Anyone used a solicitor for a school appeal?

[Holymoly321]

Our son didn't get any of his three choices and had been allocated a brand new school miles away in a very run down high crime area. The school is just six portacabins at present and there won't be permanent buildings for over another year. We are appealing for his first choice which is massively oversubscribed and allocates places at random from throughout the county. We are thinking of hiring a solicitor to help us with the appeals process but wonder if having a solicitor represent us at the appeal will work against us with the panel. Has anyone ever used a solicitor for appeals? Was it worth the money? Do you wish you'd just done it yourself? Amy info would be most helpful!

It’s my 1st post not sure what to do.

@SQ196 at the top of this page you will see Talk > Secondary Education - click on Secondary Education and you will get the list of current discussion topics. The link to start a new thread will be on that page.

Thank you.

Prh47:
"My wife keeps telling me I should offer my services for a fee! "

I agree. With your wife! I've been on Mn for donkeys years, and I think your advice is priceless!

Please can someone help with secondary school appeal. We are appealing on the basis of admin error / miscommunication.

-10 October: Contacted the admissions team and asked them if its acceptable to supply only the rental agreement before the deadline as we would not have last 3 months Gas / electricity bills as mandated on the website, response was - That's fine, we will work with you to gather all the remaining documents.

• Moved on 28th October and submitted rental agreement - 6 months contract
• 17th Nov: Admission team asked for 3 documents - standard document evidence list from website ( Rental agreement up to March 2022, Disposal of old property / no access and at least other two other documents out of DL GP Registration Usage bills etc.
• 19th Nov: we responded with what we had - DL, GP Registration, and reason why we can not rent our property - Had survey done and it required extensive building work and was worked upon by builder initiated in early Feb but delayed due to covid and the time the builders take to respond, plus the fact one of us were furloughed , we mentioned of our intent to extend the contract in shorter interval if possible.
• 14th Dec: Admissions Authority - Individual - She was not satisfied with the address evidence we submitted and asked for usage bills to satisfy address evidence.
• 15th Dec: we provided usage bills as requested in the same reply to her email
• 12th Feb: Admission Team generic email id not the Admission Team official who previously asked us the documents in December, responded to 19th November email mentioning acceptance of DL,GP but require Rental document up to Mar 2022.
• 17th Feb: our response was a big surprise to get it very last minute
• 17th Feb: Now Admission Authority - The official and not generic email id, responded with an apology that she then accept the evidence we sent through so far, and the admission team was not CCd.
• 17th Feb to 26thFeb: we didn't think we needed to provide anything more
• 26th Feb: Admissions team generic id - asked for a contract extension again at 15.30PM
• 26th Feb: we responded to check if there is a miscommunication and if this was going to affect our offer on Monday. Admission team official's email was on auto response on out-of-office and no response from Generic EMAIL ID in any form till March 9 on that.
• 1st March: Looking at the offer we assumed that you are waiting for contract extension document.
• We sent several email explaining all the previous communication and review and offer the place.
• 9th March kind of Authorative email, having gone through all communication and correspondence, we ask you to provide Disposal of old property document in addition to Extended contract agreement referring to November email which lists all the documents but not considering to mentioning above review in December or their address evidence acceptance email on 17th Feb. and for admissions purpose they will consider us from old address only till we submit further evidence, but they will be happy to review the situation if we provide further evidence in future.
• taking additional burden having to pay rent and mortgage, we took the risk to extend the contract till April 2022 in one stretch, and since we were in touch with letting agent after last month's email from admission team, we could now get the extended contract in couple of days and submitted but work on Previous property was ongoing, which the authority knew, hence we could not submit this before 15 April deadline.
• Building work was completed on 12th April and contract document signed with Agent for letting out property and a copy of this submitted to Admissions authority to show our intent and update on progress.
• We rent out the property on 28th April and submitted the Lease Agreement on May 4th and requested Authority to review the situation and offer the place.
• Now a standard response we are receiving from Authority saying DS is on Waiting list and that we have lodged an appeal will process that request accordingly.

SO, I am not sure if I fight my case based on the fact that they Confirmed our address evidence document as Acceptable so should have considered for first round allocation, and should been consistent with the review, as we missed out second round and third round as well.

DS is allocated a school place which is near our old property and 7 miles from current property. Whereas our first choice school is 100 feet away in catchment.

Any help and guidance is much appreciated.

@RCBOn

Please can someone help with secondary school appeal. We are appealing on the basis of admin error / miscommunication.

-10 October: Contacted the admissions team and asked them if its acceptable to supply only the rental agreement before the deadline as we would not have last 3 months Gas / electricity bills as mandated on the website, response was - That's fine, we will work with you to gather all the remaining documents.

• Moved on 28th October and submitted rental agreement - 6 months contract
• 17th Nov: Admission team asked for 3 documents - standard document evidence list from website ( Rental agreement up to March 2022, Disposal of old property / no access and at least other two other documents out of DL GP Registration Usage bills etc.
• 19th Nov: we responded with what we had - DL, GP Registration, and reason why we can not rent our property - Had survey done and it required extensive building work and was worked upon by builder initiated in early Feb but delayed due to covid and the time the builders take to respond, plus the fact one of us were furloughed , we mentioned of our intent to extend the contract in shorter interval if possible.
• 14th Dec: Admissions Authority - Individual - She was not satisfied with the address evidence we submitted and asked for usage bills to satisfy address evidence.
• 15th Dec: we provided usage bills as requested in the same reply to her email
• 12th Feb: Admission Team generic email id not the Admission Team official who previously asked us the documents in December, responded to 19th November email mentioning acceptance of DL,GP but require Rental document up to Mar 2022.
• 17th Feb: our response was a big surprise to get it very last minute
• 17th Feb: Now Admission Authority - The official and not generic email id, responded with an apology that she then accept the evidence we sent through so far, and the admission team was not CCd.
• 17th Feb to 26thFeb: we didn't think we needed to provide anything more
• 26th Feb: Admissions team generic id - asked for a contract extension again at 15.30PM
• 26th Feb: we responded to check if there is a miscommunication and if this was going to affect our offer on Monday. Admission team official's email was on auto response on out-of-office and no response from Generic EMAIL ID in any form till March 9 on that.
• 1st March: Looking at the offer we assumed that you are waiting for contract extension document.
• We sent several email explaining all the previous communication and review and offer the place.
• 9th March kind of Authorative email, having gone through all communication and correspondence, we ask you to provide Disposal of old property document in addition to Extended contract agreement referring to November email which lists all the documents but not considering to mentioning above review in December or their address evidence acceptance email on 17th Feb. and for admissions purpose they will consider us from old address only till we submit further evidence, but they will be happy to review the situation if we provide further evidence in future.
• taking additional burden having to pay rent and mortgage, we took the risk to extend the contract till April 2022 in one stretch, and since we were in touch with letting agent after last month's email from admission team, we could now get the extended contract in couple of days and submitted but work on Previous property was ongoing, which the authority knew, hence we could not submit this before 15 April deadline.
• Building work was completed on 12th April and contract document signed with Agent for letting out property and a copy of this submitted to Admissions authority to show our intent and update on progress.
• We rent out the property on 28th April and submitted the Lease Agreement on May 4th and requested Authority to review the situation and offer the place.
• Now a standard response we are receiving from Authority saying DS is on Waiting list and that we have lodged an appeal will process that request accordingly.

SO, I am not sure if I fight my case based on the fact that they Confirmed our address evidence document as Acceptable so should have considered for first round allocation, and should been consistent with the review, as we missed out second round and third round as well.

DS is allocated a school place which is near our old property and 7 miles from current property. Whereas our first choice school is 100 feet away in catchment.

Any help and guidance is much appreciated.

@RCBOn

You have tagged your post onto quite an old thread, so it might be better to repost it under a new thread title and @ in some of the advisors.

prh47bridge

admission

PanelChair

lougle

which will give them a fighting chance to find your post!

good luck.

Aha! Have just spotted that you have indeed reposted. Best Wishes,

Hiya prh47 would you mind if I pm u my current situation and if you can offer some advise please

As per the advice given to the previous 'piggybacking' poster, you really need to start your own thread, entitled something like'Appealing for School X, please advise' and use the '@' at thr beginning of theor username to tag those such as prh47bridge or PanelChair, who will be able to give you the best advice.

@Worriedmummy26 you need to start your own thread for this. Scroll to the top of the page and choose "Start a new thread" from the drop-down menu.

During the time of Year 7 school admission, when I applied online, the website kept logging me out every single time of the application, and it was really frustrating. After so many attempts, I called the admissions team to report this situation, and we managed to resolve it on the last attempt. I had to rush to fill out the application, which gave me very little time to research the schools I wanted for my son. I only put in his first choice.

This is an old thread. Did you get the school you wanted? If you didn't and need help to appeal, it would be best to start a new thread.

@prh47bridge can you help me please? I have to do my son's appeal and don't know what to do.

You need to start a new thread. Give an outline of the circumstances and people will help.

@caperucita I'm happy to help but, as @Lougle says, you should really start your own thread rather than resurrect one that started in 2017.

Thanks , I am new to this forum and did not know I should start a new thread , have sent you a PM … but will start a new thread tomorrow ☺️