LEA/Academy's Naughty Tactics for Secondary School Appeal

[GirlInASwirl]

So I received my statement from the LEA/Academy yesterday to counter-act my DS's secondary appeal.

This is one of the top academies in the country by OFSTED's standards - receiving level 1 scorings for many years.

So I'd expect their case to be fully considered, above my level of knowledge and almost impossible to counteract.

Instead; the statement is full of issues which I see as matters of 'in-house' management/organisation - rather than grounds for rejecting pupils. Surely' such a competent establishment can work out the quickest way to set out exam tables, accommodate multiple dinner sittings and timetable to get best support for all abilities and make best use of any restricted space!

Everything in the statement just does not ring true.

I can only think that the whole statement is an attempt to put families off appealing. And its going to be a 'ball ache' to get the insider info to unravel it.

And if it is false - well that's shitty and I hope that I can expose the truth.

Actually all those are reasons schools cannot accept unlimited numbers of new pupils and will be used at the appeal.

You think "oh one more won't hurt" but then they admit more that have appealed and suddenly that's an extra 10 per year group. Having seen schools who have so much overcrowding that stairs and corridors are dangerous, where kids have very little social space, where there are 35/36 in a class, where kids have very shortened breaks to prevent dangerous overcrowding, I think the school are telling ti like it is.

This is not in any way naughty. It is a standard case to refuse admission.

If they fail to put up any case the appeal will automatically succeed. Very few schools are so overcrowded they really can't take even one more pupil. The appeal panel has to decide whether the reasons to refuse admission outweigh your case.

You don't need insider info to unravel it. All you need find out which years are currently over PAN (or have been recently if there are none at the moment) and ask the school's representative how they cope. Whatever they say, that will flag up to the appeal panel that they can cope with going over PAN.

If you post more details about the school's case you will get some guidance as to how to approach it in the hearing.

Please see - 'Community Secondary Academy - Statement For Appeal (Long)' - for more details of case.

So if I manage to unravel the case entirely - could I be likely to succeed at stage 1? Course, there are no guarantees

It's unlikely, unless you are the only appellant.

If the panel decides that the school can take more pupils, and the number of appellants exceeds the number they are thinking of, then they need to hear from every family in order to weigh up which have the most compelling reasons for a place.

Stage 1 is that the school has failed to apply the admissions criteria correctly. Why do you think that is the case?

Stage 1 is rather more than that. It is about whether the admission arrangements comply with the law and Admissions Code, whether they have been correctly administered and, crucially, whether the admission of additional children would prejudice the school.