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.

@ArmchairAnarchist2 Schools don't give priority to people who list them in first place. That system has been illegal since 2007 I believe. In one of the cases you mentioned, listing the catchment schools as choices 2 and 3 wouldn't have disadvantaged the applicant- they wouldn't have got in if they had listed one of them first either.

Appeal. In the appeal get supporting letters about the safety issue from current primary, other daughters’ secondary and from the police. Personally I’d try and contact a solicitor and see if there’s anyone who can advise regarding the lawfulness or otherwise of the LA’s actions.

Also write to your MP and cc them on all documents submitted to LA - check their clinic hours as well and go this week if you can. Basically get any and every authority in a position to know what’s been going on and why it’s essential your daughter is with her siblings to weigh in as part of the process. (Your primary school can speak to her educational and SEN needs as well as the protection order thing, but make sure the safety issue gets mentioned in EVERY supporting doc). Good luck

Given the circumstances, I would consider an appeal. Ask social xarr if she is classed as a child in need due to the safety plan. Children in need sometimes make it to the top of the list, but sometimes, it is just children in care.

Also, ask social care if they can write a supporting letter. Given the circumstances, it would be better for all three children to be in the same school for multiple reasons:

1, only one school involved in supporting the safety plan and to be kept informed

2, the children can go together and support each other to stay safe

3, transportation is easier, and the school is familiar to the family

4, siblings are normally high priority to attend the same school because they can support each other in school. This is particularly important due to there having been threats against the family.

Good luck

@Napmum she is not on any type of plan, no social service involvement as there is no parenting issues. The safety plan in to keep them safe from people outside the home.

No, all the statutory guidance is clear that the nearest suitable school has to be one that has places available. Clearly it has to be at the time of the transport decision, because it has to be open to the parent to say, in effect, OK, I'll place my child in the nearest suitable school instead. It would be completely insane for a local authority to be able to say to a parent who doesn't name their nearest suitable school as a preference "OK, so we're not giving you your preferred school, your child can't go to any nearer suitable school, but we're going to maintain the fiction that there is a nearer suitable school that your child could go to and therefore we're going to name a school 20 miles away and it's down to you to arrange transport".

This is from Buckinghamshire LA:

"To be eligible for free school transport, you must include the nearest suitable school as one of your preferences when you apply for a school for your child. It does not have to be your first preference. This is so that if we cannot offer your child a place at the nearest suitable school, we can offer them free transport to the next nearest school."

This is how I understand it, too. Admissions appeals panels look at the circumstances at the time of application. At the time of application, if the nearest suitable school has places, the applicant would get a place, if it is named on the CAF. An applicant can't manipulate the system by not naming the nearest suitable school, then saying 'well the nearest school is full" after the admissions allocations are made. If the applicant would have got a place at the NSS had it been on the CAF, then no transport is obligated by the LA.

It woukd be assuned ss are aware of this safety plan since children are involved.
Anytime police are involved where children are involved relevant ss services shoukd be aware? Ask tge head of cjhidrens services

Maybe whatever documentation you have names some one in childrens services from the local authority

This is already a long thread, so please forgive me if I’ve overlooked anything.

You say your second and third preferences were in catchment. Does that imply that you are out of catchment for your preferred school? I’m wondering whether your child was not admitted as a sibling because you’re out of catchment and this is one of those schools where out of catchment siblings are a long way down the oversubscription criteria.

This needs careful checking against the oversubscription criteria because, if you are in catchment or the school doesn’t differentiate between siblings in and out of catchment, then presumably you should have got a sibling place - even if the sibling in Y13 doesn’t count for admission purposes, the sibling in Y10 should. If there has been an error here, the LEA should give you the place without you having to take it to appeal (although many LEAs do insist on an appeal to settle the matter).

For the appeal, the strongest argument is around the ASBRAC plan. I understand you don’t want to divulge its contents, so I suggest you ask the police or social services to provide a letter confirming there is a plan in place and, for your child’s safety, it is imperative that they attend the same school and travel with their siblings.

You can provide additional evidence around SEN (where you will need to show that there is provision at this school which your child needs and isn’t available at the offered school) and highlight any other ways in which your child will benefit from attending this school.

Not super relevant to the OP, but sometimes there are arrangements where a certain school serves eg the west of the town and the outlying villages on that side, and another school serves the east of the town, and the outlying villages to the east. The people who live in some of the villages will always be further away from both schools than people who live in the town, so catchment areas are set up to ensure they can access their nearest school (often the school with busses from their community)- rather than everyone in the town filling up school B, leaving people stuck with no easy way for their children to get to school A.

Also, sometimes the nearest school as the crow flies can have a geographic barrier (e.g. major road, river etc), and there's a school that is quicker to get to/safer to walk to which is the catchment school, even if it's technically further away.

It can also relate to county/LA borders.

Lougle is correct. If OP didn't name the nearest school as one of her preferences and would have got a place at that school if she had, her daughter is not entitled to free transport to the allocated school.

@FluffyUnionSocks I agree with Lougle about your approach to the appeal. If your child should have been given sibling priority, it sounds like a mistake has been made, although I can't say that for sure without more information. In addition to the mistake, you have some other good arguments.

As panel chair says, the security issue is most likely to be the issue to be admitted. If out of catchment, the siblings may be below in catchment children and year 6 is still a large year group.LA's often publish data around last child admitted, category and distance so you may be able to gauge where they are on waiting list.

I would say, a year behind, isn't actually that far behind and may not get the SEN help that is available from the proposed school - however, they sound set up to be supportive, but may not be a valid reason for appeal (check criteria for the small group teacher /TA, sounds more like a resource provision than one normally available and need an EHCP to attend)

@FluffyUnionSocks
What type of sibling priority does the school have?
In one LA near me people get caught out because the criteria is

• sibling in catchment
• catchment
• sibling out of catchment

It's not unheard of for people to end up with two different schools. My LA has sibling priority regardless of where you live. Very different You may need to appeal on the safety grounds

If that is the way your local authority is operating, it is breaking the law. The DfE guidance is absolutely clear that, if the LA is arguing that there is a nearer suitable school, it has a place at the relevant time. There is zero mention in the law or the guidance suggesting that the LA is entitled to refuse to provide transport because the parents didn't put down a nearer school in their original choices, and I guarantee that if they tried to assert that in court they would be torn into little pieces.

This has been discussed several times on this board and the experts are aware so no I don't think it is fully illegal. Morally so absolutely especially where we lived before where schools were all 8 miles + away

That's Buckinghamshire local policy, which cannot override the law.

The opinion of "experts" can't override the law.

I dont claim to be an expert. Do you?

Mine would be the same if this isn’t a choice school then LA pay the transport.

This document page 11/12 may be helpful for arguing re transport: consult.education.gov.uk/home-to-school-transport-and-admissions-team/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-statutory-guid/supporting_documents/Draft%20statutory%20guidance%20%20Home%20to%20school%20travel%20and%20transport%20for%20children%20of%20compulsory%20school%20age.pdf

I am also wondering if you have misunderstood my response and thought I was responding only regarding the situation OP is in with having not been given a school nearby.

I was responding to a different poster who queried how "catchment" school was not the closest using this example.

Where I lived before was right on the border of 3 counties so the 2 closest schools are in 2 different counties. 1 of those is closest and that is the one you can get transport paid for. Any other school including the catchment school (that is in the same county but 1 mile further away) you do not get paid transport for

The policy requires that a child must:

• Attend the nearest appropriate school for transport purposes and;
• Live more than 2 miles, for a child under the age of 8, from the school using the shortest available walking route.
• Live more than 3 miles, for a child over the age of 8, from the school using the shortest available walking route That is directly from the policy and it's been that way since my 21-year-old started secondary school.

To be clear, if a parent does not choose a nearby school when applying, and their child is placed in a school they do choose which is more than 3 miles away, the LA is entitled to refuse transport.

However, if they don't offer a place for the child in any school chosen by the parents or any nearer school, they can't claim that the parents have chosen a school even further away or that that is their preference, and they can't foist the transport duty onto them. The statute simply requires that LAs provide transport to eligible children who live more than 3 miles away from the school they are placed at if "no suitable arrangements have been made by the local authority for enabling [the pupil] to become a registered pupil at a qualifying school nearer to his home."

Again I am not an expert and do not claim to be I have an interest in this.

This however doesn't fully make sense to me as surely how I see what you have written is open to deliberate sabotage.

Making the following up as an example
Say parents live within 100 yards of a Requires improvement school (school 1)
they chose to not up this on their preferences (please let's not call it choices it suggests that is the only option IMO) as they do not want their child go to there Instead they put down schools

(2) 1 mile away
(3) 2 miles away
(4) 1.5 miles away
and (5) 4 miles away

There is a further school 3/4 mile away (school 6) they have not chosen as it is a church school and they didn't want this.

If the policy is not they have to put down the nearest schools (in my example 1 and 6) then surely by not putting them down they can not get transport for free for a school further away as they took themselves out of the running of 2 schools they would have likely got into if they had chosen them. They did not want them. Surely this is part of why people are constantly recommended to put down a banker school to not end up in a school even further away.

To me, this is like people only putting down 1 preference of school as " then they have to give it to me" If you deliberately take yourself out of the closest school then you have made the choice to go further afield and surely the LA can claim the parent chose this if they would have got into school 1 (or even 2) if they had applied?

No, Buckinghamshire's policy cannot override the law. However, it correctly states the law. You are persistently misconstruing the law.

If you name your nearest school as one of your preferences and end up with a school you haven't chosen that is more than 3 miles from home by the shortest safe walking route, you get free transport.

If you do not name your nearest school as one of your preferences, the LA has met the requirement to make suitable arrangements for enabling the pupil to become a registered pupil at a school nearer home by allowing you to apply for such a school. You have chosen not to take advantage of those arrangements, so you are not entitled to free transport.

Thank you prh47bridge that answers my query about what was said earlier.

Always appreciate your posts here and on other forums I learn a lot.