Secondary school appeals

[Kirstyl87]

Hi everyone, im currently going through appeals with my daughters secondary school. She didn’t have any of her 3 preferred choices. We aren’t in the catchment for any of these three schools the school that is in our area has a bad reputation and bad ofsted report. We had to move from a nice area to here because of DA and I don’t think it’s fair my daughters getting penalised for a mistake in my life. She’s had always been top of her class, she’s in the junior leadership team at school has never took a step wrong and is defo going far in life and now I feel that going to bad school where there’s high crime will just swallow her up. We have her appeal hearing on Wednesday 15th June and I’m terrified they won’t care about our story just the figures on distance etc can anyone help with advice?

You are appealing for the school you want.
Don't slag off the offered school, talk up the things your preferred school has that are beneficial to your DD.

Yep what Teen says. Don’t talk about the offered school in terms of poor results etc. It’s ok to say it doesn’t offer x which appeal school does.

What are your arguments op? Your dd being top of the class won’t help - but if she plays violin and there is an orchestra at the appeal school (and not at the offered school) then that will - or anything similar.

Agreed. You absolutely cannot talk down the offered school. The panel can't agree with you that a school is not 'good' because there will be 100s of children that go there everyday.

Instead, you need to draw up a list of all the things you prefer about the school you are appealing for, prioritising the areas that you can demonstrate benefit for your DD.

For example, saying it has an amazing drama department will only help if your DD has a interest/aptitude for drama.

Sadly, your circumstances are unlikely to make a difference, especially as you're applying out of area (if you were trying to get her into your most local school so that she integrates in her new community, that would be an argument worth making).

My only arguments is her going onto high education eg uni when older and the preferred school has a higher success rate then other schools in the area, also she suffered with her mental health and they have good programmes at the preferred school to help with that. Could she just randomly start playing on instrument this week I wonder?

What does the appealing school specialise in?

The only point there that might be grounds for an appeal is the mental health one -if you can show that the preferred school offers particularly strong mental health support over and above what would be offered by any school. It would probably also help to have something from a medical practitioner regarding this.

Higher education is irrelevant - not only will the panel think that this should be possible from any school, your child can always move to a different institution at age 16.
You'd need to provide evidence of your points. So I suggest she shouldn't take up an instrument this week (unless she really wants to, of course!).

Don't make up a sudden musical interest. You won't be able to evidence that it's genuine or long term and you'll piss the panel off.

Going to uni also won't help - conversely going to a school with poor results is likely to mean she gets a lower uni offer. Kids from poor schools do get to uni.

The school offering specialist MH support is a strong argument though - as long as you can demonstrate she needs this. Does she have counselling at the moment?

Have you already submitted the written part?

I hope you didn't say any of that stuff in it!

Thank you this is should a good point and has totally switched my way in thinking about this whole process

all I’ve said in the written part is about her mental health and how I work in the area of the school so travelling there isn’t a problem

Yes she sees the school pastoral teacher and she’s been referred to the mental health team in our area which they are assessing her this Tuesday. The preferred school specialises in arts. My daughter is really into media arts but that is something she does at home in her spare time so I don’t know how I would proof that. She games and edits videos and put them on social media and has 30k follows at the moment but I don’t really understand all of that to be honest and don’t even know if it’s something that would even help our case

The preferred school specialises in arts. My daughter is really into media arts but that is something she does at home in her spare time so I don’t know how I would proof that. She games and edits videos and put them on social media and has 30k follows at the moment

I would think that could really help too. If you can quantify 'specialises in arts' better. For example, it offers subjects at GCSE not offered by allocated school, or extra curricular clubs or whatever. 30k follows sounds unusual for an 11yo to me so use that as a proven interest.

We're getting there.

1. pastoral care due to witnessing (or victim) of DA in the past
2. specialist arts & proven interest from home activities Super. Anything else?
   • eg always brilliant at maths, preferred school enters maths olympiad?

If at age11 she has 30k follows you really need to understand what she's doing and interacting with. This could be used to your advantage if it's a credible skill and linked to strengths of appeal school. However if you turn up saying she has 30k followers on insta / Tik tok but you don't really understand what she's doing, it would be a huge safeguarding red flag tbh. I say that as a school governor.

Your appeal must be based on the provision from 11-16 because many pupils move school for sixth form.
You have mentioned the video and games editing. Does that link to GCSE provision at the preferred school e.g. Media or Computer Science?
You cannot use OFSTED reports and school results of the allocated school as part of your appeal.
Does the preferred school have a social needs category? The fact that your dd and you have been through a difficult experience that has forced a move could fit this admissions category (but not all schools have it so that's why often cases go to appeal).

If what you are trying to say is that if you had not moved due to the DA, you would have met the catchment / distance criteria for your preferred school that would also help. Some experts who would be able to help more are @admission and @PanelChair who I have tagged here.

Hi,
I monitor all social media of my daughters and are logged into all their accounts on my phone. She knows all the safety stuff doesn’t give any details out, doesn’t use her own mean and doesn’t use videos of herself. She does videos on Roblox of her character and edits them and put them on TikTok. What I meant by not understanding is how I can translate this in the appeal. X

In that case look at preferred school and see if they offer clubs / gcse options that link to media etc
Find a plausible link

I can’t add much to the good advice already given here.

To answer OP’s first point, the appeal panel will be interested in things apart from the distance to school. The whole point of the appeal is to listen to all the evidence, to weigh up whether the child’s need for a place outweighs the school’s need to keep to PAN.

There are some useful arguments here about pastoral care and media arts provision.

I don’t think you will get very far with the argument that you would have met the admissions criteria if you hadn’t moved away, because the appeal panel has to deal with the situation as it is, not how it might have been, but I think you can turn that around. You can (I think) argue that the reason you had to move away means that you need a school with excellent pastoral care. The school will probably argue that all schools have pastoral provision, so pinpoint things which make this school stand out.

Similarly, focus on the media arts provision and any other aspects of the school which particularly suit your child and which they won’t get elsewhere.

The info I have found upto now is …
IT, Media and Performing Arts
450 computers and monitors
A number of mobile devices including
laptops and MacBooks
Recording studio
Video editing suite
PA system
• Projectors

After school clubs mostly musical instruments(that she doesn’t do)
chess club she loves chess.
gcse they have fine arts, digital information technology ,computer science

they have a dedicated in school counsellor and a well-being therapy dog

im hoping some of these will help towards my argument

Yes link those as very clear reasons why this is the right school for your child

Hello. My son has been offered a school not on our preference list. The school is the second one nearest to us with a bad reputation. We have put him on waiting list for choices 1 & 2. He is currently 3rd for 2nd choice and there's glimmer of hope there I know but this is so overwhelming. I am unable to function and currently not sleeping very well. My heart breaks everytime I look at my son, he looks so sad. I can't stop thinking that he doesn't deserve that, he is very bright academically and we are currently working on our appeal. We will be appealing on the ground of SEND, my son has a history of selective mutism. We have letters from therapist and diagnosis from the CAMHS. I know we should not appeal against the allocated school but it looks like the school shows a good support for SEND on its website except that in reality it doesn't. It is quite a disruptive school and ironically the school that my son dreaded getting. Any advice for our appeal please

@GoldCrow I would start your own thread but in general, you need those letters from medical professionals to state that school x is the only one that can support your son. Tbf all schools offer support for SEN so what is especially good about the appeal school?

Thank you I have started a new thread now