Appeal hearing meeting, what questions will they ask me?

[angelusavalon]

I have a date for my secondary school appeal hearing in May. Can anyone with previous experience let me know what kind of questions will they ask me on the day? I have to do 5 appeals but I will not let them think "I'm just having a go and see if my ds will get in any of these", I want to let the panel think I want this particular one school. My ds and I appeared on the 2nd page of a London newspaper, the article is about third of London children not getting any of their 6 preferred schools, if I present this news article with our names on it will this have an impact on the panel? Will the panel ask me questions about my other school selection and why I chose them? I need to prepare myself for the inquisition. Please help me by pointing out where I will fail at. Thank you!

Have you followed all the appeal advice given out by prh47bridge, Admission and PanelChair on the Education and Secondary education boards?

You need to be very clear why your child needs to go to that school - for specific curricular reasons, such as provision of subjects which other schools do not offer or spots facilities that enable a partiicular talent. Or else compelling social reasons.

Otherwise you need to be able to demonstrate that the Admissions procedure was applied incorretly - have they give reasons why your application was not accepted?

Did you apply to your nearest schools? Are you appealing to any of your nearest schools?

Also very important not to criticise the school offered or any other schools, beyond 'it does not offer this facility / subject / other quality that my child needs'

I have only been in one appeal - we were give time to make a presentation of our case and then they asked some follow up questions.

And no, I definitley would not show them the newspaper article. They have strict guidelines on what they can consider and will not welcome being pressued by publicity - the system as a whole is not thioer concern, simply the admission procedure and application in question.

Presumably you are on waiting ists for all potential schools?

I don't remember the panel asking me any specific questions.

I presented my case after they had done their bits. I did spend an hour on my presentation though, so perhaps they wanted shot of me.

I would say no to newspaper article, not the right time imo.

Good luck!

::Waves to Blu::

Blu's advice is spot-on.

The panel won't ask you much about why you made your initial selection of schools. They will, though, ask you why you think your child needs a place at the school you're appealing for.

You therefore need to make a strong case for why your son needs a place. You can do that by highlighting things that this school offers that would be particularly beneficial for your child, whether that is curriculum, extra curricular activities, pastoral care or whatever. If you are arguing that your child has a social/medical need for a place at the school, back that up with independent confirmation from a professional (paediatrician, GP, educational psychologist, social worker as appropriate).

You also need to do some homework on how many pupils have been admitted in previous years and how many are in each year group now. The school's case against admission is likely to be that they only have (say) 150 places, those places have been allocated and the school is now full. But if you can show that some year groups currently have (say) 142 you can argue that there is some spare capacity and if some year groups have (say) 153 you can argue that the school can cope with going over the 150 figure.

Look too for any errors/omissions/faults in the LEA's original decision - did they measure the distance from home to school correctly? Did they place your son in the correct admissions category etc?

Does your son have a place at any school at the moment? Presumably you were offered a place, even if it wasn't at any of the schools you had chosen - did you accept it?

The panel might well ask if your son has a place for September and it is better to be honest and say that you are appealing at 5 schools. You can then explain that you doing so because you are committed to finding a school place for your son, but school A is the one you really want because it is the one that best suits his needs. If you have rejected a place at the allocated school, you will need to explain why.

As Blu mentions, panels don't like to think that parents are trying to pressurise or blackmail them. The appeal will be decided on its merits. The panel won't reject your appeal just because you have other irons in the fire or because you rejected the offered place (if you did) or took your case to the press, but it's always a good thing to make a positive impression on the panel because - if the arguments for and againt admission are very finely balanced - that could help swing things your way when the final decision is made. I wouldn't say don't show the panel the press article, but do think very carefully about it. If you present it as evidence of how committed you are to securing a good education for your son, it could help you. If it comes across as an attempt to browbeat the LEA or browbeat the panel, it won't. Tread very carefully here.

I am surprised that as many as a THIRD of London applicants got no school from their preferences!

The BBC say here that in London 65% got first preference! And "The PLAB showed 87% of pupils in London were offered a place at one of their top three of six schools listed." I assume many people's list included a 'wild card' first preference such as a selective school or a faith school, or a desirable out of usual catchment school, so overall, the BBC picture is quite positive - though of course there are people left high and dry, even having included the schools most likely to admit them, and the overall stats make no difference to them.

Plenty of good advice here already. Just to confirm that it should not count against you that you are appealing for a number of schools. That is not something the appeal panel should take into account.

I would also add that you need to be very knowledgeable about everything in the locality as well; including bus routes/times.

A relative of mine appealed to the local school when he moved and it was in the end down to his knowledge of the bus timetables (the fact his DD could get a direct bus to this school and be on time, rather than taking 2 bus journeys and still be late to the school allocated to her)....she got her place

If that was the basis on which your relative won the appeal they were very lucky. Appeal panels will generally not consider transport problems.

I suspect that there were other factors at play besides transport difficulties alone. Either that or the school's case not to admit was particularly weak. As prh47bridge says, appeals based on transport difficulties alone succeed very rarely, and most panels will take the view that it is up to parents to devise some way of getting the child to school on time.

prh47bridge i have just joined this site and it seems to me from what i have read that you can offer some good advice,my dd has been refused a place even though i have a dd in 6th form a son in this current year 11 and another dd who is current year 7.Other than saying why she needs to go to the school and good reasons why eg, that they offer certain subjects,have good pastoral support and excellent anti bullying policy,also school is walking distance,her offered place will be via bus and the school offered starts at 8.15 and finnishes at 2.30pm not like her first choice which is 9 to 3.30 i also work at the school i have two reasons that i think are valid but don't want to rock the boat.Last year there was 4 successful appeals and also the school started 6th form with 80 odd students,the sixth form build is currently in progress and expected to be open this September so i know that the school made halls into classrooms for 6th form etc and also ofsted inspected in Nov 11 and they judged outstanding on 30/31 accounts and good on one so my point being it was NOT detrimental to the school as they catered for these students.Would you recommend that i say this?

I think that you have two main thrusts here. Firstly what is in the admission criteria, it would be unusual for there not to be some priority for siblings. Whilst the DD in 6th form will probably not count as would the current year 11 son, the year 7 daughter definitely would. So I would asking now, assuming their is sibling priority, whether dd has been correctly put in the right category.

When it comes to the appeal you should definitely raise the issue of the 6th form. I am not sure that it helps the appeal enormously because they have not got any extra capacity if they have been using halls etc. But if you work at the school then you need to say that you work at the school and tell the panel things around ofsted inspection with an extra 80 pupils in the school - not to easy to make a case that it is full to busting if they have coped and had what appears to be an excellent ofsted. Also do not be shy in saying no that is not right when the presenting officer is making the case not to admit, if you think things are not as they suggest.

I agree with Admission. The big question is whether or not the school gives siblilng priority and, if it does, whether your daughter was given priority based on your daughter in Y7.

Looking at your other points, the fact that they offer certain subjects is definitely worth mentioning if you can show that your daughter has a talent for those subjects. The pastoral support, bullying policy, distance and start/finish times are unlikely to win your appeal.

I also agree with Admission's comments about the 6th form. The other question I would have is whether any of the other years are currently over PAN or have been in the recent past. If they are that is worth mentioning as it suggests the school can cope with additional pupils.

I am out of catchment sibling,long story but when my first daughter went there the school was catchment,when my son went 2 years later the banding had changed and we was out of catchment however the school struggled to fill spaces as it had been placed in special measures.Obviously last year it was my first choice for my third child and she got in.I have found out today that their PAN is 180 and there are currently 186 on roll for the current year 7's. The admission criteria is (1) Statemented and kids in care (2) catchment siblings (3)catchment children(4) out of catchment siblings. Distance from home to school by how the crow flies is .926,the school offered is 2060. My daughter that i am appealing for is S.E.N and as the school has fantastic intervention i feel that this should be mentioned. Is there anything else that i can do or say to help my case?

The fact that the current year 7 has 186 in it, when the PAN is 180, means that admission appeals were successful last year, so all is not lost. It could also have been higher than this, which is worth checking with the LA.
What you need to do is construct a good case and to start with you need to explain the reasoning behind your preference, the fact that originally it was the catchment school and you obviously want all your children to go to the same school. You could also say that with your daughter having SEN it is especially pertinent that she has her siblings with her.
You should talk about the very good SEN facilities but in all honesty panels are not allowed to take this into consideration. The assumption has to be that all children can cope in all schools.
The argument about the offered school being farther away will not be relevant unless your daughter's SEN starts to play a part. So she can walk to school with her siblings at the preferred school but in the offered school how would she do the 2 mile journey? If it is by bus etc is that an issue given her SEN? In term of the distance 2 miles is not considered a problem and will not be a good reason to admit, it is what effects that distance might have that would be relevant.