Not got any of the preferred secondary School

[Debasis78]

Hi,
My son didn't get any school from the preferred applied 5 schools. He could not meet the oversubscribed distance criteria for 2 of the preferred schools (missed by 0.2 miles) and other 3 schools in lottery. He got a school which is 3 miles away from my place.Can I appeal on the ground of medical conditions, which described below. Can anyone help on guiding me to write the appeal so that I can succeed.

1. My son has motion sickness, for which he vomits during any travel by bus or train.
2. Recently during visit to my home country, I visited doctor. Doctor advised him not to travel longer distance by bus or train. If he travels by bus or train, good Heath will be impacted. I have also the prescription of the doctor. Can I use this and show as a evidence. Can I mention that if I get a preferred school, which is only 0.6 miles, he can go by walk. Please advise.

Please guide me how to proceed with the appeal. Thanks in advance for your help.

Nice try. But serious, no. He can walk, or cycle. 3 miles is nothing.

Walking 3 miles does not take 1hr10m unless he has mobility issues. Average walking speed is 4mph, so 45mins for miles. But a fit young person could be quicker.

So actually walking would be quicker than the bus anyway.

I think any medical evidence would have to come from a UK doctor. Vomiting on every form of transport is very severe, did you not see a UK doctor before you travelled to your home country? If not, see one now, if there is anything else they can suggest rather than just not using transport. As it must be so life limiting.

Can’t he take anti sickness medication until he adjusts? You can’t possibly expect your son to spend his entire life within a radius of

Plenty of children walk or cycle 3 miles at my DC's school.

Is he ok in a car (I'm sort of assuming not, as generally motion sickness is worse in a car then bus or train, but that must be terribly limiting for his life in general)? If he is, can you take him part of the way and let him walk the rest?

Do you know where you are on waiting lists? If you're close to a couple of the schools you might have a good chance. Are there any other schools nearby you would consider applying to now?

Are all 5 of the schools you applied for within walking distance, op?

5 secondaries within walking distance is quite unusual, is it not?

Are you appealing for all five of the schools he can walk to?

Where is your home country that you travelled to by some method?

Unless you are on the borders of Wales or Scotland I surmise it was more than 3 miles?

Walking 3 miles does not take 1hr10m unless he has mobility issues. Average walking speed is 4mph, so 45mins for miles. But a fit young person could be quicker

I have no idea of the exact maths but this seems WAY out.

I regularly walk around a lake nearby (concrete path around it) which is 1 mile (measured).

I’m a fairly fit 33 year old and i walk at a brisk but comfortable pace. I could never make it three times around in 45 minutes. I’d have to jog - or at the very least absolutely power-walk the whole way which isn’t a reasonable expectation for a school-walk imo.

My walking route to uni was exactly 4 miles from my house. It took me 60 minutes. I still walk a mile in 15 minutes or less.

Even if the school does not have an admissions category for social and medical need - or you didn’t apply under that category - you can appeal on the grounds that your son needs a school within walking distance. The appeal panel will expect to see a letter from a health care professional confirming that, in their opinion, this is what he needs. Although I can’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be a letter from a doctor overseas, I think any panel might be surprised that you hadn’t sought help with this problem from a doctor here and would therefore expect the letter to be from a GP or paediatrician here. Given that travel sickness is quite a common ailment and treatable with over the counter medication, the panel might not be convinced that this is s strong enough reason on its own to admit and your chances might be better if you can identify other reasons why your son would benefit from attending this school. Is there anything about the curriculum (subjects offered), extra-curricular activities etc that make it especially suitable for him?

if he can walk it in 70 mins he can scooter it in 35 mins.

Is your actual objection really about the quality of the school offered or is it really about the travel issues? I wouldn't advise basing your appeal on travel issues if the real problem is elsewhere.

I sympathise because my DS has similar issues. He's been sick in our own car in his car seat travelling 4 miles and in a taxi (worse because he wasn't in a car seat) travelling 3 miles. He's almost always sick on a plane at one of take off and landing as it's hard to get the timing of the medication right.
We looked at a specialist school for him as he has SEN but it's too far, we are hoping he grows out of it by secondary age.
We would not want him to take medication every day as it will be making him drowsy and as I've said it's hard to get the timing just right.
As your son is 11, could he ride in the front of a car and possibly on a booster seat if he can't see out properly.
It does also seem that he could walk or cycle though.

No. An inability to travel 3 miles by public transport is not a medical condition. It's not up there with adhd, autism, cancer, epilepsy etc..

are there any schools closer than 3 miles that you would have been certain to get a place at if they had been on your form (due to being in catchment and closer than their maximum offered distance) but which you didn't get because you used all the slots on your form for unlikely gambles?

I would bet that there is, and you deliberately chose not to name it on the form because it is too grim, but now the offered school 3 miles away is just as grim AND a pain to get to.

this situation is exactly why the often repeated advice is to always use your last choice for a "banker" school that you are certain to get no matter how bad, because an awful school nearby is at least better than an awful school a massive commute away.

Why can't a child of secondary school age walk, cycle, or scooter 3 miles?

Do secondary school aged children scooter to school in some parts of the country? Never seen that round here. Only primary aged.

I suspect that any Y7 scooting to school would be teased terribly, but that’s by the by.

I also suspect that part of the problem here is that 3 of the schools applied for use lotteries for admission, making it much harder to identify a “banker”.

Have you checked that you are on the waiting list for all schools within walking distance? Check whether you can now apply to more schools that were on your list.

Hopefully you will get a waiting list place.

You can appeal, and use the letter from the doctor in your country but I don’t know how strong your chances are. Has he seen a GP here? It might be better to see a GP here and get evidence that it would not be in his best interests to take travel sickness medication every day to enable him to go to school.

You have nothing to lose by appealing, but make sure you are on all waiting lists.

I feel for you and your son not getting the school he wanted, but just wanted to share my own experience. I had horrendous car sickness growing up (I think my record was 8 vomits on a 1 hour journey - nothing left in me to puke and I was still puking!)

My mum used to have to volunteer for all my school trips because I would inevitably be ill the whole way there and back so she didn't feel it was right to make someone else deal with it, but also didn't want me to miss out. We developed a streamlined (and very tidy) system for minimising mess and smells as I got older but it was still massively embarrassing.

I got into a school that I very much wanted to go to, but it was a 50 min - 1.5 hour coach journey in each direction (depending on day / route taken)

My parents and I were very worried about how it would go and for the first 2 weeks it was very hard. I had to mentally train myself out of it. I sat by my friend from junior school so she knew the situation and basically just had to keep my eyes closed, my head down and breathe deeply (almost like giving birth). I felt awful the first week, but by the 2nd week things were much better, and by half term I was able to sit and chat with my friend and others. If I ever started feeling rough I would say I just had to close my eyes for a bit. By christmas I was able to do my homework on the bus, where I had never been able to read whilst moving before.

My advice would be to get him into a podcast and tell him under no circumstances is he to look at a screen or book - just sit and listen with his eyes closed. And teach him how to do deep relaxing breaths. Do a few practice runs with him. It really is possible to train yourself out of it but it takes a bit of work

I think if you have a letter from a Doctor in your own Country,it wouldnt do much harm to show with a letter from you .You never really know otherwise ! Travel Sickness is horrible and debilitating

Just out of interest, op, why did you wait until you’d travelled back to your own country to seek medical advice for your son’s problem, if it’s been a constant issue in his life?
What have you been doing up to now to alleviate the issue? Clearly it’s not simply not travelling at all, or you wouldn’t have taken him with you.

He doesn't get travel sick in a car or plane?
He never went on any school coach trips?
He didn't attend any music events, swimming, athletic or team sports at other schools, stadiums or other that involved coach or a minibus travel?
The present school will have evidence of this.

How does he travel to school now. How far is it?

Ds1, was at a school 6 miles from home (our choice out of county), and without fail every day he was sick. By half term it was sick once a week coming home, by Christmas, it had stopped.
He had traveled every day that journey before for nursery and his dad lived there. He used to be sick occasionally, but frequently just felt sick. I think starting school was the nerves and the excitement that added to it. So you may be surprised OP. Was he so poorly going back to your home country because of the added stress of a death etc?