Secondary school admissions legal advice

[Sara157]

Hi,
We have been turned down for our chosen school place. The school's Admissions Policy states that: 'Students who, at the time of application, have an older or younger sibling: who is already at the Academy; and who will still be in attendance at the Academy in September 2020' get preference. No reference to ages or year groups in the policy. My son has a sibling in year 12 so we assumed would get in and did not look into other options e.g. house move. We have been turned down for a place and told policy only applies to years 7-10, however this is not in writing in the policy. Do we have any legal redress on this?
Calling @prh47bridge or any admissions expert?

Don't bother about legal redress at this stage. You can appeal on the basis that they admission arrangements have not been implemented correctly and this has cost your son a place. Having identified which school we are talking about, I can't see any wriggle room in their admission arrangements. There does not appear to be anything to suggest that siblings in the sixth form don't count. This should be a straightforward appeal. An appeal will be relatively quick and won't cost you anything. Attempting to go to court will be slow, will have costs involved and may well result in the court telling you that you need to exhaust the appeals process before resorting to legal action.

Thank you very much. That's great. Do you have any advice regarding wording of the appeal?

Just set out the facts. Your son has a sibling currently in Y12 who will be at the school in September. Under the published admission arrangements that means he is entitled to sibling priority. However, he was not given priority. The school say this is because sibling priority only applies if the older sibling is in Y7-Y10 but there is no such restriction in the published admission arrangements.

In your situation that is all you really need to say. You can pad it out a bit and it may be worth adding some stuff about why your son will be disadvantaged if he doesn't get a place at this school - that may be important if there are other people in the same boat. But concentrate on the point about sibling priority. The school must comply with its published admission arrangements. It cannot have additional policies that are not published which alter the meaning of the published arrangements.

Thank you so much for your help!