Appeal for a faith based school

[bunclody]

Has anyone had experience of going to appeal for a faith based school. We are at a stale mate prior to the appeal as our vicar made an error on the form. He has phoned the school and written a letter confirming it was his error but the school seem to take the stance that they have done nothing wrong but then neither have we. We apparently have a strong case but they just wont offer a place before appeal. They wont even confirm what place we are on the waiting list. This is the most stressed I think I have ever been.

The following applies only to state and state funded institutes if its private it may operate its own policy which you would need ton find out directly.

The school is correct.....If its full its full. It wasnt their mistake.... You don't get priority over others in the same boat and your faith doesn't guarantee that place. ergo you have to appeal with everyone else for remaining places. Your faith or the schools alleged 'faith' status wont help with the appeal board, you will have a stronger case if other children have gone before. Otherwise most generic appeal advice will be relevant and there's some rather good stuff freely available on the net to guide you through he process.

As the school is full, they cannot admit without an appeal.

A mistake in the admissions process should win your appeal, but I'm not sure an error on a form will count as that sort of mistake (if you had given wrong information on the form, it wouldn't help you). Can you show at you gave correct information to the vicar, and did you see the completed form or did it go straight to the school?

Also, it is never enough simpl to prove that a mistake has been made. You need to demonstrate that, if the mistake had not been made, you would have been offered a place. So for example if the correct information pushed you up a criteria and that criteria was where the oversubscription criteria kicked in, you would only win if you live neaer the school than greatest distance offered.

mungo - if it's a faith school that admits children of faith before others then their faith WILL push them up the criteria. As scaevola says though, this in itself may not be enough to gain a place, but if they would have been offered a place if this error hadn't happened then yes, this is enough to win at appeal.

In fact it shouldn't need to go to appeal, and the school should admit even if it's over PAN. Often they insist on the appeal though.

As to whether the place should be offered without an appeal, this is a grey area as in this instance the mistake wasn't made by the school or the LEA.

As others have said, at appeal OP needs to show not only that a mistake has been made but also that that mistake cost her child their place.

The school operates a number systems based on faith and we should be a priority 1 but the vicar put us down as a 4 which was his mistake which he admits was a mistake and as I said he has tried to rectify his error but the school wont listen and we have to go to appeal. The vicar has offered to come with us.

Did everyone in category 1 get a place? If so, you ought to win an appeal. If even category 1 was oversubscribed, you'll have to show that you would have been above the cut-off point ( eg live closer than the last place offered).

Agree with ComeIntoTheGardenMaud and Tiggytape. Disagree with those who say it doesn't count because it wasn't the school's mistake.

According to the Admission Appeals Code the question the panel must consider is whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in the case in question. Note that the sentence stops there. It doesn't say anything about whether it is the admission authority that makes the mistake or someone else.

To give an example, let us say that I live in LA X and want my child to go to a VA school in LA Y. I submit my application to LA X but they slip up and fail to pass it on to LA Y. My child will not be offered a place at the VA school. Neither LA Y nor the VA school has done anything wrong. Nonetheless an appeal panel should find that the admission arrangements have not been correctly applied.

In this case the school is not at fault. The vicar is. Despite that I would expect an appeal panel to conclude that the admission arrangements have not been applied correctly and therefore, if everyone in category 1 got a place, the appeal should succeed.