Secondary admissions appeal help please

[MrsPnut]

We were offered our second choice school and whilst we are happy with the offer, we have decided to appeal for our first choice.
I have read almost all of the threads on here regarding appeals and the brilliant advice offered by the experts and have begun making notes on items we think we can use in our appeal.

I'm asking for some help in knocking it into some kind of useable format and also what sort of evidence me might be looking at providing.

So far these are my notes on items I think we can appeal on;

Girl’s rugby – School offers girls rugby as an extracurricular activity as well as taking part in the local activities organised by the RFU Rugby development officer. X has played rugby since she was 5 on a mixed sex team but from next year there is no provision for a girls team without travelling to a different county.

Canoe club – school offers an extracurricular activity and it is something that X is very interested in, she has undertaken a couple of taster sessions at a local club but has been unable to attend regularly as the sessions clashed with another activity, by accessing it after school it offers another sporting opportunity.

STEM club – School offers a STEM club from Year 7 upwards, X has a strong desire to study Veterinary Medicine at university and has a keen interest in science as well as wildlife. Newton academy application?

Triple science – Vet Med again and the gap between Additional science syllabus and A level syllabus?

School ethos – merit points – X lacks self-belief and we feel that the school ethos and especially the merit system will provide her with a tangible and hopefully regular reminder of her abilities and also she will be able to see her effort being rewarded.

German from Y7 – X is very keen to study German from year 7 as her cousin is German and lives in Germany.

Any advice would be gratefully received as I don't think I've slept properly for about 6 weeks.

Yes, that all sounds promising because it's about ways in which this school can meet your child's needs and (I assume) other schools can't because they don't have the same provision.

The other angle you can explore is whether the school has exceeded its PAN in recent years and so on - that way you can question whether (as it will no doubt assert) the school is actually full and cannot accommodate additional pupils.

The school exceeds it's PAN by about 30 children at appeal each year. There is always a 9th class added to year 7 (definitely from 2004 onwards)

Thanks for the reassurance that we are on the right lines too.

They're losing 30 appeals a year? That suggests that their case not to admit is pretty flimsy (or there's something very odd going on).

The second statement is the more likely, it has an unusual admissions policy.

TBH in our schools you'd have no chance based on those grounds. Only in exceptional circumstances have appeals been granted, however if they've lost 30 per year then you might have a chance. So I'd say go for it but don't get your hopes up. Hope for the best but expect the worst.

Also if it has previously always added an additional class, the precedent has been set, so the school can obviously accommodate more without detriment to other pupils which they may argue.

"TBH in our schools you'd have no chance based on those grounds. Only in exceptional circumstances have appeals been granted"

Well that must mean that your schools are extremely full to capacity at the time of allocation? Because the grounds for winning an appeal is exactly the same across the country and is on the balance of probability that the prejudice to the child from being admitted is higher than the prejudice to the school from having to take the child. So that chance of winning the appeal should be exactly the same for every child in every place in the whole country, given the same strength of argument for the same circumstances, for the same school situation.

You are right, yes they were full to capacity and there were loads of appeals. Only the most exceptional succeeded.

Good advice on this thread already.

You ask about evidence. There isn't really any evidence you can provide for most of your points as they are about your daughter's interests and her desire to study Veterinary Medicine. You could possibly ask the coach of your daughter's rugby team or the RFU development officer to write something to back up your point on rugby. Independent evidence of her lack of self belief is the only other thing I think you may be able to get. However, I wouldn't worry if you can't get any evidence.

This looks like a decent case. This is exactly the kind of thing an appeal panel is looking for. And if they regularly have 30 successful appeals the case to refuse admission must be pretty weak. Or perhaps this is one of the schools mentioned by a poster on another thread that turns up to appeals and says they can accept X pupils without any problems. They shouldn't do that but I wouldn't let it worry you as it helps you.

Triple science – Vet Med again and the gap between Additional science syllabus and A level syllabus?

The above is slightly out of date. For the new 9-1 Science GCSEs, there is no longer a Core and Additional Science these have been combined into Combined Science which does have slightly more content that the old Double award and may be better preparation for A level (it's a bit too early to tell). The fact that your preferred school offers 3 separate Science GCSEs in Chemistry, Biology and Physics which would be better preparation for A level would still be a good thing to put in your appeal though.