Group appeal, is what happened unusual?

[NotDoris]

We attended our first appeal tonight, the group hearing. The school had already accepted 40 more pupils over their original PAN and stated in their summary that they could take a maximum of 20 pupils on appeal (there are 32 pupils appealing) so the panel have stated that they cannot accept all 32 and will move on to individuals hearings.
Is it usual for a school to say how many appeals they could accept? And now they have, will the panel choose the 20 they feel most deserving, or only uphold the cases they genuinly feel should have a place?

The experts will be along soon. Yes I think they hear all the appeals and rank them. So then they would let the top 20 go through.

It is quite unusual for this to happen but I can see some benefits in that the school obviously have a plan about how they could accommodate this number of pupils. You could say that the school is trying their level best to take as many students as is possible.
The issue is that at the second stage the panel is not deciding to admit 20 initially. It is deciding which cases individually out weight the prejudice to the school. It is a tricky business for the panel to decide what the level of prejudice is when the school is saying they can take 20 but not 32, but it has got to be low.
The panel then may end up with only 15 cases that they think will out-weigh the prejudice to the school but what the admission appeal guidance says in paragraph 3.9 is that "where a certain number of children could be admitted without causing prejudice, then the panel must uphold the appeals of at least that number of children". In this case presumably 20, so the panel will then have to re-evaluate the remaining 17 cases and decide which 5 are the strongest and admit them. My guess would be that may well be very difficult as the cases will be very similar in nature.
If the panel decide more than 20 pupils initially outweigh the barrier for admission when considered individually then the panel will compare cases and admit those with the strongest case for admission.
What it means is that you need the absolute strongest case you can for the second stage appeal.

It sounds like the school are creating 2 new classes of 30. It is up to the panel to see who is most deserving and I would assume they would fill up the places. If these are 2 new classes, I cannot see why the panel would have to stop at 30 in each class and could go over this number so, in the circumstances, the parents have a fairly good chance of getting a place. Very many secondary school classes have more than 30, but it seems odd to me that the school have already offered places to 40. How did they choose the 40? Were they all catchment area pupils and now the appeal panel will look at the out of catchment appeals? Did anyone ask at the meeting. I think there would be uproar if 20 places were not offered and I think you have all to play for. Not an expert these days, by the way!

Thanks SO much for clearing that up!
So, if I'm arguing that she needs the music facilities and tuition, I have an exam certificate to prove that. She also wants to study textiles (which our allocated school are unsure if they'll offer in the future) should I take along examples of things she's already made as evidence? How can I prove that she wants to study Spanish though?? She is 4th on the waiting list at another school for her language and music aptitude, would the email informing us of that be beneficial?

I wouldn't take along actual examples of things she's already done but a list of things she has done might be a way of showing her interest.

The email showing she is 4th on the waiting list of another school only helps if it clearly shows that she has aptitude for music and/or language.

The email states that she's ranked 5th under music aptitude (3 places offered) and 4th under combined music and language (2 places offered) so I suppose that shows she has a flair for these subjects.
I'll make sure I mention things she's made too, unless anyone else thinks I should actually take something to show?
Thanks!!

Most schools will not want to take any!

It sounds illegal to me. Surely if the school is creating 20 more places it has to offer them to the first 20 children on the waiting list? Otherwise it is grossly unfair to them if someone else leapfrogs purely because they appealed.

That's kind of the point of appeals Ici..... Otherwise everyone would just have to sit it out on the waiting list.

Please do not take in any bits of things that she has made. It is absolutely not going to make a difference to the decision the panel make.

No, titchy, it isn't.

Some people will appeal because they feel they have grounds, e.g. that prejudice to their child will outweigh prejudice to the school. They may or may not be right. Others won't appeal because they don't think they have grounds and will hope to get a place via the waiting list. It would be completely wrong if someone was number 1 on the waiting list but didn't get one of those 20 spare places purely because there had been a decision to bypass the list and allocate the places only to the 20 deemed to be most deserving out of those who had appealed, irrespective of whether there might be more deserving people on the waiting list. If in fact some of the appellants are within the top 20 places on the waiting list, they should simply be given the places without being made to appeal.

Schools aren't allowed to keep a few places vacant for people who appeal - they have to allocate all their places, and if some of the offers aren't accepted, they have to offer the places to the people at the top of the waiting list. If you ever sit on an appeal panel, you will be told that, say, the admissions authority offered 100 places, of which 90 were accepted and two of those subsequently dropped out, and they have therefore offered another 12 places. They will never turn up at the appeal panel saying "Good news, guys, you can allow 12 appeals."

Therefore, whether 20 places become available because the offers aren't accepted, or because the school chooses to make them available, the position is exactly the same - the offers go to the people on the waiting list and the places can't be kept back for appeals. In this case, the school is saying that it can take 20 more pupils without causing prejudice, so it is in effect creating 20 places.

The more I think about this, the more mad and illegal it seems. This school is storing up trouble for itself, because as soon as word of this gets out anyone who was within the first 20 places on the waiting list but wasn't offered a place will have a cast iron appeal case, and an even more cast iron and expensive case for judicial review if appeals aren't allowed.

The school has not got 20 spare places nor is it keeping places open for people who appeal. It is full up to PAN. Indeed, they have already increased PAN by 40 and admitted up to that level.

They are suggesting to the appeal panel that they can't cope with more than 20 successful appeals maximum. They have not said there is no prejudice in admitting 20, just that they really couldn't cope with more than that. This effectively gives the appeal panel a green light to admit a further 20 pupils which may not be what the school intended.

If they said to the panel, "we are increasing PAN by 20 and would like you to choose who we admit" that would be a breach of the Admissions Code. If they increase PAN they must admit from the waiting list.

It seems they have said, "we are already full up to PAN so admitting further pupils will cause prejudice. Please don't give us more than 20 successful appeals because we really couldn't cope". That is fine. If the appeal panel chose not to admit anyone the school would not then admit from the waiting list because they are already full. And if they do admit 20 via appeal no places will be offered to the waiting list until 21 pupils have left, whereas if there were genuine vacancies they would offer a new place if any pupils leave.

The central questions are whether the school would admit 20 pupils if the appeal panel did not admit any and, assuming the appeal panel admits 20 pupils, how many have to leave before places are offered to the waiting list. It looks to me like the answers are no and 21 respectively.

So, based on the information given by the OP, this is not mad or illegal. There is no appeal case at all for those near the top of the waiting list who don't get places and a judicial review would, in my view, fail.

If the school has said that it can cope with 20 more pupils, it is accepting that it will not be caused prejudice by admitting 20 more. It would be unlawful for it to cause prejudice to its existing pupils by taking more than it can manage. In effect, it is saying that the PAN is incorrect, possibly (which often happens) because it is out of date. Therefore it must in law take the first 20 off the waiting list.

Appeals are won because there has been a failure in terms of the admission allocations process; or because the panel does not consider that the school would be prejudiced by taking more pupils; or because it is satisfied that the school would be prejudiced by taking more pupils but that prejudice to the appellant pupil outweighs that. Sometimes appeal panels make their findings on the basis that the PAN does not reflect the school's capacity, e.g. because of building works.

Sure, this school would possibly not have admitted to being able to take 20 more pupils if no-one had appealed, but the fact is that they have. In effect, they have said that the PAN is incorrect. It is not open to the school to say that admitting more pupils will cause prejudice but they are prepared to accept that prejudice.

Yes, there are cases where panels have found that the school had not proved its case as to prejudice and therefore all appeals will be allowed. That is because that is what is required of the panel, and is all that the panel has jurisdiction to do. However, what we have here is a different situation where the school has accepted that it can take more before the panel starts to sit.

Think about the position of the parents of no. 1 on the list, perhaps living extremely close by and having to travel miles to a school they didn't want, but they didn't appeal because they correctly did not think they could argue that that in itself constituted a valid ground of appeal. They hear, the day before the appeal hearing, that the school can in fact take 20 more pupils without any prejudice being caused, but their child isn't going to get one of those places because they will probably go to people who have appealed (and it is obviously too late for them to appeal for this round). They then hear that people who appealed despite having a case with even less merit than theirs have won places, just because there were 12 appellants the panel deemed to have yet weaker cases. Or, in particular, think about the position if there had been only 20 appellants, in which case each and every appellant wins their case even if it is wholly without merit and they actually live a very long way from the school. Remember, in this situation the appeal has to be granted even if the child lives 200 miles away: admittedly unlikely, but appeal panels do get these appeals when the parents say they are going to move.

Previously these the parents of no. 1 would have a place if just one pupil left but were at risk of having to wait for, say, 6 pupils to leave if another 5 families satisfied the appeal panel on valid grounds that they should have places. However, they are now in the position of having to wait for 21 pupils to leave.

Do you think that family might have a case for arguing that the admission process has been administered unlawfully or irrationally?

If the school has said that it can cope with 20 more pupils, it is accepting that it will not be caused prejudice by admitting 20 more

No the school is not accepting that at all. It has said it could take a maximum of 20 pupils on appeal. It has not said there will be no prejudice if it admits additional pupils. On the contrary, it has said there will be prejudice if even one more pupil is admitted but they really, really couldn't cope if the appeal panel admit more than 20. The rest of your post is therefore based on a false premise.

Imagine the school hadn't said this and appeal panel decided that 25 appeals outweigh the school's case. They then have to decide how many the school can actually cope with and figure out that the school cannot possibly cope with more than 20. By your reasoning the panel should now abandon the appeal process, ignore the Appeals Code and admit the first 20 pupils from the waiting list. That isn't what happens. Why? Because the school hasn't got 20 spare places and the panel's decision does not mean that there will be no prejudice at all in admitting 20 additional pupils. All the panel has decided is that 20 is the maximum the school could possibly handle. Indeed, the appeal code is clear that even if the panel decide there is no prejudice in admitting 20 pupils they still don't admit from the waiting list. They admit the most deserving cases.

In this case the school has indicated that the maximum number of successful appeals they can handle is 20. But, in the same way as the panel arriving at this decision, they have not said there will be no prejudice at all in admitting 20 additional pupils.

The things you say about the parents in first position on the waiting list apply whenever there are successful appeals. Like it or not, successful appellants will leapfrog the waiting list.

If the school was increasing PAN it must admit from the waiting list. It is not increasing PAN. If all appeals fail they will not admit anyone from the waiting list. They are therefore following the correct process.

No, there is no case that the admission process has been administered unlawfully or irrationally.