Have not been offered any of out preferred schools, help

[JugglingLife]

I can't believe it. My poor DD hasn't been offered anything from our list (which were all 'catchment' schools.) They have offered her a place at a 'catholic' school that is miles away, minimum 3 buses through some very dodgy areas. She can not go there. We are not even catholic. It looks like I now have to appeal for all of our catchment schools. Other than 'locality' can anybody give advice on how to successfully appeal. I can't believe that we are in a position where she has not been offered any of our local schools.

To win an appeal, you need to convince the panel that the reasons to admit your child outweigh the school's arguments to stick to their admissions number and not to admit.

But something sounds odd if you are in catchment for several schools but still didn't get a place in any of them. Do you know yet why that is? What exactly do the admissions criteria say about living in catchment?

If you object to your DD going to a faith school then you could ask the British Humanist Association for help in appealing for a community school place. It appears that an appeal was successful on those grounds in 2008, but that is a while ago.

It's basically special needs, siblings, distance. We are not the only ones, something very strange has happened this year. Our 'local' comp is the best in the city and is over subscribed, normally I would expect to be offered the 2nd choice and then get in to first choice on wait list. But to be offered none of them is beyond horrific. With regards to the appeal, is the fact that the school they want her to go to is 8000m away (through some dodgy inner city areas) and that it's catholic enough of an argument or do I need to be finding reasons why she should go to her local school, i.e it's her local school and should be accessible.....

Is your dd on a waiting list for a place?

Lots of times places become available between now and September.

Stressful for you. Very sorry to hear it.

Sorry, cross posted!

Hold tight for a place at your local. You'll get it, one way or the other. Even if you have to wait.
That's my advice and hunch. Fwiw!

Our closest schools wait list opens tomorrow and we'll know then where she is. The next closest she is no 78, so not a chance. But even that is 2x buses. The area we live in appears to have become no mans land when it comes to secondary schools, how the heck can that be right?

How far away are you from the schools? What was the last distance offered?

Our closest school, the oversubscribed one is about 1.8 miles, all of our neighbours children go there. The next 2 are around 3 miles away but they haven't offered them.

What were the last distances they offered? Is it on the LA web site yet? It will help work out how far off you are

As far as I can tell the last place offered is probably at most around 200m away from us - the school handle the wait list themselves but apparently the admissions officer isn't in today. Our primary school is an unofficial 'feeder' into this school but at least half the pupils have not got in. There will be appeals left right and centre. I am hoping and praying that once tomorrow comes we will be somewhere useful on the wait list.

I would take a look at the Catholic school rather than rejecting it out of hand. You may find that it isn't very religious. If it is more than 3 miles away by the shortest safe walking route the LA must provide free transport for your daughter.

"Locality" isn't a strong case for appeal, nor is the fact that you have been offered a Catholic school. You need to come up with reasons why the appeal schools are better for your daughter than the allocated school. What do these schools offer her that the Catholic school doesn't? And can you show that she needs these things more than the average child? That is what the appeal panel will be looking for. So if, for example, your daughter is musical and the appeal school offers more extra-curricular musical activities than the Catholic school that would be a good argument.

Well sounds like you should get in off the wait list then. The schools 3miles away must be oversubscribed too - have people from your primary been offered there at all? People in our area are still finding out

The other current threads about appeals discuss what are and what aren't tenable grounds for appeal. Remember that you're appealing for your preferred school(s), not against the one you've been allocated.

I clearly need to do some homework on the appeals threads, hopefully it won't come to that. Thank you.

If there are 30 plus children who haven't got in and are being shipped 8 miles theres got to be the chance of a case for an extra form at the secondary hasn't there?

2 that I know of will have the 8 miles, the others have the 3 miles.

Nothing useful to add I'm afraid, just that I really feel for you. What a nightmare for you and it just seems unfair that the system means so many families are disappointed.

A similar thing happened when DS3 started secondary school.
We are well within the catchment for his chosen school but by some fluke of the birthrate/sibling rule, about 30 children who would normally have got a place were not offered one.

The school therefore fought the LEA on the children's behalf and were permitted to take in a whole extra class just for that one year. We were lucky and most of this discussion went on before 1st March so we didn't have to wait long to be infomred that DS had got a place after all.

Might be worth talking to the school to see if this has been considered.

Just looked at neighbouring LA - looks like the same type of thing may have happened there. Some distances have shrunk a lot this year

We are Birmingham LEA, out of 15000 offers, 1000 including us were not offered anything from their list. I've just had a chat with her proposed school who were horrified and couldn't understand how she would get there also couldn't tell me their exam results which is worrying

That looks a very high number. Was it anticipated I wonder?

I'm hoping tomorrow will be a more productive day in terms of wait list movement. Have to write and evidence 4 x appeals and of course each will need to be different for each school. They don't even seem to have specialities or certainly none that are useful to DD, she's an amazing netballer......... Hard to sell that one!