Secondary school appeal advice - time spent out of the country has lost us a place

[MrsZuko]

I'm hoping to get some advice on a secondary school appeal. There's a longer backstory as to the reasons why, but my husband and I took our kids out of school last year and homeschooled them whilst we travelled abroad. We told the council and the school of our intentions and we didn't leave the country until after we had made the school application.

We provided all the correct information, my son sat the banding exam and we only applied for the one school because it's the school we want my son to go to and it's literally across the street. It's a 180 pupil intake and because we are so close we knew we would get in on distance (and I checked with the school before the application went in).

We had a call from the council in December when they were processing the application and wanted our address overseas which we were unable to give. We don't have an overseas address - our home is still our home. We still live in it, we're on the electoral roll there etc - we're travelling, we haven't moved abroad.

Initially the council threatened to pull the application altogether. They then said they they would use our home address for the application because he doesn't have a fixed one, but that they would not allow it to be used in the distance criteria. So because of this period of time spent out of the country, the council are saying my son is not resident there and so we have lost our place. We've been offered a school that my son would have to get a bus to, in an area of London which is constantly in the news at the moment for knife crime (I know we can't use that in the appeal).

We are appealing, on the basis that the council have not fairly applied their criteria but I haven't written the appeal yet and wondered if anyone could offer me any advice? I'm finding this really confusing and I don't know how we can define our "residency" other than the usual bills/Drs letter/council tax etc, all of which I submitted with the original application. There's nothing in the application that says we must physically have been in the country for a certain amount of days prior to the 2019 start of term. We told the council 6 months before we left and had no idea this would be an issue. The school we applied to has no problem with it but has no jurisdiction.

I know there are a lot of people on Mumsnet who have lots of experience with the appeals process - I'm really anxious about what to say and would really appreciate any advice. We are still abroad, due to come back at the beginning of July but I plan to fly back for the appeal.

Experts will be along soon, but my line is that you were legally entitled/expected to make a secondary school application if your child lives in the UK and was born between 1 Sept 2007 and 31 August 2008. In order to do that, you needed an address.

You used the address that he lives at, that you are registered to pay council tax through, that you pay bills through, that your passports and all other legal documents are registered to.

What other address could you have used?

Have the council addressed letters to your UK address or used in in an email? If so, that's quite good evidence that they accept this is your address.

I hope that you get this sorted OP. You could ask the council to clarify exactly what you need to do NOW to be accepted on to the waiting list?

bubbles the OP didn't 'withdraw from the process'. She made an application, continued to pay council tax and bills at her home address.

She clearly hasn't made a fraudulent application - it's where she lives.

And given that you know next to nothing about her family's circumstances, you have no grounds to be judging her actions as 'self-indulgent'.

Thanks christinarossetti19, I appreciate it. I have an email from the council:

We will use the address for the application as [DS’s name] does not have a different fixed address ...

So they understand he doesn’t live anywhere else ...

I was thinking about this because I have older parents abroad. If they'd been ill and we were going through this process and had to travel on the date the application was filed for an extended stay, I am sure I would not be getting the flaming you are getting and the LA would not consider us outside the process. I honestly think it's the 'holiday' part that has people's backs up. As you say, you could be home schooling and doing something to support that process.

This is not remotely similar to someone renting a flat near a school they want but living elsewhere.

Moving back at this stage won't make any difference to your appeal. The question is whether the LA has applied its admission arrangements correctly and impartially. As I don't know which LA is involved, I don't know what, if anything, their admission arrangements say about this situation. However, the threat to remove the application followed by processing it but not using the home address for distance calculations feels like they were making it up as they went along. They are not allowed to do this. So it may be possible to challenge the decision on the grounds that it was unreasonable or that it was contrary to their admission arrangements.

If you would like to PM me the name of the LA involved I will be happy to take a look and see what their admission arrangements say.

poster OVienna We are homeschooling - 100% and being abroad is part of that. I understand the situation is unusual and that people will judge us without knowing the reasons why we are abroad and that’s totally up to them. I posted on Mumsnet because I know there are users who sit on Appeals Boards and I was hoping that they could give me some advice.

I understand people are advising us to come back. Leaving aside whether or not this is even possible for us, in answer to those people, what is to stop us sending the LA a return ticket as “proof” of our return and therefore residency? We could shoot to the top of the waiting list, accept the place and the LA would be none the wiser. They’re hardly going to camp outside my front door between now and September. I’m not planning on doing this btw, I’d rather be honest and go down the Appeals route.

They clearly accept that the OP is resident SOMEWHERE in the borough, as they have allocated her a place at another school .

As far as I know you can't just approach a LA from a random address in Vietnam (say) and apply for and be allocated a school? I thought that usually the advice was apply when you arrive as a late applicant? The LA have not done this, they have allocated a space.

So...where in the borough do they imagine she is resident except at the home they own, pay council tax for, have not rented out as a home to anyone else, and when they do not have any other fixed address at present?

MrsZuko, I strongly advise you to contact prh47bridge as offered.

And good luck - the fact that they have offered you a school place suggests that they are contradicting themselves somewhere - but I am very far from being an expert.

Are you still receiving Child Benefit and with your home address? (I have no idea what the rules are about long term travelling and child benefit).

The Child Benefit address is often used as one of the indicators of the child's permanent address.

Yes @Twerking9til5 that's what I thought after I had posted a reply. They have seemed to put a random place down the borough. So where are they measuring the distance from? Surely it's the nearest school with a place, so then nearest school to what?
I'd say you seem to have strong grounds to appeal on that basis.
Very bizarre.

You've had a reply from prh47bridge, so you can pretty much ignore anybody else, just get in touch as they offered for the best advice available. Honestly, some of these replies are ridiculous. Self-indulgent, wtf?! It does sound like council are trying to have their cake and eat it - either they accept your application, and therefore the address, or they don't accept it at all, it's a bizarre concept to say yes we accept you applying in our borough but we have decided that you live in some generic floating address that we will randomly decide upon.

We don’t receive Child Benefit at the moment as we told them we would be away. Thanks to those who suggested contacting prh47bridge and to everyone else who took the time to respond.

My LA has the following paragraph: “If you are living abroad and returning to a property in the UK, we will need to use the address you are currently living at, unless you can provide evidence to show that you will be resident in our area by 31 October.” That’s clear. The OP is abroad. They were not here as residents on 31 October. Their LA might be quite different. It might have been a mistake to allocate a school at all but pr7 will get to the bottom of it.

Twerking if the school allocated had vacancies after all "resident" applications were processed the LA can offer a place there. You do not have to be local already to apply.

It does sound like the LA haven't actually got a set of rules for this situation so they've cobbled together something from a different rule.
If you were applying from another address overseas then they could allocate you a place in the area but you'd come further down the list than everyone who lives in the area if distance is applied as a tie breaker.
But you haven't got another address overseas so can that rule be applied? That's really the only question. Should you have been treated as ordinarily resident? What's the definition of ordinarily resident?
Ideally you'd have had all this clarified in writing before you went or done the year out in Y5 and sucked up a year in a school you didn't want for Y6 but that's no use to you now.

Their LA might be quite different

Their LA is indeed different. They don't have anything in their published information that covers this situation. They appear to have made it up as they went along.

Right - Game On, OP - Good luck!

Worst case scenario, a return at the beginning of July will still place you in a good position for a waiting list place - people do move house over the summer.

It's just that many waiting list places come up in the near future as people accept private schools, etc.

Are you in the waiting list?

Have you now checked it prh47? I am surprised an LA doesn’t have this covered.

I don’t know tbh, I don’t even know how I find out - it’s the first time I’ve applied for a secondary place. If you don’t get your place, do you automatically go on a waiting list?

If they won’t accept our address as part of the application, I don’t think they’ll accept it on a wait list until we are back in the country. But then how do we prove we are back? Turn up at their office on a daily basis? Send them a plane ticket? Take a picture of us outside our house? None of which proves we are residents

Why did you only put one school.
I still can't believe the amount of people who just don't read the instructions and advice about always putting in the maximum amount of schools possible.
We live next to a secondary school, eldest goes to that school, we fulfill the admissions criteria completely but we still put down our full 6 choices in order of preference.

Mrs many LAs automatically put you on the waiting list for every school you put as a higher preference than the school you got. But some don't. It's probably in the letter but you should check.
You'll be very low on the list until you can convince the LA you live opposite the school and then you would jump nearer the top.

MrsZuko: as AornisHades says, most LAs will automatically put you on the waiting list for any school higher up your preference order than the one you've been allocated, but good advice would be to email them to formally request it, apart from anything else to make sure you have it in writing.

When you go on the waiting list doesn't matter so much, it's about how closely you qualify for a place. As others have said, take heed of the advice prh has given you and good luck with your appeal.

IAmNoBird: since the LA has apparently assigned them a distance based on 'somewhere the other side of the world' what difference would it have made to this particular application? Every preference based on distance would have been put at the back of the queue unless the school was undersubscribed.

And in the event the OP has presumably been allocated a place in an oversubscribed school.

Yes, the advice is use your preferences, The school is across the road, opposite the OP's house, and allocates in distance. It wasn't that much of a risk - and presumably the OP would have had more chance of this school than further away school.

Yes - waiting lits are held in order of how far you meet the criteria.

But places are allocated to that list as soon as they become available.

I wonder if you can demonstrate that you should have been assessed from your own address before waiting for the Appeal process?