Secondary School Appeal

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My ds has been refused a place at our preferred secondary school. It's not historically the catchment school for our primary school but every child who has applied in the last 35 years has been accepted. We have not once in the last 7 years been told by any other school or the council that our children would not transition to the secondary school. Our primary school has been heavily involved with activities at the secondary school. My son has attended master classes whilst in year 5 and 3 transition days in year 6. We have been invited to concerts and open evenings at the secondary school throughout my sons time at primary school. Several teachers have been invited to teach years 3-6 at the primary school (sports skills and maths). We have never had any contact from any other secondary school. Our primary headteacher and the secondary school headteacher were unaware that there would be an issue with places. All children with siblings were taken leaving 14 without places. This has been such a huge shock for these children who have been led to believe that they would all receive a place. The secondary school head teacher has stated he is prepared to take all children refused a place (38 in all as this includes children from other primary schools). The council have refused and we are appealing. Has anyone come across a similar situation? I have no idea what information I should be using in my appeal. Any support and information would be greatly appreciated. I'm sorry if this post has been long and rambling!

Agree that head teachers don't always understand admissions. However, the head has said, in writing, that he would accept all the children and the school can easily accommodate them. Even if the head is not at the hearing that evidence should be fatal to the case to refuse admission.

However, this is not going to happen where there is provision for all children in the area overall

Whether or not there is provision for all children is irrelevant. The fact that the children concerned have been allocated other schools is irrelevant. The head has said, in writing, that the school can easily accommodate all the children. The LA will hate that because it means the appeal panel is pretty much bound to decide that the school will not be prejudiced by admitting these children. Under the rules that means they should be admitted whatever the LA think.

In my previous job when I did present at appeals for the LA, we had a big upset with one school because the Head had stated that all applicants would get a place. This was at an open evening. Parents duly applied. Big row with LA ensued. The Head knew exactly what he was doing. He was expanding the school and couldn’t care less about taking children from other schools. His was the most desirable school. Parents wanted their children to go there. The LA backed down. From that point in “180” was the nickname for the Head. He chanced it and it worked. This Head is doing the same and ignoring planned admission arrangements.

These days, with formula funding, it’s bums on seats that count and the LA just operates the formula. The school with the pupils gets the money, the school without the pupils doesn’t. In effect, it’s cost neutral. The other secondary Heads will be furious. It clearly flies in the face of trying to plan secondary education places. A free for all will probably ensue and any appeal panel will be in a difficult position because the LA has a duty to state its case and support the admission policy that has been published.

In addition, admission arrangements for all the schools should be clear. Admission should not be the gift of a Head.

Thank you all for your responses. They are greatly appreciated.
I have just been informed by the LA that less than 20 children are appealing. As far as I am aware the secondary school headteacher does not need extra accommodation in terms of portakabins etc. I am hoping for more details regarding this by the beginning of next week. We have been given our appeal dates so are keen to produce our final appeal information packs for the panel as soon as possible.

Can a head just unilaterally, by way of biasing appeals, make his class sizes bigger by three or four?
Isn't that effectively ignoring the board of governors and expanding his school. Maybe parents/governors dont want 34 pupils in every class. Is that fair on existing pupils?

I know I would be very pissed of if my DC's head used this tactic to shoehorn in larger classes without any democratic accountability or legitimate process.

Best of luck OP. If the worst comes to the worst, you can make a fresh application to your school of choice. My friend did that - her son did 3 days at the school he was allocated before being offered a place at the school of his choice.

Can a head just unilaterally, by way of biasing appeals, make his class sizes bigger by three or four

Yes. If the head tells the appeal panel that they can cope with more pupils without any difficulty the panel has little choice but to admit. A head shouldn't do it and most don't. The LA will hate it and may well have words with the head afterwards. But the appeal panel has to deal with the evidence in front of them. The Appeals Code is clear that if there is no prejudice to the school the panel must admit. If the head says there won't be any problems the appeal panel should conclude that there is no prejudice to the school.

I have chaired panels where this situation has arisen and it has always been the decision of the panel that the admission authority could not make their case that the school could not admit any more pupils. The only decision was whether that was all pupils appealing or only some.
In one particular situation the head teacher said for very specific reasons that he could take 30 more pupils and there were 28 appealing. The panel gave the head teacher a grilling about why this could happen for this one year and no other years and eventually agree with the head and we admitted all 28. Then other parents jumped on the band-wagon and we had the slightly bizarre situation of the head teacher arguing at a second set of appeals that he could take no more pupils. He got the 2 he said he could take but the rest of the parents were not pleased that the panel then found in favour of the school and did not admit any more.

Not an expert, just a parent. But wondering if the school list your primary as a catchment school even though it's not officially do you think you would have got in - would it have moved you higher up the rankings so that you would have been selected? Just wondered if there is any worth in arguing that you were led to believe by the school that the primary was a catchment school and you should have been treated as such?

Expanding on that - is there an official school it is a feeder school for? Do any kids ever go to it from your school? Why haven't they formalised the catchment status after 35 years of sending so many pupils? Do you get sent info from school and council so you could argue that you didn't realise that they would be different and you expect the school to know and publish correct info? Don't know if there's anything else from this aspect that could help to create a technicality for you to get in on?

The other secondary Heads will be furious. It clearly flies in the face of trying to plan secondary education places.

I know a school that has done the above. Almost ruined a nearby school with a more generally disadvantaged intake.
This school favoured by the more advantaged so they would apply and morally dodgy school would just increase PAN and take them [Academy so could]. Does not take genius to see that this would skew intakes and impact negatively on the other school's numbers.
Ongoing situation. My child at school I can morally cope with. Other school leaves nasty, non inclusive taste in the mouth. [Ofsted unfortunately seemed to ignore shenanigans and a glowing ofsted for this school also makes me feel nauseous].
Virtuous circle for one school and the other has to work like Hell to mitigate damage done to it and try not to spiral down due to tougher intake, less money and reputational damage.

Whatever information / impression the HT is giving out, the rules that the local authority must follow when allocating places, if the school is oversubscribed, are the oversubscription criteria in the published admissions policy. For a 'community' school, this will have been determined by the LEA, not the school. So if the criteria are, say -

1. Looked after children
2. Siblings
3. Children attending primary schools x, y, z
4. Living in the Priority Admissions Area
5. Other applicants, ranked by proximity to the school

• the LEA can't place a child there who attends school w and is not a LAC, nor a sibling, nor lives in the designated priority admissions area, if PAN is reached before their position on the distance-ranked list of criterion 5.

OP, what is the actual admissions policy for the school? Other than what the HT has said about having room for everyone, is there any reason to suspect that it has not been correctly applied in your case and that if it had been, a place would have been offered? This is something that you can pursue at stage 2 of the appeal (your chance to put the case as to why your child in particular should be offered a place at the school), if the panel decides that the Presenting Officer has made their case at stage 1. However, it has to be based on the legal admissions policy, not statements from the HT which have no official standing. Also, one would expect the panel to get the Presenting Officer to confirm the procedure that had been followed in the allocation of places (for applicants overall) at stage 1.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond.
I will try to answer all the questions if I can. The head has stated he can accommodate all the children who have appealed so I'm not sure there can be any bias. Although I would like to argue there was an assumption that we would attend our preferred school - as others on this thread have pointed out this may not be a valid point. No children in the last 35 years have been admitted to the catchment school. I'm not sure why the catchment has not been reviewed. I would imagine it is because all children up to this point have been admitted. Although I am unsure how the head will accommodate the children he has stated that he can do so with no prejudice to the existing children at the school. I do believe the current admission policy has so far been adhered to as only children with siblings at the school have been offered places.

MarchingFrogs - Your post is based on a fundamental failure to understand the appeals process. As a result the advice you have given is incorrect.

For a primary appeal heard under infant class size rules the only way you can win is if the admissions process has been administered incorrectly. For secondary schools that is still a powerful case but it is not the only way to win. Most secondary appeals are won on the basis that the prejudice to the child from not attending the school outweighs the prejudice to the school from having to cope with another pupil.

At stage 1 the OP can include as evidence the head teacher's statement that the school can accommodate additional pupils with no problems. That is a clear statement that the school will not be prejudiced. Contrary to your post that does have official standing, must be considered by the appeal panel and outweighs the school's PAN. If the appeal panel accepts the head's statement they must allow the appeals.

At stage 2 the OP does not need to show that a mistake has been made. It would be great if she can but it is not in any way fatal to her case if she cannot. She simply needs to set out the reasons her child will be disadvantaged if not admitted to this school.

As unfortunate as it is OP, and I totally wouldn't be happy if it was my child, but your preferred school is not your catchment school which makes your case weaker. If any of the 38 children who didn't get a place are in the catchment then they will get preference- if they go on a waiting list. And then there's the ethical and financial issues of your catchment school having places, presumably ready and resourced to take up to their PAN allocation and then not getting these children- meaning the LA will have to pay again at a time when LA's have zero surplus money. I would love my dd to go to a non catchment (closet and outstanding secondary ) but it is not our catchment. Half of her class will go there and any discussions about secondary school places should be tentative from both parents and schools- until it has been rubber stamped.

Not being catchment does not weaken the OP's case. Whether or not it is the catchment school is not a consideration at appeal. And no, the LA won't have to pay again. That isn't how the system works.

The situation is simple. The head has said that the school can cope with the additional children. That should be it as far as the appeal is concerned. If the school can cope the appeal panel should admit them. That is the way the system works.

Funding for schools has a lag in it. So the funding for a maintained school runs from April 2018 to March 2019 and is based on a number of parameters, the most important of is funding per pupil who were registered at the school in October 2017. For an academy the funding year runs from September 2018 till August 2019 but is still based on the pupil count in October 2017.
As this school is a maintained school it can take on the extra 38 pupils but the school will not receive any funding for them until April 2019. The school which may be disadvantaged by losing these 38 pupils has sufficient time to start to make some adjustments to staffing if they need to before the loss of the pupils makes a financial impact on the school. There is no mechanism, in these circumstances, for extra funding or for the other school to loose funding immediately.

www.brightonandhovenews.org/2018/04/06/brighton-schools-confirm-places-for-misplaced-38/

Thanks user.
Wonder what 'elsewhere' school they are avoiding and the impact on that school's numbers/ viability will be...

Are the misplaced 38 in that link the ones referred to in this thread?

What happens if the head takes in all the appeals and then cant afford them all (mistaken/lying), can he force the council to give him more money for them? I keep hearing the school system is chronically underfunded, but it seems some schools are well enough resourced they can take another class at the drop of a hat.

Bums on seats ultimately means extra money down the line.
Undersubscribed schools suffer because of this.
Guessing link is situation op referring to due to coincidence of '38' pupils.

If it is then the article does suggest the council are having to provide capital funding as a result.

All a bit confusing...
Perhaps just my mediocre brain not firing on all cylinders!

The link is very interesting but a complete coincidence as it is not our case and the children in question are in catchment whereas we are not.

Big coincidence!
So, is your catchment school further away than the school you want?

Yes the catchment school is further away but not a by a great distance.