Has anyone lost their appeal?

[Marvelboys]

So, had our Appeal today for the secondary school that ds really wants to go to.

I'm 99.9% certain that we have been unsuccessful. Although it didn't go terribly, the panel looked completely unimpressed with our reasons, and I felt that they misunderstood some of what we were saying.

There were lots of other people there appealing for the same school, and quite honestly, as much as ds is desperate to go there, we haven't really got a strong case.

We based our appeal on subjects and clubs that the school does that others don't, and ds emotional needs and wellbeing.

Has anyone happily moved forward from losing an appeal?

We did - in fact we lost 3 appeals to 3 different schools (took over my life for way too long!). DD ended up at the school we didn’t want for her - after a slow start she settled in fine. Long story short we did move her in Yr 8 when she was offered our preferred school but it was a surprisingly tough decision to do that given my previous misgivings (and I still sometimes mull over whether we did the right thing). The school turned out to have some truly inspirational teachers and f I had my time again I wouldn’t have been nearly as worried as I was.

Thank you, yes it's taken over my life now for some time.

I just want them to put me out of my misery now.

We lost our appeal but got a call from the registrar a few weeks later offering us a waiting list place. I'm absolutely certain my appeal helped in that.

You never know!

We lost one appeal. We won another (emergency appeal after school place withdrawn in the July on the eve of his induction, put together in a week! Days off work etc).

DS is now at a third, different school! It was one of the most stressful times of my life trying to get one of my twins into a school (the other was sorted and they go to different schools).

He is happy and settled and doing well.

The wait seems to go on forever doesn't it? I wish you success, but if not, do you have a decent alternative?

I've read so many examples on here of people who lost appeals, were offered a different choice school and ended up thriving at new said school.

Good luck.

The school he's been offered, and accepted is in special measures, but it's close, and ds feels semi ok about going there.

I'm going to put him on the waiting list for a good school a little further away, but ds hates the idea of that school.

All other schools with any hope of getting in are in special measures. It's a really rubbish situation, there are hardly any decent schools in my town and even the half decent ones are massively oversubscribed.

Plus I'm dealing with a boy who absolutely hates any change, he's completely set in his ways.

If only we could see into the future hey?

I feel as though my options are

a) let him go to a school in special measures, that's he's not happy with anyway, but has kind of accepted as inevitable

b) try and get him into an alternative good school, and force him to go there against his wishes

I'm absolutely certain my appeal helped in that

I can pretty much guarantee it didn't. The waiting list must be ordered according to the school's oversubscription criteria. They can't bump you up the list due to an appeal. If they did they were in breach of the Admissions Code and whoever should have had the place would win an appeal if they found out.

prh45bridge can I ask a question? The school that ds applied to like most, five priority to siblings. This year most places went straight to siblings meaning a much shorter than usual cut off distance.

The admission criteria on the school website says 'older sibling must still be in attendance in September 2019'

However, I asked the LA how admissions criteria had been applied this year, they wrote to me and told me 'older sibling in attendance at the time admission was sought'

Don't they mean different things? The appeal panel seemed to think it was inadmissible.

I'm fairly sure children have been offered where siblings were in year 11.

That’s an interesting question as I’m sure that’s happened at the school we’re applying to too

I have no experience but definitely to me if it says "sibling in attendance in sep 19" it means just that. not a sibling who has just left.

They do mean different things. If the older sibling is still expected to be attending in September the child qualifies for sibling priority. However, if they will definitely be leaving the child does not qualify. So if the older sibling is in the final year (Y11 if the school doesn't have a sixth form, Y13 if it does) they should not give sibling priority to the younger sibling.

If the appeal panel got this wrong it is disappointing and means the outcome of the appeals could be challenged by those appellants who would have got places if sibling priority had been operated correctly.