Question for Appeal Panel experts

[MellyWeller]

Would you expect an appeal panel member to declare if they were the grandparent of a recent former student?

No, why should they?

No, they would be considered independent of the school. If they were the grandparent of a current pupil then that is where you might consider that they are not truly independent.

No. - grandparent of a current pupil, yes, but then that sort of detail should be known by whoever is putting the panel together and they should avoid placing people on panels where they have connections anyway. I sit for Surrey, and they know where my kids go to school and the school I am a Governor of, so to avoid any such issues.

No, the Grandparent of a current pupil possibly but of a former pupil (no matter how recent) makes no difference whatsoever.

Thanks all. Thought so. (The relationship is tangentially relevant to an appeal I participated in, because of certain assumptions that were made by him, but no point in raising it if it's not a usual thing to declare).

Another no from me. I think the community nature of how appeal panel members are recruited to the pool (in my LEA anyway) means that many will have slight connections to schools - neighbours’ children go there now, relatives’ children used to go there, etc - and the connection you mention isn’t close enough to be declared.

A few years ago, I declared an interest in an appeal where the allocated school was the one I’d been a governor of about five years previously, but that was probably more disclosure than was strictly necessary.

No from me too. Some people are prohibited from setting on an appeal panel as their presence would raise questions about impartiality - governors or former governors of the appeal school, for example. But grandparent of an ex-student seems fine to me.