Fair Access Protocol

[katd64]

I have a 15 nearly 16 year old. He has been home educated for 2 years due to medical problems and ASD. He now wants to return to school and we applied for a local free school. Three months on we have just been rejected, following no contact from the school, only brief replies from secretary. Anyway is says on letter they have passed application onto the Education authority under the Fair Access Polucy. What does this mean and do I have to contact the local ed authority about this?

(Not an expert) - but asking him to be admitted into a different year group might be the problem, not sure schools have an obligation to do that.

I would say that, as he is therefore an unusual case - out of correct year group, with specific needs, with a history of school-related difficulties due to his conditions - you could do with advice rather than / as well as relying on the 'standard' in-year application process.

Definitely worth contacting LA, SENDias and any other organisations that posters could recommend in order to navigate the process effectively for your son.

Looking at admissions policies for a couple of schools, out of age group admissions often require significant extra documentation etc and does tend to be at the discretion of the school based on the strength of the case presented. Would the school have offered a Y11 place? What documentation from professionals etc did you submit in support of the out-of-age-group request?

TBH I didn't ask for this on the form so he has not been rejected based on this. I started worrying about the longer I waited for a reply and sent an email the day after they posted the letter so this would not be the reason for the rejection.

I understand a Free school is not governed by local authority yet they have passed the application to my local authority without my permission. Surely this is not right?

Who is the admissions authority, and who manages / co-ordinates admissions?

LA co-ordinate admissions at the usual point of entry for all schools, and are responsible for the FAP. So if the school thinks that your child should be considered under the FAP, they are doing a sensible thing in passing the application on to the LA.

Look at the in-year admissions process for your chosen school (should be posted on website under Policies if not under Admissions). Has it been followed?

I genuinely do think thqat a conversation with the LA is the best way forward, regardless, as you are a non-standard case and entry into y10 may be in your DS's best interests anyway. Unless he has reached at least the mid-point, and probably nearer 2/3 of the way through, his chose GCSE courses while you have been teaching him, there is pretty much no way he will be ready to take GCSEs next summer, so he will reap little benefit (and possibly much disbenefit) of being in school for Y11.

Some free schools have limited understanding of SEN and admissions policies. It could be that the LA directs them to admit under the FAP, but others have given very good advice about how it works. If you still struggle to get anywhere it may be worth complaining to the Education & Skills Funding Agency who can investigate whether the school is discriminating against SEN students - it's more common than you would think with free schools for a variety of reasons, such as they are new and vulnerable financially so they may not wish to take the risk on SEN students, they may worry that if they have high proportion of SEN they may get a reputation as a particular type of school which could affect pupil numbers and thus viability.

It's not right, or lawful in many cases, but it is more likely to happen in free schools than academies or maintained schools.

In the process lhe cues I have seen students entering in Year during year 11 or those who have been home educated for more than a term are automatically referred under FAP

In the policies I have seen that should read.

You need to find out what your LA's policy is on in-year admissions. In some LAs in-year admissions are handled by the LA, so you apply to them; in others in-years are handled by the individual schools.

Can you clarify? these are specifically allocated places in units

For example, one school states in their In-Year admissions policy:

"The Local Authority or individual school will write to parents, normally within 10 school days, of the form being received to notify of the decision. In the case of an Academy, Foundation, Free or Voluntary Aided school, the school will also notify the Local Authority."

Another county states:
"In accordance with Section 2.22 of the School Admissions code December 2014, a school must, on receipt of an In-Year Application (INYA), notify the local authority of both the application and its outcome. "

So it sounds to me as if forwarding the outcome of the application to the LA is absolutely normal, in fact required.

Thanks for the clarification, user. That's not relevant to this poster's situation, is it, nor was it made clear in your post that you were referring to specific units, not to the main school. Given that you were referring to specific units, perhaps your comment about other posters living in a different world was at best inaccurate / unclear?

Glad to have cleared it up, though.

So having checked their own website the In year application is online, which is how iboruginally applied. Their own admissions procedures states that they take any child regardless of special need. Having read about admissions procedures I understand that if a child is rejected they have to notify you of appeal procedure which they haven't. So the In year admission seems to be a school decision and not the La so I am sure they should not have contacted local LA without my permission.

Check School Admissions Code.

Section 2.22 does indeed say that the school, if its own admission authority MUST - ie it is a legal requirement to - notify the LA of the application and its outcome. They must also inform you of the right to appeal - which they have failed to do - but the school is right to notify the LA.

Under the admissions code, own admissions authority schools must inform the LA when they receive an in-year appeal and the outcome of the application, so they don't require your permission I'm afraid.

They must also tell parents about the process for appeal, you are correct. If they have not, that is very poor.

As others have said, I suspect the most productive way forward would be a chat with the LA - given it is so close to the end of the year, an appeal may not be organised before the end of this term, and a conversation with the LA may produce something quicker.

Is it only this school you and he will consider?

Ok. Just reading it. It also states that they cannot refuse a child who has special needs but no EHCP. I do think though that even if it's not mandatory that I should have been told they had informed LA that they should have told me before it happened and not good news they had done it.

I'm happy if another school feels they can cope with him although my son is way more fussy. Having previously visited other schools this was the school my son liked as it is small, only few years old so very low numbers, and therefore quiet. Hard to find a secondary school in my area which is anywhere near as small or quiet. And he wanted a school where he doesn't know anyone, a fresh start.

katd,

When you applied for the Year 11 place - as that's my understanding of what you have done so far - how did you think it would work? Are you expecting him to enter / take / pass any GCSEs, or was it simply for re-integration into school?

Is it the Year 11 place you have been rejected for? Or was it altered to a year 10 place after your application form went in?

What discussions did you have with the school before applying?

I think in your position I would start with the LA, explaining what has happened and what you would like to happen. They may advise a new application for an out-of-year place, with accompanying documentation. Or they may advise you to go to appeal, but for a Year 10 place, based on your current rejection.

Your situation is complex, so you need someone to guide you through it.

Thanks people. Your help, advice, knowledge and experience is really helpful.

Out of interest why did you choose the school you did?

It doesn't sound right for your child anyway since they have refused him a place like this.

Its small size probably means they feel they don't have resources to cope.

We have a couple of school near us who ride roughshod over admissions : one a Free School, the other an academy.

But , juts to be Devil's advocate, do you honestly think he is ready to be educated outside the home? His needs sound very complex and home may well b the best environment for him. I have experience with Ehlers Danlos and we have now lost our girl to a specialised school elsewhere but while she was here I felt we struggled to both understand and meet her needs as well as we might have wanted to.

OP, please ignore my first Q as you answered it while I was typing!

I applied for appropriate year not for year below. When I applied I knew he would be a little behind, but as a high functioning child , and after lots of discussion with him, it felt appropriate. I have been talking to him for months about his future, we also looked at university technological colleges. My son very much feels that his future looks best if he takes GCSE'S and possibly university. He is not interested in more practical studies. I do not feel I have the skills to help him through the subjects he is interested in , have no money for tutors. His need sound complex but in reality the solutions are not difficult or expensive. He is also Gifted and talented and I have to think about his futiure, career etc.

I will contact LA tomorrow. Admittedly I didn't contact school before I filled in application form but on my initial tour of the school I told the Drputh that Ben would need some extra support. She told me to fill in the application form and they would contact me to arrange a start date. I did assume that on reading the Form and me asking to see Senco that they would contact me to ask questions,. Instead I have been repeatedly fobbed off by the secretary and have not been contacted once by the Deputy, dealing with applications or the SENCO.

When I applied I knew he would be a little behind

He has missed at least half, in the worst case scenario 2/3-3/4 of the syllabus in every GCSE course he wishes to study, unless you have been covering this at home. Many schools start studying GCSE courses in year 9, pretty much all have finished all content by the February of Y11 to allow time for mocks, revision etc.

So your DS would have 1.5 - 2 terms to cover all of a 2 year GCSE course in every subject.

However bright he is, that is a LOT of ground to make up across a full range of 7-8 subjects, unless you have already been teaching him all the material from the correct exam board while he has been at home?