appeals

[tamtam2]

hello has anyone got there appeal date yet?,i cant stand the waiting.

WHOOP WHOOP!!!!!!!! two down two to go!!!!!
GET IN!!!! BUBBLE How good does it feel. We are still buzzing
I go passed the school every morning thinking "YES my babe will be there September"
I'm really pleased for you.
Fingers crossed for TAMTAM and JOEN

im so pleased for you Bubble , well done ,i will let you know our outcome ,x :)

Well done all!! We actually lost our appeal today!! In fact we were only at our appeal today, but it was an unmitigated disaster that we already know the result.

We have spent weeks preparing our case, which touched upon known admission process errors, what we felt was a strong argument against the school's case for prejudice and a very personal balancing argument.

We were told at the start that the panel wouldn't ask any questions of the school because they'd already been there for 4 days and had already done that, and to ask any further questions would prejudice those that had appeared before us. We never got to hear what those previous questions were?? We had 3 pages of questions ourselves based on the school's prejudice case and we received not one iota of interest from the panel.

The school admissions rep (the head) told us from the off that they felt our appeal letters had been inflammatory or at the very least suggested some kind of underhand activity on their part. All we asked for was where was our sibling was on the waiting list and what was the cut off mark for over-subscription criteria, not too much too ask you wouldn't have thought!!

In the end the appeal lasted 55 mins vs scheduled 30 mins and we were made to feel that we had inconvenienced them. The admissions rep in their summing up told the panel to "disregard" certain elements of our case either because they didn't agree with them or thought they weren't relevant. Isn't that up to the panel to decide??? BTW we still think they were entirely relevant!!

The admission rep set the tone from the start and my wife wanted to just cry and get out of there. Although I could tell it was futile, I dug my heels in and stated our case in full, that's what you're told to do no?

We are not unreasonable people but were made to feel (by the admins rep at least) that we quite out of order questioning their school. What we were disappointed in more than anything was the fact that the panel were insipid and let them get away with it.

I'm sure our case is very unusual and I hope beyond hope that your experiences are different.

We've already had it confirmed that they haven't met their responsibilities in terms of conducting the admissions process correctly, so they will without doubt hear from me again through the Ombudsman.

My wife won't be there, and we're no longer sure that we want our daughter to go to the School given the "performance" of her ultimate Pastoral provider, we just want to be the one's with the final say.

I always had my own preconceptions around how these appeals worked and I feel that I've been entirely vindicated. I've spent days and days, and I mean full 24 days, researching, recording and rehearsing this appeal. We feel cheated and let down.

Good luck to you all, I really hope that you appeals are successful.

StitchUp, your post makes shocking reading, it really does, and I'm so sorry that you and your wife had to go throught that.

I got to your second paragraph and was thinking you should contact the ombusman, so I hope you feel able to do so. It sounds like you have strong cause for complaint.

I think it's awful that you weren't given the opportunity to know what the panels previous questions were, were you also denied the opportunity to ask your own?

I would say that if the school rep/head is being that awful, and had probably acted that way during previous appeals, the panel must be able to tell what a twat he is. There is still a chance you could win. I can't believe he actually had the cheek to tell the panel to disregard some of your points! I'd have thought that in itself would antagonise the panel because apart from anything else, it's like implying that they don't know their job!

It's not surprising that you wouldn't want your dd to go to a school that is run by someone that sounds like a pompous idiot, I think in your situation I would feel the same. I can appreciate how much work you put into your appeal having just gone through it, and it's terrible that you have been made to feel the way you do.

Not that it will help, but our school rep started off being horrible too, although I think we won him round in the end. He said something that basically implied that it was all my fault that our son didn't get a place at his school, and I got the impression that he was doing his best to put me off my presentation by making huffy puffy noises, generally fidgeting and banging his glasses on the table every few seconds. However in the interest of fairness, I will say that he had a quiet word with us after the hearing was over and was quite supportive.

You have done your best for your dd, and that is a very important thing to hang on to. Having parents that are prepared to fight your corner is more important and significant to your upbringing than the school you go to, and I hope you will find that everything happens for a good reason.

You have my sympathies and best wishes.

StitchUp - I am sorry that you went into the process with negative preconceptions and had them confirmed. In my experience most appeal panels are genuinely independent and do a good, professional job. They certainly don't automatically side with the school or LA. Indeed, I've been involved with cases where the panel decided that the LA were not complying with the law and the Admissions Code and therefore referred the LA to the regulatory authority (the Schools Adjudicator).

The comment made at the start of your appeal about asking questions is appalling. With this many appeals I am surprised they didn't organise them as grouped appeals. If they had done that, the school would have presented their case once with all parents present and the parents and panel would then question the school. The parents would then present their cases in private. They haven't broken any rules by not running a grouped appeal but it would have been a better approach. As for not asking any further questions so as not to prejudice earlier appeals, as you point out yourself it could equally be argued that they have prejudiced your appeal because you don't know the questions they asked and the answers they received. It may be that their questions revealed a piece of information that would have been significant in your case if you had known about it.

I would not normally expect the head teacher to be the presenting officer for the school, although that isn't specifically prohibited by the code. However, the comments by the head about your appeal letters and the head's attempt to tell the panel to disregard parts of your case were way out of line. I would be interested to hear what Admission and PanelMember think (they both serve on appeal panels) but I personally think that the chair of the panel should have told the head to behave himself.

I think there may be enough wrong with the way this hearing was conducted for the Local Government Ombudsman to order a new hearing with a fresh panel. Whilst the LGO does occasionally recommend that a child is admitted without a further appeal this is relatively rare. That assumes you lose, of course. I have known people come out of appeals convinced they had lost only to find a few days later that they had won.

This seems to be your first ever post so I don't know anything about your case. If you want to give more details myself and other experts will happily advise you as to the strength of your case.

The only point I would make based on what you have posted is that, even if you are right and they have failed to conduct the admissions process correctly, that doesn't necessarily mean you will win your appeal. You have to convince the panel that your child would have been admitted if the admissions process had been administered correctly. A lot of parents miss that point and bring up lots of alleged faults in the process which had no bearing on the outcome and were therefore irrelevant to the appeal. I obviously don't know if you fell into that trap so this is general advice I would give to anyone planning to appeal on the basis of an alleged mistake.

Bubblecoral, thanks for your sentiments. Basically this was an offload straight from the appeal, but we've re-read it and it is exactly as it was.

We couldn't believe it really, and we're truly wrung-out by the experience.

We'll re-post in a couple of days with the result, but this really would be the greatest comeback since Lazarus.

Just so people know, this was a Grammar school appeal so I think (not that they should) different rules apply.

I really wish all of you people that are still waiting the very best of luck with your appeals. I'm sure that your experience will be very different, but just prepare for the unexpected!!

There is absolutely no need for any of the nastiness that has been reported. As for the panel not asking any questions of the schools case because it might prejudice the previous applicants that is maladminstration with a capital M. They simply do not know the basics of how the appeal should have been conducted. They were doing what is called an individual multiple appeal amd have misinterpreted the way to do it. Having said that section 3.14 of the admission appeal code says that where there are large numbers of appeals the appeals should be grouped multiple appeals. That is where the presenting officer makes their case once in front of all the appealants.

I can only apologise on behalf of most panel members that there are still people who do not know what they are doing and being allowed to sit on panels. As it was the head who was the presenting officer it is clearly a foundation school and his attitude suggests to me that they are actually using three tame "independant" panel members. When you go to the LGO I would comment also on the attitude of the panel to the procedings as they get very touchy about panels that are not really independant.

It does throw a very different light on the headteacher from that paragon of virtue that is portrayed when they are looking for applicants.

prh47bridge & admission thanks for taking the time to post.

My wife has a smile on her face. We really thought we'd done something terribly wrong, but we knew we were so well prepared!!

We know most of the appeals were probably from applicants who hadn't actually passed the entrance exam, so they really shouldn't have conducted it as a group type appeal.

The school prejudice case was vague at best and really not expanded upon in the appeal presentation. We had a raft of very valid questions which just seemed to gloss the eyes of the panel, whilst the admission representative just skirted the issues.

prh47bridge, yes I agree that we have no real hope of winning the appeal through the Ombudsman approach, but just getting a new (and fair) hearing.

We took advice from the www.ace-ed.org.uk guys yesterday and they were brilliant. There are a number of aspects of the process that seem to have been ignored and they were very clear that there are certain aspects of this case that we should have been aware of prior to this appeal.

We know that our child was right on the cusp of the admission cut-off yet we could not get any indication from either the school or the LA where they were on the waiting list or indeed where the exam score cut-off for over-subscription fell. This was not forthcoming at the appeal either. How can you argue against the admissions process when you're not given full information??

Anyway this has occupied our life for too much time recently and we probably need a couple of days off to consolidate our thoughts.

As mentioned I will pursue this to the bitter end, more from a point of principal than any hope of getting a more positive outcome.

Thanks again all.

Even if some of the applicants had failed the entrance exam they could still have conducted it as a grouped multiple appeal. The school has to make the case that admissions have been administered correctly and admitting an additional child will cause prejudice to the school. That case is the same regardless of the grounds on which the parents are appealing and whether or not the child passed the entrance exam so, in a grouped multiple appeal, the school presents that case once. You then move to the second stage where each appeal is heard in private with the parents presenting their case.

The provision Admission points to is a "should" rather than a "must" which means it isn't compulsory but, if challenged, the admission authority (presumably the school in this case) must be able to show that they were justified in not following this guideline.

Before the hearing the school was required to answer any questions you asked within reason to help you prepare for the appeal. But even if you didn't ask about the exam cut-off it sounds, without seeing their oversubscription criteria, like information which should have been presented as part of the school's case. Another point to bring up with the LGO.

prh47bridge, many thanks for the advice, it's very much appreciated.

I can see why you would want a couple of days to recover from the whole thing, but at the risk of stating the obvious, it might be woth writing down everything that happened while it is still fresh in your mind.

Also, just in case your are intersted, our appeal was for a grammar school and our ds didn't qualify throught the 11+, but we did have strong mitigating circumstances. Even though ds didn't qualify, the vast majority of the schools case was about over subscription, they barely mantioned the fact that he didn't pass the exam, maybe because we had lots of good academic evidence.

At the start of our hearing, the chair of the panel stated that they had four questions that they were required to consider for a GS appeal. The first was did they think he was academically capable, and if they answered no, they would not go any further or even try to answer any of the other questions. For the life of me, I can't remember what those other three questions were, but it may be worth you trying to find out if you are going to the ombudsman. It sounds like they were the standard legal thing that the had to consider. Although I appreciate that it may not apply as your dd obviously did qualify. Just a thought though.

My youngest didn't get a place at school where her two siblings go. We are on the waiting list and are appealing. We are also appealing to the school where a place has been allocated to try and get her sisters in there. My biggest worry is that I keep reading that appealing against class numbers is a waste of time in ks1 and that they do no take your personal situation into consideration. It will be impossible for me to be in to places at once as both school start and finish at the same time. Never mind the emotional effects it's going to create. Has anyone got any advice.

Most appeals for Reception, Y1 or Y2 are infant class size appeals. This applies if admitting children over the admission number would mean that some classes would have more than 30 pupils with a single teacher. You cannot win this kind of appeal on your personal situation. You should only win if you can show that a mistake has been made. For example, if the school gives priority to siblings but did not give priority to your youngest that would be a mistake which could lead to a successful appeal.

hello ,we had our appeal today,it went ok i think ,they said they will let us know the result on the 14th june ,2 more bloody weeks ,cant stand the stress,

Two weeks! That's ages! At least you know you have done as much as you can do, and what will be will be. Glad to hear you think it went well. Good Luck!

thankyou bubblecoral,i have a question
,Today (after the appeal)i got the results (over the phone) of my dd dyslexic test that i paid for ,(the letter is in the post) the psychologist said that my dd is severly dyslexic and that she should have a statement,had i have know this before she prob would have got in. if she is statemented do you think she will get in ?

If your daughter gets a statement then it is up to you as the parent to name the school that you want your child to got to. The LA may suggest somewhere else but if you dig your heels in then you should get the school that you want.
The trouble that you have is that the LA is very unlikely to accept the test results of a private psychologists, they will only rely on their own people and also dyslexia most LAs would contend can be handled in any school. so you are going to have to go through the whole statementing process to see whether they will actually give you a statement for dyslexia. The problem with private psychologists is that they will always say what yours has said and LAs simply do not give any credance to the report.

thankyou admission

Good Luck Tamtam :) two weeks seems really long.
Fingers crossed. :)

thankyou sallysadface,

Hi, I'm so glad some of you have had positive outcomes, and feel for those who did not. I really believe that things happen for a reason, even if we don't think it's best at the time (well, that's what I'm telling myself as we wait for the decision letter for our son!)
I posted a while ago here and recieved some great advice, our son was not allocated a place at the same school that his brother goes to as (hidden!) in the schools admission arrangements it says that children who enter the school with a statement do not count as a sibling link
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/1182442-Appeal-advice-sibling-link-not-counted-because-one-child-has-SEN/AllOnOnePage

We had the stage 1 last Monday, and had lots of questions to ask questioning whether the arrangements were lawfull and complied with the school admission code 2010. We only asked 1 or 2 questions before being brushed off by the Chair of the panel (who turned out to be very nice in the end!). We came away frustrated that we were not given the opportunity to ask all the questions we wanted, but thought "well ok, we can ask them at the start of stage 2". So we turned up two days later for our individual appeal, only to find that one of the panel members had not turned up! They had been missing for 5 hours, the hospitals and police had been contacted as her mobile went staright to voicemail (it turns out she'd got lost, started being sick and her phone had run out of battery). So it was rescheduled for Friday. We were told very soon by the chair that they had already established that they couldn't question the legality of the schools admission arrangements and they just wanted to hear about our son, so that threw us off a bit. I read out a statement about the affect the decision has had on both of our sons, and my H read out a (very strong) letter of support from our priest. We were not asked any questions by the school representative, or one of the panel members who when asked if she wanted to ask us anything replied no, I think they've summed up their case very well, and only 3 by the panel which were
"is your eldest son happy at the school?"
and "when you named this school for your eldest son, did you know that he would get in?"
"is the primary school your son goes to CofE?"

When we answered no, Catholic, the school representative piped up to point out to the panel that there were no Catholic secondary schools in the borough and the nearest would be a long bus ride away and theirs was the only Christian faith school in the area. Also in his summing up, he said something along the lines of "the panel have already said that they can't comment on or make judgements about our admissions arrangements, but thank you for bringing these points to our attention and the school will look into them". So this sounds good??
Anway, they are hearing the last appeals today and then have to deliberate, so we will hopefully hear early next week. Thankyou for all of the advice (even if we didn't get to ask those questions!). The panel and clerk were really nice and did their best to put us at ease.
Good luck to everyone who is still left to hear

TamTam, Admission is better qualifird to answer than I am, so go with that response!

It might be worth starting the statementing process though, as at least then you will have a record of wht your dd needs and it will have to be adhered to.

I think it may be different in each area, but when I asked the ASD person from the LEA in my area, I was told that we wouldn't be given one unless my son needed one to one support, which he doesn't. And as the primary school have been excellent at implementing his school action plus plan, I didn't push it.

Good Luck to you too Katybell

Hooray!! We won our appeal on medical grounds, DS is over the moon and is as excited as he gets lol.

WooHoo! Well done joencaitlinsmum! I'm very happy for you and ds

Thankyou bubblecoral,and well done joencaitlinsmum:)