Appeal hearing - panel did not ask me any questions

[butterfly8888]

Hi there,
First time posting here.
I had my appeal hearing yesterday. I was very prepared, did tons of research. Appealed on medical grounds to a faith secondary school. I felt it was a very strong case and in addition I tried to weaken the school's statement that admitting additional children would cause prejudice.
However, the hearing didn't go as I expected. I expected the panel to ask many questions. I planned to read up my presentation, but they said they'd read it and they didn't need to hear it. No questions were asked at all. It all felt rushed and seemed like they were trying to brush me off and they'd already decided it was a no and didn't want to waste time on it.
Surely if they felt it was a strong case they would've asked some questions?
I am really upset about this.
Any advice from anyone?

Butterfly, I'm so sorry, that must be so upsetting for you and your daughter.

Take prh47bridge's advice and get on to the LGO and complain about how this appeal has been handled and challenge this result. You are strong enough to fight on!

The letter fails to show they have followed the correct process. It looks like they have reached the end of stage 1 in the decision making process, decided there will be prejudice to the school in admitting your daughter and stopped there. The letter does not contain any evidence that they have considered whether or not the prejudice to your daughter outweighs the prejudice to the school.

Many appeals run by faith schools are fair. Sadly some appeal panels don't live up to the high standards set by most. You have had a poor experience with this appeal panel so your reaction is understandable but believe me that most panels are better than this.

If you go to the LGO (or EFA if this is an academy) and they award a fresh appeal the school will want to make sure they don't face a second reference to the LGO, so they will probably go out of their way to make sure the second hearing is fair.

You must take this to the LGO. It is possible the school is so full that they really can't admit any further children so that any appeal case would fail. But on the information you have posted you have a very strong case and I would have expected you to win.

If you need any help with taking this to the ombudsman you know where to come.

Thank you so much for your support and prh47bridge for your words of wisdom.
As to whether they are so full that they can't admit any further children, they claim they never went above their pan, their statement said that they cannot fit more than 30 desks in a classroom and the maximum in a group is 30. However they had one successful appeal last year, and another one 2 years ago. This still didn't take them over the pan as pupils dropped out in the meantime.
Also, the actual number of pupils on roll is considerably lower than the school's capacity set out by the government. Also in a number of teaching sets there are 31 pupils, which invalidates their statement of maximum 30 in a group. All these statistics formed part of my appeal.
As you say prh47 it seems to me that all they considered was that the admissions criteria was applied correctly which I never questioned.

I really do feel deflated. I do feel this was very unfairly done, however not sure if I can go through another possible hearing. The school would get really annoyed with me and if my child ended up there, it could affect us negatively.
Maybe it is just not meant to be and I should just accept it.
On the positive, our allocated school is a nice school and my daughter does like it, even though not as nice as the appeal school, so we are not in a terrible situation in that sense, however it really is far from us, which is the problem.

It took me two appeals and two references to the LGO to get my youngest son into my local primary school. That's how I got started on helping people with appeals. The school did not get annoyed with me nor did it affect us negatively in any way. I have yet to come across a case where the school has behaved unprofessionally after losing an appeal.

Quite apart from your daughter's needs, you will be doing future appellants a favour if you take this to the LGO. If you don't this appeal panel will carry on as it is and other parents will lose out.

If it is the LGO rather than the EFA it is just possible they will award your daughter a place without needing a further appeal. But even if a fresh hearing is ordered, you can do it.

Please don't accept this decision.

Butterfly, the whole reason there are appeal panels is so that decisions can be examined for fairness and exceptional circumstances that do not fit neatly in a box can be considered.

The reason we sit on appeal panels is to ensure that people like you, who have strong cases for admission, are heard, are seen to be heard and their cases are given due consideration.

Now it could be that the panel agonised over every detail of your submission, absolutely desperately wanted to admit your dd, but the evidence for the school was overwhelmingly strong. However, their decision letter does not convey that in any way and the decision letter is the only evidence of their decision making process that you have.

You need to go to the LGO. They will be able to decide if due consideration was given. They will be able to sort this out.

All I can say is that it would be a brave, brave panel who ignored a letter from a medic stating that harm would come to a child if they weren't admitted.