Admission appeal

[eveyross81]

Hi, my son has not been offered either of his preferences for high school and has just been automatically put in to the closest school to our house - a place he has said for 2 years he does not want to go. His 3 cousins went there and 2 were bullied - one un-mercilessly. Most of his primary school class are going to this school and one of the reasons he was so looking forward to high school was to start fresh with new people as he has been unhappy at his current school for some time. I have been told by admissions that he was rejected on distance. He is gifted in English and the school we had a preference for specialise in this subject. I just wondered if anyone had experienced something similar and if it is even worth the stress of appealing? I did a Google search and know that the odds are not in my favour, it did suggest there may be some experts on here who could offer advice. My son is devastated and now doesn't want to go to high school. I am prepared to move house if it would make a difference?
Any advice would be much appreciated 😞

Unless you can get a professional such as psychologist saying only the preferred school.can meet his needs then unlikely..
But put him on wait list it is early days and a lot can change between now and December ie thru term.one in terms of places.

Also it is bigger year group right ? So he can still have new start .

I don’t think that any of what you have said is grounds for appeal. Sorry.

Try and get to root of his unhappiness.
Ask new school abput anti bullying policy

The first thing to to is accept the place you have been offered. Next, get on the waiting lists for the schools you want.

Then get researching about appeals. I didn’t have a clue before I did mine but I could gave written a book, well a pamphlet, afterwards.

I absolutely would appeal. For a start at least you will know you’ve done everything you can for your son.

It is a very emotionally draining process though.

When I did my appeal, I couldn’t use anything in the appeal meeting that wasn’t in my written statement so it’s important to take some time and get it right.

We won by eldest secondary school appeal for similar reasons, although there were some sen issues. I bought this book
www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Your-School-Appeal/dp/1408111403/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&keywords=school+appeal&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1519915408&sr=1-1

Which was brilliant. It didn't cost that much though !.
Good luck

Yes ...if you have the evidence that ds is gifted in English and evidence that the preferred school is the only one offering something special for gifted English subject
Then that might help an appeal.
You can always go to appeal and see what happens but get as much evidence as possible.

An appeal would be about whether the disadvantage to your son through not being admitted to this school outweighs the disadvantage to the school of having to cope with an additional pupil. As Tiggytape says, you need to put together as much information as you can to show why this is the right school for your son. His gift for English and the school's specialism is a good start but you need to build on that. It is also, as Tiggytape says, worth finding out if they have been over the admission number before as that helps to show that they can cope.