!). He also was quite dismissive of a piece of medical evidence (which ultimately won us our case!!). Having said all that he did give us several pointers that were useful and just as importantly things not to say. On line guides etc are very good but if you have specific things you need help with then maybe an initial consultation?

Thank you both for your replies and support!

@prh47bridge I know that the rules are the same everywhere, in theory. I have also heard from two sources now, one from this site and one from somewhere else, that Harrow LA is sort of "hardline" and that it is hard to win an appeal here.
That impression is confirmed by the number of successful appeals last year for secondary schools, which here is quite below the national average, which I believe is around 30%.

Oh dear, why do I have to live here :-(

I know that I need to keep my focus and think positively, but I am worried about this track record.

Our local borough offers a service called the parent partnership where they can offer you assistance on school appeals, I am using them and they have been brilliant on giving advice they give you a sheet on pointers to mention etc and the adviser listened to my reasons for appeal and then advised me the areas to work on and whom to get evidence from. It might be worth ringing your local council and seeing if they offer that support?

HTH

I have just Googled and it looks like that service is just for parents of children with SEN. Am I mistaken? If not I will get in touch as they exist in Harrow as well.

I'm still gathering all the data from the council and the school that I need for the appeal, but I won't get all of it on time before the deadline for the submission of my appeal (statement).

I gather that it is OK to amend that statement and add more information in the next couple of months, before the hearing?

I rang the admissions, but they wouldn't give me an answer over the phone, I had to submit that question in writing! Thankfully they were ok with emails!

I know from what I've read that it is normally fine to add to your case up until about a week before the hearing...but I just want to be 100% sure!