Questions to the school / LA for a secondary school appeal please

[jellymaker]

For those of you have been through the process, do you have any good questions to ask? We go to appeal next monday for a school which we feel would best suit our child's needs. DS was assessed by an edc psyc in year 5 after years of problems and although he has now had his problems finally recognised by the school , he was not severe enough to be statemented. This school would have taken him if he had been statemented. we feel that this would be the best school but we are out of catchment.
The school's case, is the usual.. classes not big enough, other pupils disadvantaged, corridors over crowded. PAN met etc.
Can you offer me some some questions to ask that would undermine their case.
Thanks in advance

Have there been any accidents due to overcrowding? Have children had to go without lunch? Have they gone over PAN before but had OK GCSE results in that year?

Although I've heard it said that you shouldn't ask a question you don't know the answer to! At our appeal I made sure that I knew they hadn't had any pupils go without lunch before I asked it - otherwise the answer to my question would've worked in their favour, not mine :) I'm not an expert in appeals, just a parent who's had an appeal, so this so I may be wrong in saying this - but I don't think I'd concentrate on this stage of the appeal too much, unless you feel there is something of real significance. I spent WEEKS researching the school's 'too crowded' case but I was barely given any time to speak about it and the panel agreed almost instantly that the school would be disadvantaged by taking additional pupils on. I really feel I wasted my time doing this research so I'd concentrate on your case, not the school's. Good luck!!

It is usually worth trying to chip away at the case a little. Even if the panel decide that the school will be prejudiced by taking on additional pupils you may have reduced the level of prejudice in the panel's minds, making it easier for you to win. The questions in the previous post are a good start.

They have a policy of withdrawing pupils with sen out of mainstream lessons. Would it worth asking how many of these there are. When we visited, there were some children who didn't access hardly any lessons as their sen was so severe.

Without seeing the school's case I can't really comment on that. It may help you, it may not.

They don't mention this in the case at all which makes me think that it is significant for its absence.