Appeal school allocation - Faith / Social grounds - do we have grounds?

Africa2go · 02/03/2021 10:54

I'm sure more experienced people will be along soon, but there are 2 schools of thought - (1) you have nothing to lose versus (2) is it worth the stress when it sounds you don't have a strong case?

Objectively, it doesn't sound like you have good reasons for an appeal. If you've only been going to church for 2 years and your DS is 10 or 11, I think its going to be difficult to argue that Faith is massively important to you / your DS unless you can show something else? Involvement / active over and above normal attendance? The fact that its a smaller school / his friends are going there doesn't really add much. Could you look deeper at what the school offers that the allocated school doesn't that would match your DS' interests / ambitions?

Having said that, if you don't mind the stress / uncertainty of an appeal (and perhaps you don't need to tell your DS what you're doing so he doesn't worry) then like I said above, you have nothing to lose.

Original poster

Cariocbirello · 02/03/2021 11:00

Thanks Africa2go - to clarify we have been attending the same church since before DS was born, and he was christened there. His primary is C of E too and we would like to continue a faith based education. It’s just the SIF only specifies 2+ years of church attendance.

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EduCated · 02/03/2021 11:04

Short answer, neither faith not wanting to be with friends are convincing for an appeal.

That said, the only thing you have to lose by appealing is time and mental energy. There are lots of threads about how to form an appeal based around things like curriculum, clubs etc. so very worth taking a look at these and deciding if you think it’s worth your time and energy.

EduCated · 02/03/2021 11:05

Also make sure you are on the waiting list there, and also any of the other closer schools if you would prefer those to what you have been allocated.

TangerineGenie · 02/03/2021 11:15

How does the waiting list work regarding the 50:50 split faith/distance allocation?

Original poster

Cariocbirello · 02/03/2021 11:19

Hi TangerineGenie, good question, I am not sure. I did ask the school via email if the SIF affected his WL position yesterday, but they did not answer this in their email.

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prh47bridge · 02/03/2021 11:28

It won't do any harm to appeal. You won't lose anything by trying. But you will need better grounds. Wanting a faith school is unlikely to carry any weight with the appeal panel. Similarly, unless there is professional evidence to support your son's need to stay with his current friends, friendship issues won't carry any weight. If you want to go for an appeal you should look for things that the faith school offers that are missing from the allocated school and are particularly relevant to your son.

How does the waiting list work regarding the 50:50 split faith/distance allocation?

What should happen is that, if someone awarded a place on faith grounds rejects the offer, someone else with priority due to faith should be offered the place. If it was someone who didn't get in on faith grounds, the place should be allocated on distance. However, in my experience some schools don't get this right.

TangerineGenie · 02/03/2021 11:34

What should happen is that, if someone awarded a place on faith grounds rejects the offer, someone else with priority due to faith should be offered the place. If it was someone who didn't get in on faith grounds, the place should be allocated on distance. However, in my experience some schools don't get this right.

Yes that's what i would expect, so in effect there would be two wait lists? Given the last admitted distance and the OP's distance from the school it sounds like she could be relatively high up the 'faith' wait list if that's how it's being done.

Ariela · 02/03/2021 11:46

Although he knew a lot of people going to no1 choice, you'll find that otehr than 1 specific friend generally secondary schools will split the intake from primaries so you don't get them and us gangs around the classes. So he'd have been asked to supply the name of 1 friend he wanted to be with that's all, and he might have ended up with 3-4 others from his school if a big cohort going.
You'll find he'll be sat next to new people in tutor time, in different groupings for maths science English etc so lots of opportunities to make new friends.
I had similar with my eldest, she went to a school with just 4 from her primary none of whom she really knew or was friends with. Instead we treated it as an opportunity to meet new people. People like talking about themselves a lot, and are flattered when people show an interest so it's easy to break the ice with open ended questions so we practised a few eg 'which junior school did you go to' and 'what sports do you like doing' etc and on day 1 she came back buzzing that she'd made 3 new friends.

You may also find at the bigger school there are more opportunities for different subjects etc, better specialisms etc, greater opportunities for different sports etc so I found best to always up-talk the school and what the school offers.

Original poster

Cariocbirello · 02/03/2021 12:10

Thanks Ariela, all very true. I am being very positive about the school when talking to DS, and genuinely think lots of pluses about his allocated school. His primary is v small & most of the boys are football crazy - hoping a big school would give him more chances to meet kids in things he’s keen on like sci fi & music etc

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Original poster

Cariocbirello · 03/03/2021 09:29

I’ve read on other threads that it’s possible to find out which criteria your child was considered under (eg distance or faith). Who would I contact for this info at this stage - local authority or school? Thanks

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PanelChair · 03/03/2021 11:25

As I said on the other thread, I’d start by asking the LEA to confirm under which oversubscription category your application was considered, although they may refer you back to the school.

I agree with prh47bridge that nothing you’ve mentioned so far is likely to win you an appeal. You need to supplement with other reasons why your child will be disadvantaged if they don’t attend this school - that might be curriculum, extra-curricular provision, pastoral care or anything else.

riceuten · 03/03/2021 17:43

@Cariocbirello

DS was allocated his 4th preference school yesterday. Places are automatically accepted by the LA here, and he is automatically added to the waiting list for preferences 1 to 3, so all that is covered.

I am wondering if we should appeal, but am really unsure whether we have grounds.

I’ll give a bit of background info and hopefully someone with more experience will be able to advise me

Our first choice school is a C of E comp, rated outstanding & massively oversubscribed (800+ applications for 150 places). After the usual criteria (looked after children, siblings etc) 50% of remaining places are offered on distance & 50% on faith criteria (with distance if faith applications exceed places). The school is 1.38 miles from us, we submitted the school SIF confirming 2+ years regular church attendance signed by our Vicar with our application in October. The school emailed yesterday & confirmed the last distance place offered this year was 0.798 miles from school & the last faith place was 1.288 miles from school.

The school we have been allocated is a good but very big comp, rated good & 2.83 miles from us. I am surprised we have been allocated a place here as it is also over subscribed (800+ applications for 292 places) and there are closer schools to us, which we listed lower as we did not like so much. My fear was that if we did not get our first choice on faith criteria we would have most likely got our 6th choice as this is also 1.3 miles from us, but requiring improvement & with a poorer reputation.

In short things could be worse 😄

The cons with our allocation are the allocated school is not a faith school, which we would like for DS. Also all DS friends have been offered places at our first preference, & it looks like he will not know anyone at our allocated school. He is an anxious little soul at times, and I think he would be more comfortable in a smaller school.

Would anyone be able to advise us if we should appeal on the off chance we could get a place? I don’t want to stress out DS anymore, and am feeling daunted by the appeal process too tbh, but also want to make every effort to give him a chance for a place. Friends & family are telling me to appeal, are they right?

Thanks everyone.

On what grounds are you appealing ?

Remember, there are just 3 grounds for an appeal. If you don't state one and provide supporting evidence, there isn't a chance in hell you will even be considered. Appealing "because my DS/DD didn't get in" is insufficient.

The 3 grounds

the Admissions arrangements were non-compliant with the government's code
the Admissions authority (the LA for community schools, the governors for an academy) did not apply the (compliant) rules correctly
that admitting a child above the admissions limit would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources

The VAST majority of appeals fail because they don't address any of these options. The parent just turns up, cries or yells at the Panel (clue: the latter NEVER works) and leaves. It's rare that a school or an LA has a non-compliant admissions policy, and a school only needs to provide a funding agreement or a net capacity assessment (which indicates an admissions number) to show that admitting a child above the admissions limit would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources. So you need to provide evidence they didn't apply the policy correctly - which will not be easy to do.

Occasionally a school will admit a child above PAN on appeal IF they are high up the waiting list.

Nwamama · 03/03/2021 18:00

Hi All, this is my first child going to secondary school in Sep 2021. He has being given school that wasn't on the list I chose when I was choosing the schools. I am not sure if I should decline it as I don't like the school at all and is far from my house. If I decline it do I stand chances of getting a closer school ?Can anyone advice me please? Thank you!

clary · 03/03/2021 18:33

@Nwamama

Hi All, this is my first child going to secondary school in Sep 2021. He has being given school that wasn't on the list I chose when I was choosing the schools. I am not sure if I should decline it as I don't like the school at all and is far from my house. If I decline it do I stand chances of getting a closer school ?Can anyone advice me please? Thank you!

You might want to start your own thread on this. But to answer quickly, don't decline the school place unless you are happy to home educate or go private.

If you turn it down, the LA is not obliged to do anything else for you - it certainly won't then look around for something you prefer. Remember the list of preferences is just that - where you would prefer your child to go.

Have a look at how far away pupils were who were admitted at those schools you preferred. Where are you on the waiting lists?

Did you apply to your catchment or nearest school? If not, and you would prefer it to your allocated school, you can go on the WL for it (you may be higher up the list on that one). You can appeal only for schools you did put down. What about them makes them suitable for your son? Clubs, curriculum, sporting or musical opportunities?

PanelChair · 03/03/2021 18:49

There are just 3 grounds for an appeal

This is true but only for primary school admissions, in cases where the infant class sizes rules apply. So entirely irrelevant for secondary school appeals, which are assessed on the balance of prejudice, ie whether the prejudice (disadvantage) to the child of not being admitted outweighs the prejudice to the school and the pupils already in it if admitting an additional pupil.

Occasionally a school will admit a child above PAN on appeal if they are high up the waiting list

Again, this is not true. Your place on the waiting list is immaterial to your appeal. You will win or lose your appeal according to the balance of prejudice, discussed above. Children high on the waiting list may well win their appeals, but that will be because of the prejudice arguments, not because of their waiting list position. Any panel that gives weight to waiting list position is not following the appeals code. One LEA I hear appeals for won’t even disclose the waiting list position.

It is very unhelpful to hand out misinformation like this.

PanelChair · 03/03/2021 19:03

And looking again at riceuten’s post, even the summary of the third basis for a successful ICS appeal is misleading - it’s usually expressed in terms of the decision to refuse a place being unreasonable/irrational in the legal sense (so the parent will in effect be arguing that admitting the child would not prejudice efficient education etc ...)

Nwamama - Please do start your own thread. Do you know why you got no offers from your preferred schools? Were they unrealistic choices (eg they generally admit pupils who live within a mile but you live 5 miles away)? Don’t refuse a place unless you’re willing to home educate from September, as it’s far from certain you’ll get another offer.

prh47bridge · 03/03/2021 19:23

Agree with PanelChair that riceuten's post is entirely wrong. Some of it would be correct if we were talking about an ICS appeal for a primary school place. All of it is wrong when dealing with a secondary school appeal.

Original poster

Cariocbirello · 03/03/2021 20:54

Thanks very much for all the info and responses.

Panel & prh am I correct to summarise that we would only have a chance of a correct appeal if we could demonstrate one of the following:

the school’s admission policy was not followed when considering our application, so in our case our application was incorrectly considered under the distance criteria rather than the faith criteria, which is unlikely (I have emailed the LA admissions address and the school for more info and to ask which criteria was used, but just received a standard response from both with no detail).
the school offers something of particular benefit to my child (curriculum /extra curricular / pastoral) which the offered school does not.

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PanelChair · 03/03/2021 21:39

Not exactly.

If the school has made an error which has cost you a place (so not a trivial error which makes no difference) they should rectify the error and give you the place immediately, although some schools and LEAs insist that these errors go to appeal, for the panel to sort out.

Otherwise, you are seeking to persuade the panel that the prejudice (disadvantage) that your child would face if not given a place is so great that it outweighs any prejudice to the school in having to accommodate an additional pupil. So you need to pinpoint aspects of the school that they need - curriculum, extra-curricular activities, pastoral care, whatever - that they won’t get elsewhere..

prh47bridge · 03/03/2021 22:47

Agree with PanelChair

Original poster

Cariocbirello · 03/03/2021 23:06

Ok thank you both

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riceuten · 03/03/2021 23:08

Apologies, I had no idea this was a secondary case.

But I have definitely known academies admit people from the waiting list - whether that is the legally correct is another matter entirely.

And the "whether the prejudice (disadvantage) to the child of not being admitted outweighs the prejudice to the school and the pupils already in it if admitting an additional pupil" - I can count the successful appeals on that basis of the schools I work annually with on the fingers of one hand. The evidence presented is usually non-existent or at the level of "you will traumatise my child if she doesn't get a place".

Charmatt · 03/03/2021 23:22

We are not allowed to disclose the position on the waiting list as it's not relevant to an appeal and shouldn't be used to try to influence a panel. I have to say that I'm happy to speak to the parents afterwards to inform them where their child sits on the waiting list on that day.