Dr challoners headteacher

[Najaf]

Does anyone on here have any feedback on the new headteacher in the admissions process? I supplied evidence of address ( but late) but he's having none of it to consider for admissions- he's saying I have to go to appeals

Depends on the type of School.

Our Head has no power to alter the process.

Unless independent, heads have no influence on admissions appeals.

He's part of the admissions process??!!

Dcgs handle their own admissions and The head of dcgs is part of the admissions process. That does not sound right to me. The equality law needs to be applied and the process should be fair and unbiased. Does anyone have an opinion/ law on this?

Can you be a bit clearer on the timeline please?

Dr C are their own admissions authority, so they determine and apply the criteria. He won't have arbitrarily decided by himself, though any letter may have his name on.

What have they asked you to provide and when?

Just seen they are a grammar school but state.

Have you read the admissions criteria? Why do you think it is not fair?

I'm assuming that as you supplied evidence of your address late, you were not allocated a place therefore need to go through the appeals process. Sounds perfectly fair to me 🤷🏼‍♀️

The appeals process is meant to make it fair. If the process hasn't been followed, it will be sorted on appeal; if there are other grounds, it will be considered through the appeal process for everyone in the same boat.
If the head starts changing admissions decisions outside the appeals process, that wouldn't be fair.

Not sure what the 'equality law' has to do with it either.

Firstly

An email was sent out in 27/11/19 stating that if we were to be considered for a place at dcgs, it is a mandatory requirement for the Sif supplementary form to be filled in and submitted by 30/11/19

That is wrong wrong wrong. According to the bucks admissions code and admissions arrangements ( legislation) no school is allowed to do this. It states that "it is not obligatory for a parent to fill a supplementary form" and schools may ask fir it but it is not obligatory to fill it out.

Hence this was a very misleading email which would have panicked any parent to fill it in ASAP.

School admissions rules have to applied fairly, accurately and within a reasonable time.
The supplementary firm is exactly that. Supplementary. If there is inaccurate information written on there, then it needs to be rectified.

I had written a date of me moving out my old property on Christmas Day 2016 ( 4 years ago). My actual move date was 1st August 2016. I did not realise the importance of this date until feb 2020 when I realized the school was using an out of catchment address! I immediately submitted the evidence substantiating this and the school refused to admit my evidence citing that they will be using what is on the Sif form even if it is inaccurate.

Now having been through high court cases on 4 occasions and a government tribunal ( and having them all gone in my favour) I could smell a rat from a mile. Just to be on the safe side, I had an educational solicitor take a look at my case and the MP, both of whom said, this does not seem right. If a mistake has been made in law It must be our right before the appeal stage.

Dcgs still refused ( because they feel they can). I was gobsmacked.

Obviously I will appeal but my sons places have been allocated to someone else and now at appeal we have to fight why it would not affect the school to go above quota?! I'm confident I will win but even still the injustice here is next level as the evidence was supplied before 1st allocations and nowhere in admissions legislation does it state that late evidence cannot be submitted .

@ prh47bridge please can you join this thread for your opinion. Also are the IAP completely independent? Or is it a nod nod wink wink arrangement?

Essentially you fucked up/lied and are now blaming everyone else.

4 high court cases AND a Government tribunal??
I really dont think you are going to win this, you admit you gave a wrong date but this is probably an excuse (I'm not saying you are lying but others may) that is rolled out all the time.

Just to be on the safe side, I had an educational solicitor take a look at my case and the MP, both of whom said, this does not seem right.

Your solicitor says it “does not seem right”?

Don’t you pay them to give you definitive answers? Your next-door neighbour could tell you something “does not seem right”.

You think by fighting the school like this that your child will be happy there IF the allocate him a space?
This all sounds far too ridiculous...it’s a school. It’s not even the top school in the country! Ffs just get him into another school and be thankful he’s getting an education!

Choose another school and unclench a bit? Bigger things going on atm in case you hadn't realised 👍

As PatriciaHolm says, decisions about admissions will not have been taken by the head on his own. The head may sign the letters but decisions will have been made by the governors or a committee appointed by the governors.

Whilst it is not obligatory for you to complete an SIF in that a school must still consider your application, failing to supply one can affect your chances of getting a place. So, for example, if you apply to a faith school you will not get priority on faith grounds unless you submit an SIF. In this school's case, failure to submit an SIF means you will not get priority for living in catchment. I would imagine the email only went to those parents claiming to live in catchment. For those parents the form was, to all intents and purposes, mandatory. Failure to complete it would result in their child being placed in a lower admissions category.

If you submit an SIF with inaccurate information the school is not obliged to accept any corrections after the closing date for applications. There has to be a line somewhere otherwise parents could submit corrections the day before offers go out and expect the school to rerun the admissions process, which is simply not realistic. As is clear from the SIF, that deadline was 30th November. Any new information submitted after that should be taken into account for the waiting list but not for admissions.

You submitted your correction in February, which was far too late. By that time allocations would have been pretty much final. The school would have returned its list to the LA weeks before you submitted your correction. Given that offers had to go out on 2nd March, there was no way either the school or the LA could rerun the admissions process at that stage. Even if you had submitted the information earlier, if the school had taken it into account they would have been entitled to treat you as a late applicant which means you would only have got a place if they were undersubscribed.

It is true that, if a mistake has been made, the school is supposed to put it right without needing an appeal. However, this rarely happens. Even when there is a clear mistake the admission authority will almost always insist on an appeal. And I'm afraid I don't think the school has made a mistake in your case.

Looking at the SIF, you completed it saying that you still own your previous home and that you moved after 1st September 2016. The school is clear that they will use your previous address in this situation. This is also set out on the SIF itself at the head of the form. So, on the information you submitted, the school was correct to regard you as not living in catchment. And, as you didn't tell them the correct information until February, they were quite right to ignore it for admissions purposes.

You may get lucky at appeal but my view is that you will lose. You made the mistake, not the school. And all the things you complain about show the school acting correctly. Sorry.

Why did you put your moving date as Christmas Day when you knew it was 4 months earlier? Why change that date at all? I don't understand.

Perhaps the school think that you were trying to pull a stunt (I'm not suggesting you were, I'm just considering it from their point of view) because it's such a weird mistake to make. So on that basis they might not admit your DS as they think you were trying to be dishonest?

I'm not sure you'd win an appeal, the information they worked with was what you had given them. I'm guessing the changes were made after the deadline? They're under no obligation to change anything if you submit changes after the deadline, otherwise people could start applying after the deadline because they 'forgot' and then expect a place because they meet the criteria above people who submitted applications on time. There has to be a cut off point somewhere.

With that in mind though, do you really want your child to go to a school which is being so dismissive before your DC has even got there? There must be an alternative? I hope you get it sorted out.

It is clear on the admissions page that the SIF was due by end of November 2019 and address at September 2016 would be important. You moved closer in 2016 but Christmas was past the cut off so previous address (do you still have an interest in that property) was used. This seems to be your error, not school's. Lots of schools use a SIF in their admissions process, particularly faith and selective schools.

What a pompous OP (and what a great response from PRH)

Not being funny but everybody in Bucks is required to upload proof of residency via their website as part of the admissions process. It very clearly states this and you’ll probably find everybody else pretty much managed to do this.

You made a mistake. You failed to submit the information on time when everybody else managed to do it. This is not a problem with the head or the admissions process. It is YOUR error and unfortunately the only way you can deal with it is via appeal and have your fingers crossed.

And here is the link to the form we ALL had to fill in regardless of whether or not we were applying for a grammar school.

account.buckscc.gov.uk/en/AchieveForms/?form_uri=sandbox-publish:AF-Form-ef8a47f5-3db4-431d-8596-63644ab5830a/definition.json&redirectlink=%2FService%2FServiceRating%3Fserviceid%3DAF-Form-ef8a47f5-3db4-431d-8596-63644ab5830a%26service%3DR4%26postRatingRedirectUrl%3D%2Fmodule%2Fservices&cancelRedirectLink=%2F&category=AF-Category-da0c5c3e-0dcf-43c5-946e-991009e252ab&noLoginPrompt=1

I have also read your other post. For September 2020 admissions you state that you were offered boarding places in December 2019? That would be an impossibility as no places were offered prior to 1st / 2nd March 2020.

You also say they used your old Uxbridge address but based on last admitted distances this year, Uxbridge is over 12 miles away from both RGS and Chesham (which is where you say you have been allocated). You would not have been given a place at either based on an Uxbridge address. You have probably been very lucky to have got any grammar place at all given your late submission of your new address.

Given you then seem to miraculously want to change the dates you moved to fit the admissions criteria of DC as you “made an error” and if you still own the marital home regardless of whether or not you live there, your application has probably been flagged as fraudulent as you own another property within 20 miles of the school (although you haven’t said one way or the other if you still own the property).

So many aspects of this just don’t stack up.

he's saying I have to go to appeals

Well, that's good then. The appeals process is designed to sort out errors.

@ Zodlebud if you read the RGS boarding admissions process, there is no catchment area for boarding places! There are only 10 places. My son got allocated a place as he scored very highly on the 11+ And the allocations are based on the highest scores. Boarding places are allocated earlier than the day places so we found out on 25th November 2019.

The property I own is uxbridge has tenants in it and I moved out 4 years ago. I couldn't remember the exact dates and didn't have them when I was filling the form as I had lived in csp since. I thought if it was so important then they would ask for evidence. I did not realise it would would be used to override fact.