Help with appeal to an academy secondary school

[SK26]

Can anyone give any advice, we just got refused a place at a secondary school an in year placement so going into year 10 on grounds of operational full. The PAN is 120 they state they have 100 students and when I asked for a break down of how many students in each 4 form groups it added up to 97 students. Can the Academy legally refuse saying they are full when they haven’t met their PAN?

Strictly speaking, PAN only applies to the normal year of entry, i.e. Y7. It may be that PAN was lower when the current Y10 pupils were admitted. Equally, it may be that other years are over full, meaning the school is full to capacity or beyond. However, if PAN was 120 when the current Y10 were admitted you will have a very good chance of winning your appeal.

If they were below 90 then it might be possible that in some parts of the timetable they are operating only three groups, making them all rather full (I've certainly known that sort of thing happen where a year group has been well below numbers - funding is on the numbers you have, not what you could have, so you timetable accordingly). However that seems unlikely if they have nearer 100.

I agree with PRH that in theory that the school can say that they are full because of operational constraints. However if the PAN was 120 when pupils in year 10 were admitted in year 7, then the school are going to have a very difficult time making a case at appeal.
I would try to confirm what the PAN was - if you go to the LA admission site they sometimes will have previous versions of their admission booklet available. Then go back to the school and say that as the PAN is 120 they should admit as they are not up to that figure and ask them to confirm in writing that they will not admit. You will then need to go to appeal.

Thank you very much for all the replies 😊