Secondary School placement nightmare for my daughter - need urgent advice

[user1498638397]

I applied a place for my Daughter's secondary school at the same school my Son goes to, which is only a 15 minute walk away. Unfortunately, they declined a place for her.

I appealed on the bases that my Son stopped going to the school early this year due to medical reasons, which the school was well aware of and supported.

Me and my Husband attended the appeal. Sadly, the appeal was not successful because as my Son has not signed on for Sixth Form they can't apply the admission criteria having a sibling at the school. The only criteria they could apply was for distance but all of a sudden now, our address to them is now not within their range of accepting which I believe is absurd as my Son got in the school just fine when I applied for him years ago.

My Daughter is also very vulnerable and suffers a lot of anxiety. The original school that was offered would take her an hour to get to on transport. She can't travel on buses because she suffers from random travel sickness a lot. Secondonly, all her main friends will be going to the school we wanted her to go, so she will be split up from them which does not help my Daughter as she would never travel far on her own due to her anxiety and with all the family problems we are currently experiencing. In addition I am unable to drive and my Husband leaves for work during early hours. She really needs to continue having the peer support from her friends, not take them away. She rarely sees them outside of school also.

I would have originally appealed on the bases of my Daughter's vulnerability but because that meant disclosing everything about the medical problems within my family, I felt that would of been very intrusive, and thought my Daughter would of gotten in straight away as it was only a 15 minute walk / 5 min drive and that my Son was still enrolled.

I have been to see my doctor who will be writing a letter so I can use as medical evidence to support our case.

I complained to Education Funding Agency as the whole appeal process for us was completely bad as not only they held appeals late, they sent our appeal letter to the wrong address and had to find out the decision over the phone. The appeal panel's decision letter was resent to us correctly and I forwarded that onto my complaint. The Education Funding Agency got back to me and the only valid part of my complaint they could look into was the appeal letter not reaching us correctly which does not give me any positive outcome. They won't be able to consider any new evidence that was not used during our appeal so they won't accept the doctor's letter.

I looked online and found a page that says we may be able to appeal at the school again but only if family or child circumstances change. I looked again at the school's admission criteria and the only exceptional admissions they mentioned is Special Educational Needs like hearing impaired or recommended by our local authority.

Right now, we are at a lost and preparing to deliver the bad news to our Daughter who will be devastated as all her best friends will be going to the school. In the meantime, we have been looking at other schools and the only other 2 closest ones are oversubscribed also.

Would we be able to apply for another appeal again at the school based on medical reasons? Or is there anything else we can do?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

It sounds like you have exhausted the appeals process. Your next options - speak to your local MP and you will have to disclose everything if you really want a good case, speak to the school about in-year transfers. Far from ideal but they may be prepared to take her later in year seven if someone else leaves.

She should be on the waiting list.

I really don't understand why people don't provide medical evidence at the time of application or appeals if they are claiming medical grounds. My LA's application and appeal forms state clearly that evidence from a health professional should be provided, but still parents come to appeals and say, "I can get a letter and bring it in." It's too late by then.
I'm convinced that people don't take the time to read all the helpful information they are given.
Rant over!!

You can appeal once for each academic year unless you have a material change in circumstances.

In your case, circumstances haven't changed. You didn't mention something you now wish you had, but the circumstances are the same.

As PP said, you have come to the end of the appeals process I'm afraid for year 7.

Make sure she is on the waiting list - there may still be movement. If you wish, you can appeal for yr8 when she gets there if you are still unhappy.

Have you got a space anywhere at this point? You need to ensure you are on the waiting lists of all the schools you would accept.

And just because your son got in years ago doesn't mean that the distance to which places are allocated will remain the same, or the catchment area could have changed since then. Schools have to follow their published admissions criteria otherwise it would be unfair & unfortunately for you this is what they have done. You will hopefully have now learned from your mistakes (not submitting the medical reasons).

As pp have said, it sounds like you have exhausted your avenues for this year. Put her on the waiting list and see if there is any movement. School catchment areas can change and the last admitted by distance obviously changes every year. So being close enough one year can be an indicator but won't guarantee success. Though you'll appreciate it now, you should have included all information in your initial application.

Is she on the waiting list for this and all other acceptable schools? What number is she?

I presume that you have accepted whatever school she was offered, so that she has a place for September, even if it is not one you might have chosen? And that you are on all waiting lists for all other schools higher than the offered one on your original application?

Or did you do the 'only apply for 1 school' thing and turn down the offered place? In that case, you MUST get her on all possible waiting lists as well as finding her a school ANYWHERE that has vacancies for her to start - or alternatively prepare to home educate or send privately from September. Remember that if you turned down the original offered school, the council has no responsibility for you - you have to find her her a full-time education from September.

Getting another child in, especially years ago, is absolutely no guarantee of getting another one in. Effective catchments - even 'hard' catchments on maps - can change over 5 years, or very dramatically from year to year based on birth rate. A local primary school had a catchment of 1.5 miles radius one year ... and 185 metres the next!

Put her on the waiting list for the school. Put her on the waiting list for any other schools you'd be happy to consider. Then decide if you'd rather send her to the new school or home ed. If you'd rather send her, then start speaking to the school now about how they can support the transition and get her settled in. Be positive about it to her. Buy her sone quells and practice the bus journey. Forget appealing again right now, you can't.

The way the distance works is that they list the children in distance order and take up to PAN starting with the closest. This means that any given year can be different.
For example, when dd1 applied to her school, they were undersubscribed and there were a couple in her form who were coming 7-8 miles whose parents worked locally or had grandparents looking after them, but everyone had got in that year.

Three years later, dd2 applied and there was an unprecedented number of siblings plus the school had grown in popularity. I think the furthest out place awarded that year to a non-sibling was 0.6miles.

Three years later, ds applied. School was still popular, but not so many siblings in his year and people got in to just over 1 mile away.

Also if your older one is year 11, which I would guess from your OP: that year is the smallest academic year. Several schools that were undersubscribed that year have been getting closer and closer to being full in this area. Not because they're doing anything different, just because there are simply more children living in the same area.

If I were you I'd enroll my son for six form and send him for a week.

That would make no difference at all chocolate. He'd need to have been a pupil there when the application was first considered and the appeal heard.

Would DS even have counted as a sibling if he's currently in Year 11? Lots of areas consider a sibling link to mean the older child is in Y8-Y11 at the point the younger child starts (i.e. don't include sixth form)

One other thing you might like to explore: if your dd cannot travel on public transport and if you can rustle up medical evidence for this, could you get LA to fund transport?

That was done for my dd because of her disability and my inability to drive (I did need to document the latter to through medical evidence so it was clear that I was actually unable, not just unwilling). A taxi came and picked her up every morning.

our address to them is now not within their range of accepting which I believe is absurd as my Son got in the school just fine when I applied for him years ago

The fact that your son got in years ago is irrelevant. It sounds like they use distance as a tie breaker so it depends on how many applicants live nearer the school than you. The distance will vary from year to year, sometimes quite dramatically. That isn't because the school is changing anything. It is entirely about how many people apply and where they live.

Would we be able to apply for another appeal again at the school based on medical reasons

No. As others have said, you are entitled to one appeal per academic year unless there is a change of circumstances. In your case there has been no change of circumstances. You didn't use your medical evidence when you appealed and you now wish you had. You don't get another go for that reason. As things stand you could appeal again next year and use your medical evidence then, but you won't get another appeal now. Your only chance at the moment is via the waiting list.

If I were you I'd enroll my son for six form and send him for a week.

Even if a child in sixth form gives sibling priority, the only effect of doing this would be to move the OP's daughter up the waiting list for a week. The school clearly does not give sibling priority where the sibling is a former pupil so the OP's daughter will only get priority whilst her son is actually attending the school.

In more general terms, and speaking as a parent with long-standing experience of a child with MH issues, if your dd's anxieties are such that she will need extra support, then this is not the time to be coy about it.

You need that documented and properly diagnosed, and you need the school (whichever school she goes to) to have access to that information well in advance of any actual issues arising. Otherwise, how on earth can they be expected to help?

It is no more intrusive than informing the school that your child has asthma or a heart condition rather than leaving them to find out for themselves. Secondary can be a tough environment at the best of times, but on the plus side secondaries often do have structures in place to help students with problems- if they are given the appropriate information.