Tips - What to do if you aren't happy with your school place

[PatriciaHolm]

OK, so it's National Offer Day for Secondaries today so I thought it might be useful to do a quick summary post, primarily on what to do if you aren't happy, as I know it will come up a lot today....(FWIW, I sit on Appeals Panels, and also a Chair of Governors. There are several other panelists around too.) Hopefully this will be helpful.

What to do if you get a school you don't want?

1. Accept it. This is does not signal to the LA that you are happy, it just locks in a "last resort" option. It has NO impact on waiting lists - you get no preferential treatment on lists or at appeal if you turn the place down, nor are you negatively impacted if you have accepted a place.
If you turn it down, the LA no longer has an obligation to find you a place, so you will be dependent on waiting lists/appeals. If they don't come through, you could find yourself with no place in September. So ONLY turn it down if homeschool (or private) is definitely an option......

2.Get yourself onto Waiting lists for schools you do want. In some areas you are automatically put on lists for schools higher in your preferences that you don't get into, in some cases you need to ask, so check - your LA website, email, or login portal will probably tell you what to do. You can also add yourself to lists for schools you didn't apply for (some LAs limit the amount of lists you can be on though.)

3. Check there has been no mistake. If you are genuinely surprised and you think a mistake might have been made - wrong distance used, sibling link ignored etc - it's worth checking. Your decision letter/portal is likely to have the criteria you were assessed under for each school and, for example, the distance used in the case of distance criteria, so check all is well. If it doesn't, check with the LA. But be patient, lots of people will be calling/emailing today and tomorrow....

4. Think about appeals. You can appeal for any school you applied for and didn't get into. I won't go into depth here as each appeal is different, but essentially you need to show that the detriment to the school of taking another pupil is less than the detriment to your child of getting a place. If you decide to do this, post and ask for help! A number of us here are happy to do so.

If you are happy - great! Accept it, if you need to (some LAs will auto accept for you.) And be patient - most secondaries are a bit busy right now (!) so it may be a while before you hear from your chosen school re. induction etc.

Any questions, do ask. Sometimes it's easier for someone not emotionally involved to figure out the answer or find a detail.

oh, and - if there are other schools in your area with places that you would prefer, you can apply for those too. Check with the LA.

Thanks @PatriciaHolm. Really useful advice.

I have a friend who thought she had sibling priority but had failed to recognise that a year 11 sibling wouldn't meet criteria. I'm waiting for her to send some more info over but it looks to me as though her DD should be criteria 4 (attends a feeder school but doesn't live in catchment) and given school has gone to criteria 5 (distance) she must be in wrong grouping.

I assume this is because she completed the application incorrectly (ie stated she had sibling priority). What's your advice where the applicant parent has made a mistake please... set it all out in writing and hope that will give him a high position on the waiting list? I assume it's too late to rectify the mistake because places have been allocated?

Good luck everyone!

@raggiedolls

If I read that correctly, your friend applied under a criteria that didn't apply (sibling); in that case, her application should have been dealt with under the category that does apply, criteria 4, if you are sure she attends a feeder but doesn't live in catchment.

If the school has offered places in Criteria 5 (and considered this child under that category and not offered a place) without offering to all in Criteria 4, then a mistake has been made, assuming the parent put the existing school name on the application.

Ideally the school should put it right (I know the applicant has made a mistake, but so have the school, and that mistake has cost the child a place) by offering a place now, and I would push for that. However some schools may take the approach of pushing parents towards an appeal.

Given the school has made a decision to put the child in C5 after the parent's error, I would argue their mistake is the key one here that cost the child a place, assuming they had the information about the child's current school.

Thank you so much @PatriciaHolm, that is really helpful. In these circumstances it does appear as though the local authority (who handle admissions on behalf of the academy) have made an error.

My friend is distraught, going to meet her for a walk later to pull our thoughts together and set out what we think has happened in writing. The school is just at PAN which i assume is helpful, they haven't already admitted extra children.

If it turns out that it's her mistake, because she failed to put the feeder school on the form or something, she should get ask to be put on to the waiting list - if they offered places down to criteria 5, she's likely to be put on the waiting list at or near the top, because anyone who has already applied and meets criteria 4 has already been offered a place.

I’ve also been involved in appeals in the past. Be positive with DC about the school place your child has been offered even if you are on waiting lists or appealing. Hold back any disappointment you have for support elsewhere eg NN. Your child may be going to that school that was not their or your first/so on preference.

MN not NN

@PatriciaHolm please could i ask you for your help. We applied to a local faith secondary school in Essex for our triplets and we were advised today that only 1 of the 3 had been accepted and the other 2 had been allocated another school in the area, a school that we hadn't even put on our list.

We obviously fit the applications criteria for the school as one of the children was accepted. Please could you give us some guidance on what we should do next?

we also saw something about "excepted pupils"

Please could you help as the children are in a terrible state and have just been crying all day about being split up when they go to secondary school.

What with this on top of the months of lockdown we are at our wits end.

Thank you in advance.

@jimmyadds123 I've just replied on your other thread!

Hi! I’m unhappy with our allocation.

How do I find out which other schools have spaces, though?

Thank you!

@jimmyadds123- surely they can’t split triplets up! I found have thought they would be able to bend the rules for them. Good luck 💐

@BrutusMcDogface

Hi! I’m unhappy with our allocation.

How do I find out which other schools have spaces, though?

Thank you!

@jimmyadds123- surely they can’t split triplets up! I found have thought they would be able to bend the rules for them. Good luck 💐

In the short term - probably talking to the LA. Some will have schools with places on their website, but probably not for a couple of weeks whilst things shake out, and not all do that anyway.

So first port of call is the LA, though appreciate they might be super busy the next day or so!

Make sure you are also on waiting lists - some LAs do this automatically for schools higher on your application that you didn't get in to, some request that you ask.

Hello @PatriciaHolm!
My son didn't get a place at our first choice school. He has ADHD and ASD but he doesn't have an EHCP - will an appeal panel be interested in his SEN without the EHCP? No-one he knows will be going to the school he has a place at. They will all either go to the school we wanted for him, or the local secondary which he refuses to set foot in because the children on the year above him who bullied him go there.

@Waitingfirgodot

Potentially, yes - you need to make a case that the detriment to the school in taking another pupil is less than the detriment to him in not attending. If there are good reasons that the school is better for him because of his ADHD and ASD, then absolutely, they can be taken into consideration. Would you have any medical/social workers who would be prepared to write a letter than clearly states this is the best school for him?

The bullying would be relevant if you can evidence it - letters from school etc.

We haven't had any involvement from social care, but medical letters - potentially! Thank you!

Thanks! We are automatically on the waiting lists here.

No idea how I convince the school to take my child. The reason I wanted her there was because I love the school and its ethos.

@BrutusMcDogface

Thanks! We are automatically on the waiting lists here.

No idea how I convince the school to take my child. The reason I wanted her there was because I love the school and its ethos.

If you are talking about an appeal, you don't need to convince the school - the appeal will be judged by an Independent Appeals Panel. They are not employed by the school or the local authority. You and the school will put forward your arguments - the school as to why it is full, and cannot take another pupil/s, and you as to why the detriment to them of doing so is greater than the detriment to your child of not going. Ideally you would find things on offer, specialisms, etc that show why your child would benefit from this school specifically.

In my experience an appeal on the grounds, this is the best school for my child, wasn't successful, and somewhat put us off the 1st choice school to hear a member of SMT explain why they didn't want our child.
In retrospect I wouldn't have appealed, and DS loved his 2nd choice school once he started, although he was adamant he didn't want to go there, which pushed us to appeal.

That's really helpful, thank you. My son put three grammars on his and got his third choice, we've applied to go on the waiting list for his second choice one but didn't know whether by accepting the offer we'd shoot ourselves in the foot!

Bump

Hence why I don’t feel that there’s any point in appealing! I’ll phone up to see whereabouts on the waiting lists we are. Not much else I can do.

Thank you for taking the time to reply, @PatriciaHolm 💐

We didn’t get any of our four choices. I’d have been happy with a place somewhere we actually liked and applied for!

You are welcome. And honestly, it's always worth appealing, especially at secondary; you never know when/if something will arise that means the schools case is much weaker than it might seem, or irregularities appear.

I have a question... my DS got allocated our fifth preference school, which is a decent school but we are still disappointed.

However, on the email from eadmissions it says: "Please note it is your responsibility to inform the local authority if you do not want your child to be on the waiting for a higher preference school. In the event that a place becomes available at one of your higher preference schools, the place offered at your lower preference school will automatically be withdrawn."

I don't really understand this. Does this mean that any point if a place becomes available at preferences 1 to 4, the place at school 5 will be withdrawn without us getting a say? And if so, up until when? At some point before September will just want to prepare DS for his new school and not change.

Also we are on the border of several different LAs, and have applied for schools in Croydon, Lambeth, Southwark and Bromley! Do I really have to contact all of these and say if I want to be taken off waiting lists?

Any help much appreciated!