Waiting List Order - Admissions Policy Changing

[SchoolSchool1]

We are on the waiting list for a school which we understand will be ranked based on the criteria for oversubscription. The Admissions Policy for this school will change next year and the oversubscription criteria will change as part of this. Does anyone know when the new criteria will kick in? Can we argue that it should change the order of the waiting list at a certain point?

Thanks

I presume it will start next year.

The new oversubscribe criteria will be be applied exactly when the new admission criteria is applied. Usually it will come into force at the beginning of a new school year admission round, as it was national offer day on the 1st of March the next admissions year is now September 2020. This means that your waiting list place is not affected by the new over subscription criteria.

Thank you. The policy itself is called “Admissions Policy 2019/2020” so I was hoping it was at the start of the new school year.

Usually that refers to applications that are submitted in by October 2019 for admissions in September 2020.

It might be worth ringing the school to get clarification just to be sure.

The waiting lists can move significantly over the next few months with parents declining places due to change of circumstances, successful appeals elsewhere, moving house etc. If there are any successful appeals that take the school over PAN the waiting list will not move again until the school goes below PAN again. On the first day of school in September their can sometimes be a number of" no shows" so (if below PAN) you could potentially see the waiting list move again. When schools use over subscription criteria to rank waiting list order you can sometimes move down the list if a student comes onto the list that ranks higher up the criteria (eg someone who places the child's name on the list next week but lives closer to the school)

Admissions Policy 2019/2020 would normally be the admissions policy for entry into school in September 2019 and through to July 2020, so that would be the current year. You need to check this out carefully because it could make significant difference to where you are on the admission criteria order.

Ah, just checked and I have the year wrong, sorry. I’m actually talking about the ‘Admissions Policy 2020/21”. With the current policy we are about 70 on the waiting list. With the 2020/21 policy we would be 1st or 2nd because of the changes.

I’m just wondering whether if we still on the list come the start of the new school year in September, the new policy would come into place and we would move up the list

Your question is interesting and is a bit of a grey area. There is no question that from the 1st September 2019 that the new policy will apply for pupils coming to the school in September 2020. It is also the case that any in-year application will also be handled under the new admission policy but the grey area is what happens in the first term through to Christmas, given that there is a legal requirement to have a waiting list through till December 31st. My suspicion would be that the school will want to apply the current admission policy through to Dec 31st as it will create less turbulence. My gut feeling is that the school should be applying the new admission criteria but I am not aware of any legal cases that have covered this situation. You are left really with making a case with the school that they should change as of the 1st September but there is no way without going to the school adjudicator that you will get any formal legal ruling. That is not going to happen quickly if you pursue that angle.

Thanks so much admission , I was hoping your answer would be that! We are going to appeal but I will explore this in more detail in case the appeal doesn’t work.