Secondary school appeal help!

[Stressedoutmum11]

Hi all, I would be extremely grateful for some guidance on how to counter the claims made by the school for stage 1 and 2 of the appeal.

Abut of background on my child, he is in a feeder school but doesn't Live in catchment. He suffers with anxiety and going to chosen school will greatly help with this. Ever since he’s found out he didn’t get a place on offer day it’s affects his sleep and day to day performance.

summary from the schools case is
high performing school with an excellent reputation. As such, we are heavily over-subscribed and have already admitted more students than our school site can accommodate, in order to respond to this popularity and local demographics. To admit more students will only serve to place an intolerable strain on the school, physically as well as financially, which would severely prejudice the quality of education we can provide for the students already admitted. Ultimately, this only serves to undermine the school’s reputation and will lead to our eventual demise.
Furthermore, to admit additional students into any year group is likely to bring about a serious health, safety concern, particularly within design and technology.

images are attached with other points.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as dad works away most of the week and I am a full time student in another city. Also have 2 other children who are in school and the logistics of the school offered which is in the opposite direction would mean children are late getting to school on a daily basis.

thank you.

I can see the pictures aren’t clear so I’ve attached the information below.
The School is a popular and over-subscribed 11-18 specialist technology school. School is an academy and, as such, the governors are the admissions authority and have responsibility for determining its admission arrangements. Enclosed is a copy of our admissions policy 2022-23 (Appendix 1).
Our pupil admission number (PAN) is 216 and we are full in all year groups.
Our indicative admission number is 216 (Appendix 2). This rose in September 2016 from 208, following new building works.
Our post 16 numbers have also increased over the last six years as the popularity of our academic provision has increased and more of our own students have met the entry requirements.
To admit an additional child would be incompatible with the admission arrangements as agreed with the local authority in consultation with parents and the local community.
We have consulted on and published lawful over-subscription criteria in accordance with the statutory requirements.
To admit would prejudice the school’s ability to provide ‘efficient education and use of resources’
The School exceeds its indicative admission number in all year groups. The net capacity assessment (Appendix 2) demonstrates that we can admit a maximum of 216 students. This equates to 1080 students in all in the main school. At the time of writing, the school expects to receive 270 students in September into Year 7 and currently has 265 students in year 7 (Year 8 in September), 273 students on roll in year 8 (Year 9 in September), 270 in year 9 (Year 10 in September) and 263 in year 10 (Year 11 in September). All of this means that we will have 1342 students in the main school for 1080 places; an over-subscription of 262 students.
In addition, there are currently 416 students on roll in Post-16 which equates to a total school population of 1758 students from September if the current Post-16 population remains at the same level, although early indications are that the number of students entering Year 12 may rise.
Our net capacity calculation affords us a maximum number of 1406 for the PAN of 216 students, which we will exceed by at least 325 students.
Standard classroom size
The recommended class size of 30 students for a secondary school is 56m2 (from building bulletin data) and 87% of our standard classrooms are below this (see Appendix 3). However, our present small classrooms become even smaller whenever we have the presence of children in wheelchairs. Typically, a child in a wheelchair needs 1.5m2 to turn through 360 degrees and needs the same space as four children to carry out a simple manoeuvre.
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We may also face, at any time, other students who have temporary physical injuries and have difficulties accessing some classrooms. As a result, we have to ensure that these children are able to enter all of our classrooms (despite this actually being physically impossible) which has the net effect of reducing down the amount of seating, thus reducing down our class size still further. Admitting another child would create additional hazards such as putting desks in front of fire escapes or blocking the movement of the teachers and impact learning.

,Over-capacity of classrooms
Given our over-subscription, we have severe restrictions on the availability of rooms for scheduling purposes. By way of example, we have an occupancy rate of 95% for our normal classrooms and a 93% occupancy rate for our Post-16 rooms. This is far higher than one would normally expect in a secondary school (typically 85%) which makes the scheduling of lessons extremely difficult in the timetable. The net result of this difficulty often puts teachers in non-specialist areas or vice versa e.g. a science teacher may have to teach a lesson in a standard classroom or a geography teacher may have to teach in a science laboratory.
This over-capacity of rooms also means that many teachers do not have their own dedicated teaching room and are nomadic between lessons. This presents logistical and educational difficulties for the teacher as their resources are not often near the classroom they are required to teach in.
Additional students in PE would also present a further difficulty for us, due to the size of our changing facilities. Presently, half a year group have to change at any one time because of our scheduling restrictions. For the new Year 7 this will require 143 children to change in areas designed for 108 which does present us with an overcrowding situation.
Design and technology class sizes
Due to our rooming difficulties, we are unable to maintain the guidance to keep design and technology class sizes to no more than 20. According to the British Code of Practice BS4163 2007 Health and Safety for Design and Technology in Schools and Similar Establishments. In England and Wales, the recommended number of students in any one work area is 20 students with one, competent, qualified teacher. We create 12 DT classes per year group which, for this year, means we will have an average class size of 23 in Year 7.
The Health and Safety Executive has indicated that it will not hesitate to prosecute an employer (which for us means the governors and myself) should an accident happen which was found to be due to excessive class size. Whilst not having the full force of law, a code of practice is a powerful guidance document and failure to follow it would almost undoubtedly result in a successful prosecution in the event of an injury arising from such failure.
It is also worth mentioning that in addition to a successful criminal prosecution, there would almost certainly be a civil claim for compensation for personal injury. There is also the risk that if health and safety codes of practice are not followed, the public liability insurers might take a hard line in respect of indemnifying the claim.
Presently, all of our class sizes in technology exceed 20. To admit an additional child would therefore only further increase the risk of an accident in these classes, which could result in a successful prosecution against the school.
General school facilities
To admit further students would have an impact on our other resources. Our present catering facilities are inadequate for the number of students we have and consequently we have to split both our break and lunch time arrangements. Our corridor space is limited and student movement in between lessons can be dangerous, with bottlenecks at entrance/exit doors and staircases. We lack both external and 2

internal social areas for our students and have to use tennis court/netball areas in bad weather. Given our split lunch arrangements, this means that the PE department cannot use this facility during this time.
In year fair access protocol
We are part of a local agreement between schools in which we admit students who are ‘hard to place’. Past experience shows that we are likely to receive 3 or 4 students per year group during the year through this process and the panel need to be mindful of this future prejudicial impact.
Impact of admitting an additional student
This would have a detrimental impact on our existing students and staff.

In our small rooms, students already feel very cramped and an additional student will only make the learning atmosphere more difficult. Many of our classes will have two adults present who also need to move freely around the room to support the work of our students; an additional student would hamper this. Any flexibility that the teacher has to use the limited space available for learning purposes would be reduced, teacher contact time with each student would also be reduced and movement time from lesson to lesson would be increased. Increasing the number of children will only serve to add extra workload for teachers, to their marking and individual support.
We also ask the panel to be mindful of school finances that continue to be under severe strain. We have been compelled to move away from our normal 8 forms of entry to admit 9 forms. Admitting more than 270 students requires us to move to 10 forms of entry and anything less than 300 students for 10 forms is simply unviable. However, as explained in this document, our entire infrastructure is unable to accommodate 10 forms.
We also ask the panel to be mindful of the impact of lagged funding, where we are funded for student numbers the year after they arrive. We recently moved from 8 forms of entry to 9 over a five year period, and for four of these years we had to fund the additional teacher costs ourselves. This expansion required us to find approximately £100,000 of additional teacher costs per year for four years on top of an already very stretched budget. Moving to ten forms of entry is financially impossible for us because of this lagged funding impact.
Summary
The School is a high performing school with an excellent reputation. As such, we are heavily over-subscribed and have already admitted more students than our school site can accommodate, in order to respond to this popularity and local demographics. To admit more students will only serve to place an intolerable strain on the school, physically as well as financially, which would severely prejudice the quality of education we can provide for the students already admitted. Ultimately, this only serves to undermine the school’s reputation and will lead to our eventual demise.
Furthermore, to admit additional students into any year group is likely to bring about a serious health and safety concern, particularly within design and technology.

How specifically will his anxiety be helped by this school in particular?

Transport and logistic issues are not relevant in terms of an appeal.

Have you got more of a case than anxiety? Does he do anything out of school that is offered at the school you want for example.

I have successfully appealed for primary and to me what they have sent sounds like the standard stuff they will send out to everyone that appeals. At my appeal the chap from the LEA talked a great deal about the fire escapes and the area of the smallest classrooms. Those are the facts aren’t they? They can’t have more dc than they can physically accommodate.

I don’t want to be dismissive of your child’s anxiety but I do feel like you are goi g to need a lot more than this to succeed. There will be countless year six children who didn’t get the school they wanted who now feel worried about secondary school. Those feelings are quite understandable and normal. No doubt the new school will be running transition sessions after the SATS.

Some of the usual things are to ask how many accidents have occurred in the past however many years that can be attributed to overcrowding. I’m also not sure about the argument that they need to keep some in case someone breaks their leg, but others may know more in that.

It is, however, not about completely breaking down the school’s case. It’s about showing that the overall detriment to your son is worse than the detriment to the school.

Transport issues are very unlikely to have any weight unless there are significant (and documented) issues that mean he is unable to travel alone.

Why will going to this school support your son’s anxiety?

Yes, agree you need to focus on why going to this school will help with your son's anxiety. As he's in a feeder primary school are there, for example, regular joint events between the 2 schools so that he is already very familiar with his new school? If you are relying on him going up with friends, you should know that my DC's experience was that, despite going up to secondary school with many primary school friends, they scarcely saw any of them during lessons due to class allocations.

I'd also question if you really want him to go to a school that is already overcrowded. Is this really an environment that would suit an anxious child?

I’m not sure how attending a large oversubscribed school is going to help his anxiety.

Have you looked into alternative options? We didn’t get our first choice or actually any of our choices last year. The school we got was an ‘over my dead body school’. In the end I didn’t appeal as I re-looked at all the available schools (the LEA told me which still had places available), I found a school we had previously overlooked and he got a place there.

He suffers from anxiety too. The school he is at only has around 600 pupils so much smaller (the school we wanted sounds similar to yours in size). The smaller school is much much better for his anxiety. Of course initially he was very anxious that he wasn’t going to know anyone but we are now two terms in and he loves it! He’s thriving there and said only last week that he’s actually glad things turned out the way they did.

I really for you, my son is the same. Anxious and heartbroken at the same time.

have you double checked the admission policy, as usually a feeder school is high on the listings to get in a school, regardless of living place?

Is the school you have been offered more than 3 miles away so will be offered transport?

The key is that you need to show that the detriment to your child of not attending this school is greater than the detriment to the school of taking another pupil.

Whilst the school's case is over-egged a bit I think, it would seem that they are genuinely overcrowded and significantly over PAN. I'm not sure how they have got to the stage of taking so many over PAN each year, I would imagine it started with requests from the LA and has continued if pressure in places locally is strong. However, they would appear to have significantly more pupils than their net capacity suggests they should, and unless something comes out on the day, it looks as if they do have a strong case. You could ask about whether they have any children in wheelchairs, and if they have had any reportable accidents.

So you would need a strong specific case for your son to attend this specific school; documented evidence about his anxiety, for example, and very clearly (ideally in the of a medical expert) why this school is the one to meet those needs. General issues around going up with friends, etc, are not going to be enough. Many children have anxiety about going to secondary, and all schools would be expected to be able to deal with that.

Issues around transport aren't relevant - he would normally be expected to be able to make his own way to secondary.

The school he has been offered is 8 miles away, he has never travelled on his own and having researched on the other school offered there’s a clear acknowledgment of pupils facing issues while travelling on buses.

After re reading my post I can see it seems as if the anxiety is surrounding not getting a school place. This isn’t the case he has been suffering with anxiety and his mental health after the horrific death of a young family member who he was very close to 3 years ago. Ever since he has not been the same, not getting a place into the school has further added to the problem that was already there. He is a keen boxer taking part nationally in skills bouts however not getting the school place has tipped him over the edge and he is now demotivated, not eating & sleeping properly and I’ve had to reach out for extra help.

it really is a very stressful experience, I’ve checked with the school as well as reading the literature, out of 6 scenarios our is at number 5 with most precedence given to catchment as opposed to feeder school.

I can see your point and it does the seem the obvious however he is familiar with that school having attended many sporting events linked to the school and has friends from boxing that already attend there. We went there on the open day too. When we moved into the area around 3 years ago he struggled with the school change and does adapt better in familiar surroundings.

im glad it worked out for you in the end, that’s all I want and it’s ideal hearing it from you’re child hes happy. I also worry about my other two children facing the same issue as they would be in the same situation once they’re ready for secondary school.

You would need to present some professional documentation to support the anxiety and why the preferred school specifically is able to address it. Presumably within the Feeder school category , distance is a tiebreaker. At 8 miles are the LA offering transport?

I should imagine that the vast majority of children who have not been allocated their choice school where their friends are attending will all have anxiety. Some of these children will have also been through tragic events and have difficult backgrounds, family circumstances or SEN.
I don't want to diminish your son's needs but I think it's worth being aware that others appealing may be using SEN or other extenuating circumstances as part of their appeal. Then how is the decision made if there is a queue of candidates with good reason to be at that particular school.
Am I right in thinking your son has siblings at the school - does that not place him higher up the priority list or have I missed something (apologies the copied text is hard for me to read.)

As the allocated school is 8 miles away as others have said the LA will make provision for free home to school transport. Find out what form that will take. A taxi door to door, or a bus pass? If the latter then what will the journey length be - if it's more than say 1.5 hrs you need to include that in your appeal, or ask that the Fair Access protocol is applied for your ds as that length journey is unreasonable.

The school's case is definitely over-egged. Suggesting the school might end up closing if it admits an additional pupil is way over the top. The whole thing is so obviously over the top with talk of criminal prosecutions that I would hope an appeal panel would simply disregard a lot of it.

I would pick up on the reference to the Fair Access Protocol as this hints at them keeping places free in case they have to admit pupils via the FAP. This is not allowed. If they can admit pupils via the FAP, they can admit pupils now.

It would be interesting to see what the net capacity assessment actually says. Is it up to date, based on their current buildings? Have they set their net capacity at the bottom of the calculated range? And, if they can't cope, why have they gone so far over net capacity?

Sounds like your DS has been through a tough time. My DS is similar - his anxiety was also triggered by the sudden unexpected death of a young family member. He gets public transport to his school which is ten miles away (it’s only about a 30 minute journey though as most of it is 60mph country roads). He was extremely anxious about getting the bus alone but now feels it’s helped to increase his confidence.

Could the boxing be used as reason for your preferred school? Does the school you’ve been allocated offer boxing?

That’s a good point I need to find out if any support will be offered for the distance. Thankfully I do have professional documentation regarding the anxiety, thank you.

Thank you for your post, I know that the kids do adjust it’s us parents who have a harder time. The school does not offer boxing however with the timings of the school and the closer distance is just over a mile he will be able to attend his extra curricular actives instead of that time being spent in commuting. I have further seen that the school offered has had incidents of children being followed and knife problems, is it fair to mention this in the appeal? Any advice would be great fully received.

That fair access protocol seems like a good topic to mention as it does indicate spaces are reserved. The figures for capacity and building are current and upto date. I am surprised myself at how much over they have gone for capacity and have produced this information for appeal as it’s seems like I’m fighting a losing battle.

My son has siblings at the junior school and not at the secondary school as sibling link would
Place him at Higher ranking however this is not the case. I do agree that people would use such circumstances however I do have professional documentation to prove this, just not sure how much weight all this will hold at stage 2.