Help please! Secondary school appeal - response to school statment

[jus3351]

We have a school appeal next week - 2 May. I''ve just had a dreadful thought, all additional supporting evidence had to be posted to reach the clerk by last Wed, I included our response to the school's statement with this additional evidence, our response does effectively challenge the school's statement, however, should I have kept this response secret until the actual day of hearing and then used these points for the first time to question and challenge the school or was I right in sending this off prior to hearing as I assumed copies must be made for the panel and school to see beforehand.

You need to make your case in your written submissions. The rules are that it is at the panel's discretion what other things can be submitted at the actual hearing. Normally most panels give parents a lot of leeway to submit late information and obviously ask questions that only occur to them during the appeal (that also applies to panel members as well!)
If you are challenging the schools case then you need to raise them in stage 1 of the appeal hearing. It may be if it is straying into your own individual circumstances that the Chair of the Panel will say leave that till the second stage when you are presenting your own case with nobody else present, but it is always best to raise at stage 1

I have submitted everything in time and don't have anything extra to take with me on Wednesday. I had read from someone that if you are challenging the schools case, take these points separately with you to the hearing rather than posting them with the additional evidence which is what I have done! Not sure if this was the right thing to do??

We haven't been informed that we're presenting our case with anyone else, our letter just states our appeal hearing will be at 11am on Wed. Do you know if there will be a stage 1 with other parents or that they'll be a stage 1 in our own private hearing?

I'm very worried that now the school have had time to read our response to their statement, they will have had time to respond effectively and I won't have had time to prepare myself with what they'll say on the day!

If you were submitting documents to show that the school's case is wrong you should have submitted them in advance. If you didn't do so there is a possibility that the appeal may be adjourned to allow the LA and panel to absorb the new evidence.

If your response to the school's case does not include any documentary evidence you did not have to send it in. Without knowing the details of the case I cannot be certain but in most cases it is unlikely to damage your position significantly if you have submitted it.

If it doesn't say anything in the appeal papers about a grouped hearing it is likely that you will have an individual appeal and you will be the only parent present throughout.

Thank you for the helpful replies.

Prh47bridge - My response to the school's statement has 10 points explaining why I don't believe that giving our son a place will prejudice the school, these points all refer to the school statement, although it isn't evidence as such, the points do effectively challenge the school.

It's been sent now, hopefully I've done the right thing.

No there is no mention of a group hearing so sure it'll just be us.

Does anyone know the answer to this please:

School we are appealing to this Wed have said they are committed to the 'In Year Fair Access Protocol Scheme'.

Can schools commit to this scheme when they like or did this come into effect on a certain date and became compulsory for all schools to commit to?

I am asking this because the school takes 180 students for Year 7, in their statement they say that there are sufficient computers for only 25 pupils but school have just confirmed they have 8 registration groups which means some classes will have less that 25 which could help with my argument that admitting one more won't prejudice. However, they will probably argue that these spaces will need to be kept for the in year fair access protocol.

There were 2 successful appeals in 2011 so if the school had previously been committed to this scheme then I can argue my point as Ofsted gave this school an 'outstanding' in 2011.

However, if they committed to this scheme very recently, like this year then I can't argue this point at all!!

Every school takes part in the local Fair Access Protocol. They have no choice. They will have been part of it for many years. They cannot hold places back in case they are needed under the Fair Access Protocol.

Hi there, you've already been given some top advice, so can't really add to that. There's a guy I've interviewed in the past (I'm a broadcaster) called Matt Richards on schools appeals. You can google him. He's really helpful and can help to diminish any further worries you may have:).

Best of luck for Wednesday.

Oh and he won't charge you for a quick chat:)

You need to understand that there is no connection between appeals for entry into the school at a normal point of entry e.g year7 and the local Fair Access Policy. The later kicks into life when somebody cannot get a place in-year at any local school. It especially tends to get used when we are talking about pupils who have been permanently excluded from a school and naturally other schools are reluctant to take on such a pupil. The in -year fair access protocol is a system by which pupils are allocated a "local" school and each school takes their fair share of difficult pupils, even if they are full.
The two appeals in 2011 were probably appeals that were granted because of overwhelming personal reasons. Unless the LA specifically says they are in-fair access children then they are probably not.
I would also be careful about the registration groups. Does this refer only to the number of forms for registration and pastoral care or does it actually refer to the number of teaching groups. It is the number of teaching groups that is important . If the year group has 180 pupils the usual number of teaching groups is 6 groups of 30. However most secondary schools actually have more teaching groups than form /registration groups, so for 180 you could well have 8 teaching groups. The numbers in each group will also vary, so in the bottom groups that might only be 10 to 15, to give the level of personal teaching necessary, where as the top groups could easily have 32 to 34 in them. The usual figure quoted is that schools like to have an average of 26 to 27 per teaching group.

At my sons school they have one quite big year, numbers wise. They have four tutor groups (two tutors in each) and six sets for learning.

Thanks all for helpful advice.

Admission: I understood that the 'Fair Access Policy' was indeed for pupils that may have been excluded from another school and must be placed quickly at a new school or for perhaps foster children who have just been moved into the area. The two successful appeals won last year were, I'm sure, for over whelming personal reasons as you say.The school says in their statement that they need flexibility should they be required to place any additional pupils under this scheme. I think what they are basically saying is that our 180 places are taken, the school is full and any flexibility they may have must be kept for any possible in year students under this scheme.

The class sizes are no more than 24 pupils and I think this means teaching classes because all students applying to this school take an ability test and then 20 places are allocated from each ability band, there are 9 ability bands and 180 places.

Based on this, do you think I can still argue the fact that although they say there are only sufficient computers for 25, admitting one extra won't prejudice the school because they seemed to have coped very well with admitting extra pupils in the past, i.e. two successful appeals in 2011 and an ofsted report of outstanding in 2011.

Really grateful for this advice, it's helping me to try and make sense of it all as the whole process is all so confusing, I have to make sure I know what I'm talking about on Wed otherwise I'll make myself look really stupid!

I would not mention the computers, that is their argument, so I would just talk about the fact that there have been successful appeals and an outstanding Ofsted. However I have to say that this is a relatively weak arguement for admission.

Isn't their statement that they need flexibility in case of future pupils who may join under fair access tantamount to saying they have capacity but are keeping some vacancies in the bag just in case - which isn't allowed is it?

Admission - Thanks, I won't mention the computers, and I agree with you, on it's own, this is a very weak argument, however, there are other factors. Your advice has helped so much and I will post the outcome of the appeal, good or bad!

Titchy - This is the part from the school's statement word for word:

"(name of school) is committed to the ?in year fair access protocol? scheme so flexibility will be needed as the academy might be required to accept students under this new initiative".

To me, it reads that they could accommodate additional pupils, however this will only be for in year students under the fair access scheme.

I'll just follow the advice from 'admission' and stick to the fact that there were 2 successful appeals in 2011 with an outstanding report from Ofsted in 2011 - this provides no evidence that admitting one more pupil will prejudice the school.

The wording is such that it implies that there is capacity to take further pupils, so I would raise it, assuming that you read this before tomorrows appeal. It is a very silly statement for the Academy to make and suggests that they are not certain of things around admissions. The whole point of the scheme is that it operates outside and separate from the normal admission system. It is exactly the same as a pupil with an SEN statement that names the school, the school has no option but to admit, no matter how many there are in the school.
If you are crafty (sensible) ask the school the innocent question of how many pupils they think might have to be admitted under this scheme first. If they are silly enough to say 10 or something then it is an open invitation for you to say well that implies that you have 10 available places now and we would like one please. If they are sensible and say they will take the number that they have to, it still give you the opportunity to say it seems to me that this is suggesting that there are spare places in the year group.

Admission - I have read it in time and will ask just this! Thank you so much!