Secondary school appeals help

[Cocosunshine]

Hi all

We are in the horrible position of having to appeal for our son's secondary school place. I would love some advice.

Situation is:

• My son was diagnosed with leukaemia aged 7
• Treatment ended in Sept 2018 (it lasts 3.5 years)
• He won't be considered "cured" for 5 years
• He has ongoing appointments and close monitoring
• There are long and late term psychological and physical impacts of treatment

Our application was to our closest school, but the catchment is tiny so we are not close enough (1 Mike vs 0.3 miles). It has medical/social needs as a criterion, so we applied under that. Application basis was:

1. Closest school to our house. Enables us to manage appointments, maintain attendance, deal with issues (esp if he relapses). Easiest journey, important as fatigue is a long term side effect of leukaemia treatment. Important socially as he feels safe there, will have friends nearby

1. Social: as our local school, he has friends there. Important as he has emotional, self esteem and friendship issues following treatment

1. The school has a "unique ethos" (their words) of pastoral care and support, which he needs after the trauma he has been through.

This was supported by letters from:

• Oncologist at GOSH
• Oncologist at our local hospital
• Social worker at CLIC Sargent
• Family support officer at local children's hospice
• Letter from current head teacher

So:
Does this sound like a decent case or are we kidding ourselves?
How do we approach appeal - do we need to get new, additional evidence?
Can we find out in advance why our arguments weren't accepted under the med/social criterion?
What is the best strategy to formulate a strong case - pick one thing, argue them all? What is most likely to sway them?

Son is distraught and I am devastated. After everything he has been through, I want him to be safe and happy in his secondary school. Feels like a massive kick in the teeth :-(

Thanks for any help you can give us.

Thanks @PanelChair and @prh47bridge. I've left a message with the school to call me back.

This is the wording in the admissions policy:

"Young people whom the Governors and Principal accept have an exceptional medical or social needs or those of their parent. Each application must include evidence, from a medical specialist or social worker of the child’s/parent’s need and why they must attend this school rather than any other, based on those needs. If evidence is not submitted to the LA with the application, a child’s or parent’s medical or social needs cannot be considered. In each case there must be a clear connection between the child’s need and [redacted], and an explanation of the difficulties which would be caused if the child were to attend another school"

My understanding is that this is assessed directly by the governors and principal but I may well be wrong.

At the open evening I told the principal we would apply under this criterion and he sucked his teeth and looked negative, I said my son had cancer and he shook his head and said it's very difficult to get in under this criterion. I was surprised, as our council had said we would definitely be eligible for a place, but it looks like they weren't in a position to say that.

I have asked how many children have applied and been offered places under med/social needs, but don't know if that actually helps really anyway.

Identifying information edited by MNHQ

If it is assessed by the governors and principle that rings alarm bells. They are not qualified to assess medical needs.

cocosunshine

Firstly, I hope your son continues to be in good health and that you're successful in getting him into this school.

But, just wanted to flag up you've left the name of the school in your last post - am sure MNHQ could edit it out if you ask them to...

actually I'll tag you just in case @cocosunshine

Coco
I would appeal and appeal hard

My case is in no way as strong as yours

You have an extremely strong case . So go for it and go in hard

Also accept for Plan B but you have nothing to lose and a strong case

It was unprofessional of the LA in suggesting that you would be eligible for a place under the medical criteria when they should have known that as a preference for an academy that it is the school who is the admission authority and therefore decides on such matters.
There is usually a high threshold for being accepted under the medical criteria. What is unusual in this particular case is that the Principal and Governing Board are making the decision and not somebody medical. The further complication is that you needed to submit the medical evidence to the LA by the 31st October, which I assume you did, but that it is the school that makes decisions as to whether you fit the criteria. My question would be how do the school receive that information and know you want to apply under the medical criteria.
The admission criteria also says that any pupils that are allowed a place under the medical criteria will be admitted prior to allocating places on the basis of community or faith. So I can only come to the conclusion that either you were never considered under the criteria ( which should then be addressed at any appeal) or that you were rejected for the medical criteria in which case the school as the admission authority should have communicated to you before the place allocation took place. If they say the later I would challenge the school to provide evidence that they did actually consider the application. This should have been by a committee of the governing board and there should be written minutes of the meeting where decisions were taken.

OK, I'll ask who actually assesses the application, maybe an independent panel then reports to the principal or governors, hence the wording in the admissions policy? But I guess they can do it however they like?

Thanks @myrtleWilson, I didn't notice that - I've let MumsnetHQ know :-)

Thanks @stopfuckingshoutingatme, we'll do our best. I hope you get the school you want .

The admissions officer at the school has confirmed that they did receive our application and evidence, she says it was considered by the principal and governors but she couldn't provide any detail.

She also said they wouldn't have contacted us separately with an outcome, we would only ever have heard about our offer from the council on offer day.

I've asked for minutes of the meeting where the decision was made, and she is speaking to the principal about it. If they say no, I think I'll have to request the information formally from the chair of governors.

I don't know if it is comparable and what leeway there is for local policies.... but my sister applied under exceptional/social criteria for her daughter when applying for primary school. She received a letter well in advance of primary allocations day confirming her application had been accepted in that category. My sister therefore new before offer day that they were in category 2 behind cat 1 LAC so were fairly certain that they would be successful.

As I said I don't know if local procedures can deviate...

If they say no you need to make a subject access request for the information under GDPR.

You can also point out that this is information you need to prepare for your appeal and they are therefore required to provide it. I would actually go down this route first with the threat of a GDPR request if they won't comply.

I am flabbergasted that the principal and governors were considered suitable to assess whether a child met the medical or social need criteria of the admissions criteria!

It seems that the school isn't following best practice in a couple of ways (informing parents of the outcome in advance, and using experts to assess applications), but presumably there is nothing to say they actually have to?

They must make reasonable decisions. I would hope that a properly trained appeal panel will think that medical professionals know better than the principal and governors.

OP you can get free legal advice for this you know ! It’s in our school
Book

If anyone deserves it you do

It’s either

ACE advisory centre for education
And
Coram children’s legal aid

Google
Them x

I hope you get this resolved!

Op honestly reading your thread has given me perspective

I know that if your case was ahead of mine I would truly wish you to get the space . I would be extremely disappointed if an appeal didn’t seriously consider this . You
Have a case . Go for it and just be honest and authentic as you have been here

I wish you the very beat and your son too

So if you go to appeal, the first thing to say is if there is no written record of the decision being made then there was no decision made and as such want the panel to award a place. Secondly it is bad practice to not have considered and informed the parents in time for you to reconsider your preferences if you were not being considered under the medical criteria. The whole point about 11+ tests being carried out early is that this then gives parents the knowledge to re-assess if necessary their preferences. I would argue that you have been disadvantaged by their poor process.

Thank you all very much for the advice, information, encouragement and support, it really helps so much!

Thank you @stopfuckingshoutingatme - I really hope you get your place too.

I spoke to the school today, they don't want to give us the meeting minutes (they said due to data protection) but I explained we need them for the appeal and that we only want the notes related to our son. The admissions officer was nice and seemed sympathetic. Will see if they decide to send them, if not will go down the GDPR route.

I would apply under GDPR because it all takes time...

We're preparing for our hearing next week and getting increasingly stressed and unsure about how to handle it. @Admission has been extremely helpful - thanks again!

We applied under the exceptional medical and social criterion, and part of our appeal is that we don't think this was assessed fairly because:

1. The panel assessing our application did not include anyone with medical/psychological/social experience or qualifications
2. The school told our council that one reason we didn't get a place was because it's not our closest school, but this isn't part of the Med & Soc criterion

Would we ask about this at stage 1, as it's about the application process, or stage 2, as it relates only to our son (or maybe it doesn't?!)?

Do these questions make sense:

• Is it correct to say that the Exceptional Medical and Social Needs criterion does not include any requirement for the school to be the child’s closest school? If not, can you explain why this was given as a reason to refuse my son’s place?

• Did the panel assessing applications under the social and medical criterion include anyone with medical, social or psychological qualifications or expertise? If so, what relevant qualifications did they have? Do you agree that it is unreasonable for a panel without expertise in these areas to assess medical and social needs arising from a complex medical situation?

I'm really not sure how to put these points across, so any help would be very much appreciated!

Is this a two stage hearing - i.e. there is a hearing for all parents first where the school will put its case and then there are individual hearings? If not, it doesn't really matter when you ask about this. If it is a two stage hearing you should ask these questions in stage 1 but it is likely the chair will tell you to ask them in your individual hearing as they only relate to you.

Yes, the questions make sense and will get your point across. However, I would leave out the "do you agree that it is unreasonable" bit. They will probably say no which doesn't help you. You can make the argument that it is unreasonable when presenting your case.

I would always try to ask the questions in a way that is keeping the school on the back foot. So when you say "If not, can you explain why this was given as a reason to refuse my son’s place? I would phase it as " having agreed with me that being the nearest school is not part of the criteria for medical and social needs can you explain why the school used it as part of the criteria for my son" Then after they have waffled an answer ask " did you actually as a school consider my son under the medical and social needs criteria because from what you have just said it would appear not."

Thank you very much @prh47bridge and @admission. Extremely helpful, as always. I wish you could both come and do it with me!

Hi @cocosunshine, I am in a very similar situation to you in that we applied for a secondary school place under medical grounds for my daughter but the appeals paperwork they sent me does not mention the medical grounds at all (I sent in a lot of accompanying paperwork from her consultant etc.) it just says she was considered under nearness to school and the fact it isn’t her closest school - we know all this which is why we applied under social/medical grounds in the first place!

I just wondered if you had had your appeal as yet?

Many thanks