advice for complaint letter to EFA

[appealtakingovermylife]

Hi,i am submitting an appeals complaint form to the EFA for various reasons, the main one being that it seems from the decision letter that the panel did not allow our appeal due to the fact that the fact ds needs a single sex school and does not mention the 20 odd other reasons, primarily a mixed sex, Catholic school, excellent pastoral care with chaplain for counselling and outstanding SEN dept ( ds has asc and anxiety )
This is exactly how its written-
The panel took account of your reason for appeal. The panel noted that X needs a co-educational school as a single sex school would not be right for him and that you were concerned that he would be ridiculed and bullied.
The panel however felt that on balance this was not sufficient to outweigh the prejudice that would occur by your child's admission to the college and for this reason agreed not to allow the appeal.
Please can I just note that the allocated school is also mixed sex but no religion and is very far away, 2 buses each way, ds would have to travel alone and there are many concerns over this.
Am I reading this correctly that the reason they haven't allowed the appeal is due to the mixed sex issue??
There are several other issues and we also had a lot of medical evidence.
Sorry it's so long.
Thanks for reading if you've got this far!
I really need to know if this is a case of "the panel didn't take relevant information into account in reaching its decision " and/or "the admission appeal letter you received following the panel hearing did not give clear reasons for the decision" these are quoted from the appeals code.

It certainly appears that they have made their decision on the basis that your case was about your son's need for a single sex school. There is nothing in that to indicate they have even considered the medical evidence.

You definitely want to argue that the panel didn't take relevant information into account in reaching its decision. That appears to be the case on the basis of this information. And you are very unlikely to get a fresh appeal on the basis of a poorly written decision letter, so that is another reason for going for the first option.

Thanks prh, that's going to form the heart of the complaint, it seems that there are several breaches of the code but that is the one that is the biggest.
The form itself is quite basic and doesn't give much room so will be adding extra papers. I'm concerned about the time of year though as I believe the appeal school close next Friday for the summer holidays.
Ds seeing CAMHS on Monday, I'm going to mention the situation to them too in case we do get a re-appeal, they may be able to help.
Without sounding negative, I'm not holding out much hope for a re-appeal though, I'm doing this primarily because it will eat away at me if I don't as I think it's been handled very badly and I feel my ds has been let down by the appeals process.

I think your chances of a re-appeal depend on what the clerk's notes say. In my experience the EFA is much less inclined than the LGO to intervene when the appeal panel makes an unreasonable decision. So if they considered your medical evidence and decided they knew better than the experts the EFA may not intervene. However, if they failed to consider your medical evidence at all there is a good chance the EFA will order a fresh hearing.

I've sent off my letters to the EFA, 5 pages long!
There were 7 breaches of the appeals code in total.
Just got to wait now and see how they proceed though in all honesty I don't think we will get to re-appeal but it will be closure for me.
I wonder if any other parents complain about this panel?, I wouldn't be surprised.I know they did last year and two more children got a place through Maladministration appeals so the EFA will obviously be aware of them.