To ask for secondary school appeal help, I am desperate.

[FluffyUnionSocks]

My youngest dd did not get a place at the same secondary school as her two siblings. Nor did she get her second or third choice school which were both within the catchment area. She was given a school 12.8 miles away which in my opinion is not walkable twice a day for the average 11 year old girl, there is not a foot paths the whole way and would mean walking down 60 mph A roads on the grass verge next to the hard shoulder. She could get the first bus in our village at 7:00am (bus runs every 2 hours) to the town centre where she would arrive at 8:30am, then get another bus to an Asda store 1 mile away from school arriving at 9:15am approx and then walk the last mile, she would arrive at school at 9:35-9:40am daily, the school starts at 8:20am so this is just not an option. I have heard that the appeal panel don’t care about transport issues but the local authority have given her an out of catchment school which she can not get to on time by public transport.

Secondly we have a safety plan put in place by the police (not for domestic violence but threats from outside the home) the local authority is aware of this as they recently chaired a multi agency meeting (ASBRAC) where the plan was was reviewed and renewed. Part of that plan along with lots of other things is the children aren’t to use public transport unaccompanied by an adult, left home alone or out in local area until the problem is resolved. My eldest child is 16 and the same rules apply to her, I take and collect my other two children to school, if the council do not budge one set of children will have to be late every day and one leave school early every day. They couldn’t do after school clubs as we are a one car family and dh needs to leave for work at 3:30pm and then isn’t home until 6:30am the following morning. If he gave up work to allow someone to do after school club we couldn’t afford our car pcp payment, mortgage or our life generally on universal credit.

Some one that knows about school appeals please tell me do I have a chance of winning this? Do I write all of this on the form? I have evidence of the safety plan/ASBRAC but I don’t necessarily want to hand that over as it has sensitive information and you never know who the panel knows, although I could photocopy and delete the offending parties details.

@FluffyUnionSocks we all really want to help you but unless you say whether you put her nearest suitable school on the form (ie. the closest school that was available to her) then it's like shooting in the dark. The only way that the council would be right about not helping with transport is if you didn't put your nearest suitable school on the form.

Appeal needs to be about why the school suits your child and you have just given loads of reasons. Does she have an ehcp?

Did you def fill out the form correctly? Can you get your contact in the la who knows about the safety issues to talk to admissions about the transport

I did not put our nearest school in a straight line on the list as it is not in our catchment area, I did up two catchment area schools on the list though as well as the school my other children go to. The distance difference between the catchment schools and our nearest school is 50 metres.

Call the school your older dds attend. Ask to speak to the admissions person, and find out why your other dd has not been allocated a place there. If it's a mistake, great. If not, go to appeal.

This tbh??

I filled in the form correctly, listing both siblings name, dob and current year group. The form was submitted on time. I screenshot the form so I am 100% sure all is correct.

I have contacted the LA school admissions department they are only contactable via email, it says please allow 28 days for a response in the automated reply I received. My appeal form has to be submitted by the 15th March so I will more than likely not hear back from them before that date.

Our closest school in a straight line is not in our catchment area so no I did not put a non catchment school as option 2 or 3, I did how ever put 2 catchment area schools as option 2 and 3.

@Lougle the transport isn’t really my issue my concern is the school they have allocated is not suitable for my dd to attend from an education standpoint.

Them giving her a free bus pass will not make it safe for her to travel on public transport. I would not allow my 11 year daughter to get into a taxi from the same local taxi company that is involved with the gang/county lines operation we are needing protection from just because the LA are paying for it. She would not be safe the LA know this but have still allocated her the school place. I’m sorry if I come across snippy I don’t mean to be but I am very distressed and I think any parent would be in my situation. My entire life has been disrupted for the last 4 years with no end in sight, nobody can sell up and move as are houses are un-sellable due to having to legally disclose what’s going to potential buyers. If I could afford to buy a second home far far away from and leave this one empty I would.

If that really is your council's policy, it's totally unlawful. It has a duty to provide transport to schools more than 3 miles away if the child is placed at the nearest suitable school. That normally only happens when parents have chosen a school which isn't the nearest to their home. As the council has allocated this school, they must be saying it is suitable and the nearest one with an available space. They are also not allowed to means test for the provision of transport to school age children.

Whatever else happens, you need to enter an application for transport immediately and, if they refuse it, use the appeal system which your local authority has to operate.

Which local authority is this? Their policy is so unlawful it cries out to be challenged. It could be worth contacting their Independent Monitoring Officer who is supposed to review potentially unlawful policies and actions by the LA.

I think I am not explaining myself properly, wheather I pay for the bus pass/taxi or the LA pay it is not safe for my dd to use them. This is in an official police document called a safety plan which the LA are aware of.

The correct admissions experts have already been tagged @PatriciaHolm may also be able to help.
I too suggest you get this moved to the Secondary Education board.
At minimum you should get yourself over there and read the various appeals threads now running as they will help you.

Even then, she would still be entitled to transport. If, say, School X is the nearest suitable school, but OP named schools A, B and C which are further away, then it is obviously still open to the council to allocate school X and OP would only be entitled to transport if it is more than 3 miles away. If they don't allocate school X but choose to allocate school Z 12 miles away, they are saying there is no nearer suitable school and they do have to provide transport.

Thank you @TeenDivided I will head over there and look now.

OP I think all the extraneous details are unnecessary. The school your older children go to has a sibling policy, therefore that is the ground for appeal. I wouldn’t get myself into knots about SEN and police etc before checking out clearly why she didn’t get a sibling place.

Appeal needs to be about why the school suits your child and you have just given loads of reasons.

No, it doesn't. The appeal should in the first instance be about whether the LA has applied its school admission process correctly and lawfully. If they normally give sibling priority for this school, it sounds as if they haven't.

If that argument doesn't apply, then the appeal is basically about whether prejudice to the child outweighs prejudice to the school. Given the safety issues, it sounds as if OP has a strong case there as well.

Unfortunately you can't ignore the transport issue. If your appeal is based solely on the fact that your child can't travel safely, then it would be defeated immediately on the basis that she is entitled to taxi transport from a company that is safe to use.

@Xol I think I have confused people over the transport and that’s now all anyone is concentrating on. My dd would not be safe using the transport even if it was free from LA she is not allowed to use public transport unaccompanied or the local taxi firm as some of the drivers are involved in what we are being protected from. This a formal legally binding safety plan from the police and LA, it is an official document.

Definiteky appeal
Query the sibling policy
At ssme time get on wait list for siblings school as there can be movement between now and september.
If you appeal you will need to provide all evidence it will be kept confidential
Dont panic
They woukd have to provide traNsport if they allocated the school

Go see your local councillor who ptesumably knows sll the ins snd outs of the police issue

Some absolutely terrible and erroneous advice here as per usual when people try and second guess other people’s appeals. Op - do move over to education and get proper advice from people who know what they are talking about.

I'm not sure that is true. If OP didn't name school X, then they would only be considered for school X if all applications that did name school X had been assessed and there were still excess places. The LA will look at all applications and assess whether they will get a place at those schools, then there is the shuffle according to preferences, then anybody who doesn't get their preferences will be placed according to which schools have places available after all preferences have been dealt with. That's why it's so important to have your nearest school on the list somewhere.

But still, the OP says that her she put schools which were her nearest catchment schools on the list.

Could they provide transport from another taxi company, even if it's not quite so local?

Do this.

Move this to the Secondary education board. Reach out to the experts above.

You need to get your ducks in a row.

Get a copy of the Local Authority's admissions procedure and how they have allocated places on the 1st March, particularly for the school you would like your DD to attend.

Get your ASBRAC and official SEN documentation.

The experts above will hopefully be able to prioritise your points for the appeal

As others have said, your transport issues and who pays etc are completely irrelevant to the appeal so don't dwell on it.

Yes, but the fact that the LA is not able to name school X means that they can't rely on it to refuse transport. For them to say that there is a nearer suitable school, i.e. school X, they have to be able to show that there was a place available there at the time of school allocations, and presumably there isn't - otherwise they would have named it.

The LA will have a contract with a certain taxi company to provide taxis needed by that Council when needed. They should all be DBS checked if they are carrying minors unaccompanied

Did you put the nearest school on her form?