Secondary place withdrawn today please help

[Middleoftheroad]

I am still shaking

I have equal ability twins. One got into grammar one did not. We moved closer to be near the grammar and to secure my other twin a place at the local school, which we did at the start of March.

We have been through much heartache as this is a new area and a new school and my boys have been sad. I worked with the LA to secure the place after we moved. because we moved around offers day we were originally offered a failing school in our old LA which we declined once we had the new offer at the local school.

We did also appeal the grammar place for the comp bound twin - we proved his academic ability and the HT (presenting officer) said we gave a very persuasive case, but we were unsuccessful as they never allocate places on appeal. The boys wanted to be together but we were safe in the knowledge that whatever happened we had a comprehensive school place.

The twin who is going to comp has previously been under CAHMs for anxiety. He started to display these signs again so we took him to the doctor and have been working really hard to gee him up.

Tomorrow was meant to be a special transition day at the new school (he watched his twin go off to the grammar one yesterday) and we were looking forward to it.

out of the blue the HT of the comp calls me today to tell me that the LA has made a mistake in allocating its places and have withdrawn the place. The school wanted to let me know before the LA letter arrives so we don't go to the event tomorrow.

I have emailed my contact at the LA (ironically she is in appeals) the last place offered was 1.02 miles we are 1.04. I suspect they are currently allocating appeals places which we have missed the right to appeal. she says she is looking into it but as of right now we have no school place and I have a son on his way home who will be broken if we tell him.

We've had such an ordeal to get here. Aside from being morally bankrupt, is there a legal leg to stand on here? Apparently the LA messed up on quite a few offers made.

I just don't know what to do. I took the call at work and had to leave early. we have bought the uniform and built up to tomorrow. I am in total disbelief and feel sickened that my son is being messed around this way.

I have emailed the school again to ask that they intervene. Please help Tiggytape anybody?

What is the nature of the mismake? If it's a distance measurement you need to verify very carefully that your distance is correct. For example, to which school gate is the distance measured, from where outside your house, which route and are there paths across commons that should or should not be taken into account. The details of the method should be on the admissions criteria. You need to check that your distance has been measured correctly according to the admissions criteria.

Google or such is not always accurate.

Just suggesting this as an alternative to the unreasonable time they've taken to let you know. Just because someone wins an appeal shouldn't mean you kick other people out. What have ESFA said?

I have been lurking on this thread as have no useful input. My daughter is also going to secondary in September and I can't imagine a place being withdrawn at such a late stage.....to anyone with common sense it us redicolous. It will have prejudiced so many things your place on waiting lists, offers that would have been made by other schools in the meantime.

Fingers crossed this is sorted ASAP.

Wishing you good luck in getting this sorted out. Having been through an appeal myself I know how stressful it is.

A similar thing happened in my city with the Finham2 school. Places were taken away after allocation. As far as I know they didn't have to give the places back. Parents had to find new places for their children.

OP, to answer your question, if you know that the two other pupils involved are going to appeal, then yes I think you do need to be there. I am somewhat concerned by the idea that the three of you are being introduced at the end of the other appeals as though your appeals are somehow different.
They are not different, you did not get a place (though with a very different reason for not having a place for the 10) and have appealed for the place.
I would ask how the appeal is to be run because the reason for you not having a school place is effectively in Part 1 of the appeal. That is the school explaining the reasons for you not being given a place , whether or not the correct admission procedures were applied and was this legal. There are very much reasons why you do not believe it was fair or legal and the panel need to recognise that in Part 1. I would ask the panel chair when they want to deal specifically with the issue of the school illegally withdrawing school places, which ensures the panel have to make a decision where it should be heared.
What should happen is that with now 13 appellants, the school should do one of two processes. The school presents a general case in front of all appellants for why they do not wish to admit and then individually a reason for each appellant not getting a place followed by the parents case to admit or they do each case totally separately. What is absolutely clear is that the panel hears all the cases and then makes decisions. What worries me about what you have said is that the panel may be thinking of hearing the 10 cases, making decisions and then hearing your three cases after that. This is completely the wrong process.
If there is any positive at the moment, it is that there is a habit for LAs and schools who are their own admission authority to not want to be seen to admit pupils over the PAN, as it sets a precedent but very happy to allow the admission appeal panel to do so. I would hope that this might be the case here that they are following a process that allows the school to not be seen to admit extra pupils even though they know they are in the wrong here.

Thanks - some sound advice here.
Admissions, the whole appeal makes me feel uncomfortable. I seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place.
At the heart of it is an inoccent boy.

The head said the problem came to light during hearing appeals on Monday, and there seem to be only 10 appeals. Usually this would have taken only two days at the most with decisions being made after the last appeal.
Your appeal with the other three families is being held on Thursday. This makes me wonder if:a) all decisions have been held over until Thursday, and you will be heard by the same panel, or b)in the event of original panel members being unavailable a fresh panel will hear you.
I know that ideally the same panel members should hear all appeals for a school, but panels are volunteers, and are not always available at short notice.

The dispute is distance. 3 metres. My corner house covers quite a range so this is a curious point.

This is the same round of appeals. There were 60 in total! But 10 with 'stronger' cases in terms of distance.

Who said 10 appeals had stronger cases? The head? If so, it was none of his business. It is for the panel to decide. I chaired a panel for more than 50 appeals earlier this month, and we would taken a very dim view of any such interference by the head.

yes he told us that even though we had yet to appeal!

The council still hasn't explained what tge error was and how it decided its withdrawal criteria. It says it now has to look at all applucations. in other words it just decided furthest three were to lose places so not anybody who may live closer but got a place late off w/list when it was on our CAF and we might habe been offered place before that person had we had oppirtunity to be placed on.list. Bear in mind we are just 3metres off final cut off.

It's so stressful as his twin brother is coming back from his induction day full of excitement and has another next week.

Bear in mind we are just 3metres off final cut off

In your OP you said that you are 1.04 miles away and the cut off was 1.02 miles. That is 30 metres, not 3 metres.

Certainly an explanation is needed as to what exactly happened here - how the mistake was made in the first place. And you clearly need to ask if any children have been admitted from the waiting list as, if you would have been at the head of the list at the time, that would be a further argument that you should keep the place (not that any further argument should be needed but it all helps). You don't need to wait until the hearing to ask these questions. You should ask the school (as the admission authority) on Monday. They are required to answer any questions you ask to help you prepare for your appeal.

I know this is stressful. My offer to help in any way I can still stands.

I agree that you need to know if you would have been offered a place from the waiting list had no mistakes been made with the original allocations. That very thing happened in an appeal I was hearing about 3 years ago; the family lived in a neighbouring LA, and for some reason had not been put on the list until early May. When we asked if the child would have been allocated from the waiting list had she been on since 1st March the answer was, "Yes." We immediately allowed the appeal. So do pursue that point.

Thanks both. I will ask the school.
Apologies... when I first wrote my rushed post I was wrong. Last distance offered 1.014 miles and we are 1.012 miles

sorry other way around we are 1.014

Ok, that is 3 metres! Just didn't want you going into the appeal saying 3 metres if it was actually more than that. Not that it should make any difference but there are so many odd things going on here.

Yes, I really need to get that right.

OK, so something to check when the distance is so tight is what exactly is being measured. Is it straight line distance or shortest walking route?
If it is shortest walking route then there is an argument with that small distance as to whether they have actually measured the shortest distance. Ask the school as the admission authority for the actual mechanism they have used and for a map of the route taken. It will actually be the LA who will have the data but you need to go via the school as the admission authority.
If the measurement is on straight line distance then it is much more difficult to argue that they have measured it wrong as the software is easily able to measure down to below 1 metre in accuracy. However what was taken as the measuring point? It might be the so-called "seed point" on the school building and on your home, in which case it is difficult to argue a mistake as they are fixed points. However if it is on distance to the school gate or main school entrance, then there is some room for inaccuracy and again you need to be asking the school, exactly what has been measured.
The other question for me at the moment is the apparent collusion between the head teacher and the panel chair, just how the appeal is being organised for Thursday and when you will receive the written argument by the school not to admit your child. They cannot just role up on Thursday and start talking to the issue, it needs to be in writing to all parties, well in advance of the hearing. In theory the school as the admission authority must give you 10 school days written notice of the appeal date, though the parents can waive their rights to 10 days notice - I would expect you to be asked to do that in writing if it is a good admin set up but based on your posts I will not hold my breath over that. (that is para 2.7 of the admission appeal code. Unfortunately when it comes to the evidence, there is no time limit other than to say in para 2.9 that the admission authority must supply the clerk with all relevant documents and in 2.10 the clerk sends them to all parties including the panel a reasonable time before the date of the hearing. Many admission authorities would take that as the same 10 school days but it is not legally correct based on the admission appeal code.

Thanks. It is measured in a straight line between the centre point of the home and school. I told the LA that depending on measurements my home is 35m wide at one given point. I live on a corner with a very wide side lawn. The margin for error of 3m could come into play.
The whole tightness of this is keeping me awake in terms of everybody getting paperwork.
I have been so grateful for the support off everybody and I've beem very fortunate in receiving some support from other appeal experts who have been kind to my plight. Had they not stepped in upon hearing about my case tgen I woild most definitely grab these offers with both hands.Prh47bridge I have seen previous posts where OPs have welcomed your offers too and it sounds like you have helped some very relieved parents secure places.
I don't have a plan B yet. I genuinely worry I will have to give up my job to home school or move to a new area. This house was specifically bought as the best point to get our one DT2 to his grammar and DT1 to this comp. Anywhere else with good schools would involve bus rides for both or a much longer ride for DT2.

The independent school is £10k a year which I could try to find beg stealing and borrowing but would give us a tightlife. Also I was underwhelmed and found the environment a bit odd. I really wanted DT1 to go to this comp as it will make him happier to meet lots of kids not just a small number. Ironically I went to this school so walking down the corridors to meet the HT nect week will unnerve me on many levels.

It is the lead school of a multi academy trust so its own admissions authority. I wrote to both the school's chair of governors and the MAT's trust board members but heard nothing.

Depending on next week's outcome I may have to get the Daily Fail on speed dial. It won't help my DS though but it may draw attention to this injustice. I hold the LA to account first and foremost as not only was this gross error made for four months but it then withdrew places based on distance alone not looking at all applicants including late applicants who we would have been ahead of if they had put us on the w/list March 1st.

If we don't win the thought of my son's face tears me to bits. He is such a trusting soul. Just last week he was so excited about going to the induction - we went out and bought him a nice PE kit. We already have uniform.hanging up in his wardrobe.

sorry for some reason last post was in response to an older post that popped up as most recent!

Appalilng. I there any way you could take a full time job or get promotion and one of you also work weekends and put both twins into a fee paying school and leave the state system well behind?

I just think the comp would suit him better. I also wonder why I should just because of the council's incompetence.

Also, my boy wants to go to this school as we have been building it up a lot lately..I just can't bear the thought of telling him if it didn't pan out (the irony of the word pan is not lost on me). Must try to remain positive - but it's easier said than done!

If the distance is being measured from the centre of the school and the house in question then this will be from the "seed points" which are pre-set. As such the distance can be measured very accurately and is therefore not something to rely on at the appeal.
Much more relevant is the legal precedents for not having the place removed and what has happened since the 1st March in the way of changes on the waiting list which would have affected you if they had carried out the admission process correctly in the first place. You could well have been the subject of maladministration, just like the original three pupils involved.
This cascade of issues is why it is always better not to remove places but to just give out extra places to start with.

What a fucking disgrace.

I have since spoken to some HTs I know who say that this looks like some appeals have been upheld and therefore other places retracted.

I think you've been misinformed there. We won our appeal for DD last year at primary. No one was kicked out because she won and it took the class over the PAN. (she's Yr6).

I had a mum kicking off at me last week because she won her appeal for her DC but her friend didnt for theirs (secondary place). She didn't like it when I politely pointed out that DDs school is one of four feeder schools for that borough and all four get priority admission to that SS regardless of where they live. To be honest, it made me a bit nervous that this might happen with DD but I've been assured by the secondary school itself that it doesn't.

Best of luck OP.