General Appeal questions

[JM231]

Afternoon,

Sorry as i know there are a lot of appeal chats happening but I had a few questions regarding appealing in general that I didnit see being covered in other chats - if anyone could help, it would be much appreciated!

1. I know you cant add additional evidence after the letter but do you have to play all your cards/arguments in the letter? My concern is that it will allow the school to see and prepare responses a long time in advance?

2. i understand we see the Admission authority's case 7 days before the hearing but when do they see ours? as we have to send our appeal to the school in April doesn't that allow then an unfair advantage to plan the responses?

3. When arguing on grounds of subjects/clubs that the school offer that are not offered elsewhere - would A-Level choices be applicable for a year 7 appeal or only GCSE options?

4. There is a lot of info regarding the strength of the LA's case in other threads - but surely 99% of the time their argument is simply " we are full". Maybe its my ignorance but what else would they bring to the table?

All time and help is much appreciated.

Thanks all for your continued help - especially @PatriciaHolm and @PanelChair

couple of more admin questions if anyone can help?

1. if you are offered a waiting list place, how long are you normally given to decide?

2. after the appeal - how long until you are given the decision?

1. Varies by LA. Some give you as much time as you had for the original offer. Some make the decision for you - if you get a waiting list place they take away the place you've already been offered. I think this is a breach of the Admissions Code, but some LAs still do it.
2. The Appeals Code requires the decision to be sent within 5 school days unless there is a good reason for the delay.

Thanks @prh47bridge for the helpful and quick response

In my LEA, you would get a phone call once all the appeals for that school had been heard, with the letter to follow.

Hi

For those of you who have been on the “other side of the table” - how much do you form an opinion before the actual appeal? Considering you would have seen both arguments and nothing new can be added I guess its human nature to be leaning one way or another at that point?

I’d be really interested in the answer to this question too. I’ve submitted my outline appeal but on re-reading I think it comes across a bit direct or pushy. I’m hoping they don’t form a bad impression of me already 😬

The sense of the arguments on each side that I get from reading the document bundle often changes during the hearing, because the questioning unearths details or puts a new slant on something only mentioned in passing in the documents. After that, the panel takes a collective decision.

I would expect parents to be direct (but not rude) because they’re trying to obtain something which, in their opinion, their child needs.

Thanks all

another quick question - if I have made claims about the allocated school not offering certain things that I have heard anecdotally? (Not able to verify either way officially as yet) do the panel Conduct research to verify this?

I’m concerned that they may be able to verify it and make it look like I have not been genuine? which would wrong impression of me

Depends what you mean by research.

Generally, I would expect parents to have done their own research. So if (say) a parent is saying that their preferred school has an orchestra but the allocated school doesn’t, I would expect them to have checked that out and not just relied on word of mouth. They will look silly if they say in the hearing that there’s no orchestra and a panel member (or anyone else) says there is and their child plays in it.

Panels obviously don’t have teams of fact-checkers behind them, but they and other people there have local knowledge - the school’s representative (for example) may be familiar with other local schools. And just about everyone will have access to the internet.

Panels aren't supposed to do any specific research on the cases beforehand; we are supposed to go on what we are told at the appeal, by school and appellants. So they won't be looking up anything to try and confirm or deny what you have said.

However, panelists tend to be local-ish, so will often know the schools involved, especially if you have sat as a panelist for a few years. The school representative is also likely to know local schools. Panel members can also ask specific questions to both you and the school.

I wouldn't put in anything you haven't been able to confirm.

Completely agree. Quite often something will come up that changes the initial view of the case, often because a parent doesn't think something is relevant but it is and comes up in discussion, or something in the school's case they haven't put in does, as the depth and presentation of cases varies considerably.

Panels then decide on decisions post discussion between them, and it doesn't have to be unanimous - there are 3 panellists and a 2-1 decision isn't that unusual.

Exactly. The system runs very largely on trust.

If you have evidence, you should include it. If you don't include it then the panel or school rep can ask you how you know. If you say it is anecdotal, they may regard that as weak. (And obviously if you were to lie and say you have evidence they may ask why you haven't included it).

@PanelChair in cases of multiple appeals, how are decisions reached for the successful ones? I am guessing you score and rank them based on the strength of the appeal?

The panel decides whether to allow each appeal. If that yields more successful appeals than the panel considers the school can cater for, the panel will decide how many additional pupils the school can take and then identify the strongest cases.

How useful are primary school letters/references? From head/senco etc

It very much depends on their content. It can be useful (for example) to hear the SENCO’s view of whether the preferred school will be any better at meeting the child’s needs, but even so (in my view) that’s probably not going to carry the same weight as the opinion of the medical professionals working with and supporting the child.

Thanks again @PanelChair
Sorry to labour the point - appreciate a medical letter is the ideal but in the absence of that it’s still worth getting school letters especially if they directly address the applied for school rather than generic?

Any letter from school needs to be very specific that in their opinion, based on facts about the child's needs, the appeal schools meets the child's needs very specifically.

A letter that says something along the lines that "X's parents tell me that X will be much happier at school Y" is pretty much useless.

Something that says "As the SENCO at X's school for the last 5 years, I have supported X with his anxiety by..... . As he goes to secondary, it is important that his needs continue to be met by.... In my professional opinion, school Y is the school that will meet X's needs most appropriately, because...." is better.

Though in most cases, the answer from the admissions authority will be that whatever a Head or SENCO say is needed can be provided by any school.

I agree completely with PatriciaHolm. What you are trying to overturn is the general assumption that all schools have a diverse range of pupils with a diverse range of needs and can provide appropriate care and support. You therefore need to provide robust and credible evidence that the preferred school offers something that the allocated school does not. This needs to be very specific, tied to the child’s need and not simply parental preference.

Ds didn't get accepted for grammar school after local review. The only communication we have had with the grammar says that local review is because they accept children might not show their true ability in the 11+ but that they are looking for above average children and that the evidence we submitted shows DS to be working at 'expected' level but the information we submitted said he was was working at greater depth. Can we argue a mistake was made?

Are you asking in terms of your argument for a regular appeal? or are you disputing the local review specifically?

You can't dispute the result of a local review as such, but you can appeal the process on the grounds that you think it wasn't carried out in "a fair, consistent and objective way". The panel will not carry out the review process again.

If the panel considers that the review was not carried out in a fair, consistent and objective way, the panel may only uphold the appeal if it is satisfied that:

• there is evidence to demonstrate that your child is of the required academic standard - to support your appeal, you could include school reports and references from your child’s current school that show your child is of grammar school ability
• where applicable, your reasons for wanting your child to attend the school outweighs the admission authority’s reasons for refusing admission

So the panel wouldn't say "this review wasn't consistent/fair, so you can have a place".

They might say "this review wasn't consistent/fair, but based on your appeal, your child is given a place", but they might equally say "this review wasn't consistent/fair, but your evidence isn't adequate to offer a place".

Thank you. I now have letter from a Dr stating his belief that ds would be better suited to appeal school than allocated one but I appreciate I still have to prove he is capable of attending. I just wanted to see if I could argue that he is academic enough and that local review was unfair and from what you have said I can.

Thanks as always @PanelChair @prh47bridge

in terms of the actual appeal - how is the decision made, ie do they vote directly afterwards in the room? Do they discuss it further? Or do they go away to reflect on it and come back?

Once all the appeals for the same school have been heard, we discuss each appeal and decide whether to allow or refuse. If that produces more additional pupils than we consider the school to be capable of absorbing, we decide what the limit should be and then identify which are the strongest appeals, to meet that number.

Remember this is not a court of law (although it has legal standing).