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Secondary education

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Secondary school appeal - waiting list problems

5 replies

housemoverihope · 03/04/2015 18:42

We have submitted an appeal (but without any details as yet as we were waiting for information) as we have not got either our 1st or 2nd choice schools (currently offered 4th preference - an hour journey on 2 buses, we were originally offered 6th preference).

We have been 9th on the waiting list for the 1st school (catchment school) for a couple of weeks but when I rang last week they said we were now 76th. Eventually I got an email from them have copied and pasted below:

Examination of our admission system’s audit trail indicates that the catchment status was removed from the application on...

The change in status was as a result of human error and steps have been put in place to ensure this error is not repeated

The catchment status has been reinstated and your son has returned to his correct position on the waiting list.

If any disadvantage had been caused as a result of the error, the Local Authority have a statutory duty to correct the mistake and take action to ensure no disadvantage remains

In this case I could find no evidence of any disadvantage caused as a result of the error; your son has not missed an opportunity to be offered of a place at School. Children who currently hold offers at School all fulfil more of the determined oversubscription criteria than your son, further confirming that no disadvantage has been caused.

Following this I rang yesterday to find out where we are currently and apparently now the status of "child of teacher at school" has been removed from our 2nd choice school and we have gone from being 2nd on this list to 147th.

I am obviously fed up of the mistakes and have no way of knowing whether we have missed out on a place (the second query is apparently being investigated now but we wont hear anything until next week.)

Just wondering if anyone has any advice? We are now going to appeal but I have lost all faith in the waiting list system :(

PS sorry this is so long!

OP posts:
tiggytape · 03/04/2015 18:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

housemoverihope · 03/04/2015 20:33

Sorry it wasn't clear! The removal of the criteria of teacher was just another mistake, they didn't change the criteria...

OP posts:
tiggytape · 04/04/2015 10:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

admission · 04/04/2015 17:51

The only sensible way forward is to appeal, in the hope that this mess is clarified.
However in the short term it is difficult to offer any other advice without knowing exactly what is on the school's "official" admission criteria. If you PM me the name of the school and the LA, I am quite happy to look at the official versions of the admission criteria and the versions quoted above and try and work out what exactly has happened.

prh47bridge · 05/04/2015 11:46

I agree you need to appeal for both schools. Any mistake is not good but with two mistakes affecting different schools I'm not surprised you've lost faith. I would bring up both errors in both appeals, even though strictly speaking the only error relevant for each appeal is the one affecting that school. I would argue that you have no faith in the LA's assurances that these errors have not disadvantaged you, in particular for the second school where you were 2nd at the time the error was made. The appeal panel can pick through what happened and sort it out.

I am also happy to advice via PM if you want another opinion.

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