Secondary school place offer withdrawn after 3 days.

[bev2147]

Really don't know which way to turn for help and advice. We received a phone call on 3rd April from our Local Education Office to say that a place had become available at my daughter's first choice school and would we like to accept it? We were over the moon and of course accepted, they said they would send the paperwork. We received the offer letter on 5th April. On 6th April, I received a call from them again, to say that they had made a mistake and no place was available. The school she wants is in another local authority area, and our LEA say that they misinterpreted the information that came through from the other authority. The authority of the school where she wants to go have told me to hang on until Wednesday this week, when the admissions officer of the school will be back in (currently on half term) and hinted that they may be able to do something as they are an academy. Where do we stand? I don't know who made the decision to admit my daughter and then to withdraw, was it the school as they are an academy or was it the LEA? She is heartbroken as are we.

As the offer was withdrawn quickly they are probably allowed to withdraw it. You can appeal but your case will be a lot weaker than it would have been if they had taken longer before withdrawing the offer.

Regarding who made the decision to admit, the comments by your LA suggest they misunderstood what they were told by the school's LA and offered a place when there was no place available.

Your best chance at the moment is to hope that the school decides to help out by admitting your daughter. But you should also consider submitting an appeal if you haven't done so already.

There’s some very good advice on this thread from some posters who are very knowledgable about admissions, which suggests 3 days would generally be considered a reasonable time frame to rectify a mistake.

Ah there you go, prh arrived whilst I was typing!

You are unfortunately in that time frame where it is probable that the offer can be withdrawn, especially as the LA are admitting that it was their mistake. What you need to do is make sure that the LA have reinstated your original offer because no matter what happens you need to have that fall-back position and also that you are still on the waiting list for the preferred school.

The fact that both LAs and the school involved are accepting that a mistake has been made is a good sign and I think that you can only wait and see what reaction the school has on Wednesday. If they come back and say sorry cannot offer you a place (and as an Academy they could exceed PAN anytime they want to) then you should appeal on the basis that you have been disadvantaged by the mistakes made by the LA(s) and the school.