School has a very strong case

[Hye000]

As the title says… we have just received the school case against anymore pupils being admitted and it appears they have a strong case. Any tips or ideas of arguments to put forward to weaken their argument not to admit further…

to be honest, i appreciate the argument they have but I’m not asking them to admit anymore than one child so to me it’s hard to read it as being stronger than my argument for my child.

they were originally admitting 252 and have increased pan to 280. They say that they have 10 forms of 28 students and all classrooms are at full capacity, SEN areas and provisions are stretched and financially they are stretched etc etc.

can I argue that the receive extra funding for SEN pupils and that this should cover those children and the one 2 one teaching that is required?? I don’t know what else I can argue as I’m more conscious of the impact the my child if they were not to be admitted. They also argue about the narrow road that the school is on and that more people coming would add to health and safety, but my child would be walking so can I add that in to my speech, I don’t know.. feel like I’m clutching at straws!

any ideas please please please?

Unless this school uniquely provides something that no other school could ever possibly provide I'd say your appeal is unlikely. If her needs can he met elsewhere and to the same standard, then there is no compelling reason it has to be this school. Do you know where you are on the standby list? If some parents will be refusing as you've said?

@prh47bridge
I largely disagree. I'm posting as a headteacher.

There are two stages to an admissions process. Stage 1 is to ask whether a child should have been admitted - ie, have they improperly been denied a place. This needs to be won on medical grounds, in order for the OP's child to get in.

Stage 2 is where the school might come back with issues around PAN and would need to make a case that the detriment to the school is greater than the detriment to the child. If the OP wins the argument at Stage 1, then - in this instance - they are unlikely to argue that squeezing an extra child into a room is greater than a - necessarily extreme - medical detriment to a child. And the panel are unlikely to accept this. The legal ramifications of placing a child's health at risk would be too great.

The arguments about PAN won't be heard unless there is a presumption that the OP's child has wrongly been denied a place. Even if there was some way of winning that argument first, it doesn't entitled the OP's child to a place; just the next children on the list.

@Mousey23 Are you a HT at a Primary or Secondary?

Primary schools with ICS limits have stricter rules more similar to what you posed.

Secondary schools however often/regularly/sometimes go over PAN for appeals. It isn't about mistakes it is about whether the panel thinks they could squeeze some extra students in without too much impact compared with the detriment to the pupil.

Oh and @Mousey23 appeals places going above PAN as excepted pupils go to those with the best cases at appeal, not to those next on the waiting list.

This was me last week. I'm now awaiting the results of our appeal. The process has drained me and my mental health and to be honest I never want to do it again. No one takes this decision lightly. Good luck. The relief when it's over is immense

Yet more poor advice.

The only schools that matter are the appeal school and the allocated school. OP does not need to show that the appeal school is the only school that can cater for her child. She only needs to show that it is better for her child than the allocated school. The fact there may be other schools that could provide for her child as well as the appeal school is irrelevant.

@PatriciaHolm erm I have been through the appeals process. So I have some idea.

I think it's worth bringing up the fact that although they do have a relatively large number of students who need additional support, it's below the local average, and so therefore other schools manage on the same funding arrangements?

As others have said it is probably worth asking about the classroom size. Maybe also ask specifically about the science labs? What is it about them that means they can't accommodate another student?

I'd also ask specifically for the size of their largest classes right now in any subject. To me, it sounds like they do go over 28, so you could ask how this is managed?

I remember your other thread about your daughter now, and it does sound like a really difficult situation.

I do think you should investigate applying for an ECHP - I've taught children before who have these solely for medical reasons.

Have they had to increase PAN this year as it is a bulge year?

I do sympathise with you OP, but the comments on here from people questioning classroom capacity are starting to annoy me. Demanding measurements of the classrooms?? For goodness sake. Let the school do it's job.

I have taught in a room that allegedly could take 34 students (according to my HT). However, he never did bother to come in to see what it was like trying to teach in there when only 15 double desks would fit in. Year 11 classes with many of the students over 6 feet tall crammed into the room - four of the desks having to have one person seat on the end. Not at all comfortable for the students.

In addition to this, what about the TAs? In one of my classes of 34 I had two students with one to one support - another two adults to squeeze into the room.

Classroom walls are not elastic. They cannot just squeezing in more pupils, more support staff.

I'd also try and find their net capacity range rather than the net capacity as when I brought this up last week at my appeal it caused a right shocker in the appeal and the panel were saying we have to check this out and have clarification on this, the school and local authority were saying it must be a mistake but I provided prove that it was on the council website for 2 years running with a range for the school of 1320 to 1467 which is a huge difference. So definitely try find your net capacity range for the school

I went to appeal, unless it's a named school on a echp they will only be concerned with whether they have applied admissions criteria correctly (eg did they measure the distance to school correctly) and if for medical reasons this is the nearest school to them that meets their needs and no other school within reasonable distance can. We were offered a taxi rather than a place. Concentrate on what makes this school so suitable rather than trying to find faults

Remember that you can go on the wait list too.

Here we go again. Someone who claims to be a headteacher, giving out terrible advice.

OP doesn’t need to prove there’s been an error, although she can certainly include that in her arguments for why her child should be admitted. She needs to persuade the panel that the detriment to her child if not admitted (which can include medical need but also anything else that’s relevant) outweighs the detriment to the school in having to accommodate an additional pupil. If she wins the appeal, she wins it for her child, not a child from the waiting list.

If this is how appeals work at your school, someone needs to retrain the appeal panel. It is entirely wrong. If an appeal panel refuses to hear arguments about PAN unless a mistake has been made, the parents can refer the case to the LGO or ESFA (depending on the type of school) and will automatically get a fresh hearing with a different appeal panel for such an egregious breach of the Appeals Code.

I suspect this isn't how appeals actually work and you are simply demonstrating that most head teachers don't fully understand the process.

Appeals are indeed in two stages, but they are not as you describe. In stage 1 the school argues that the correct process has been followed and the school cannot possibly accommodate any more pupils. This is where arguments about whether the school can go over PAN without prejudice are heard. Questions as to whether a mistake has been made may crop up at this stage, but they may crop up in stage 2. In some cases, stage 1 is heard as a grouped appeal, with all appellants present. In that situation, arguments about mistakes will almost always be deferred to stage 2 unless the mistake affects multiple appellants.

Stage 2 is where the parents put forward their arguments that a mistake has been made and/or their child will suffer prejudice if not admitted.

After stage 2 of the hearing, the panel follows a two-stage process to make its decision. First they decide if a mistake has been made. If they find that a mistake has been made, the child is admitted unless the mistake affects multiple children and the school couldn't cope if they were all admitted. In that situation, the appeal panel compare cases to decide which children to admit. If no mistake has been made, the panel decide if the school will be prejudiced by the admission of additional pupils. This is still part of stage one of the decision-making process. If they find there will be no prejudice to the school, the appeals all succeed. However, that is rare. Normally, the appeal panel find that there will be some prejudice, so they move on to the second stage of the decision-making process.

In the second stage, the panel decide if the prejudice to the child from not being admitted outweighs the prejudice to the school.

There are no circumstances in which the waiting list enters into the decision. If the appeal panel decide that the school can admit five pupils without prejudice, they will admit the five appellants with the strongest cases even if there are 100 people ahead of them on the waiting list.

The process is identical for primary and secondary schools unless infant class size rules apply (which, of course, can only happen at primary schools). The hearing still follows the same process, but the decision-making process is different. In this case, stage one of the decision-making process is about whether the admission authority is correct that infant class size rules apply and, if so, whether a mistake has been made that cost an appellant a place. If it is an infant class size case and a mistake has been made, they move on to stage two which involves comparing cases to decide which appeals to uphold.

What you have described is similar to the decision-making process for infant class size appeals, but it is not what happens in the hearing for any appeal. There are no circumstances whatever in which the appeal panel can refuse to hear the parents' arguments about whether the school can admit more children. Any refusal to hear part of the parents' case or to allow them to put all the questions they want automatically means the appeal is unfair and the parents are entitled to a fresh hearing if they lose.

Hi cellardoor, where you find out the net capacity range? For the school I am appealing for I could only find the net capacity, but not a range, in the funding agreement

Tutor groups often have smaller pupil numbers than the actual classes. Many departments take the year group and have larger numbers in higher ability sets to allow for smaller numbers in lower ability sets. So you might have thirty two per class in top set English but twenty five in bottom set English. This is to try and meet the needs of groups which may have a number of students with additional needs. It gives schools some flexibility

I am sorry but I find an utterly waste of time for the experts to go through how the appeals work time after time. There is an appeal code and if people are interested should go and read it. This should be even more important for headteachers.

It is more important that experts use their time in helping people with their appeals

Hi lurea, I can't say for your LA but for mine it was on Google under a document called admissions arrangements community and voluntary schools 23/24. May be try search that with your LA name at the end :) x

Lurea - I agree with you up to a point. It is exasperating that, on the very many appeal threads, we don’t just have to answer parents’ questions about the appeals they’re putting together, we also have to correct the misinformation and terrible ‘advice’ offered by people who have evidently never read or understood the appeals code and have no idea how the process works. Posters who claim to work in schools often seem to be the worst for this, rushing onto threads to say “don’t bother to appeal (even though you have a legal right to do so)” or “you’ll never win so give up now”.

Ask the school. They are required to answer any reasonable question you ask to help you prepare for your appeal. So you just need to ask them the maximum and minimum capacity from their most recent capacity assessment. You should also ask them when that assessment took place. If they have added buildings since then, the assessment is out of date.

But unfortunately you are still giving out incorrect information. As are many others.

Not based on my experience but you’re free to say what you will. Thankfully my youngest is now in Y8 at the school we wanted so I never have to appeal again!

On MN, everyone posts from their own personal opinion and knowledge, usually based on a fairly limited number of experiences of eg a particular school; own and friends’ relationships; their own property purchase etc. So I can completely understand why individuals post about their one or two personal experiences of appeals or how they think they work - that’s the MN norm.

Ime, School Admissions and Appeals are very lucky within the MN community in having a group of widely-experienced experts who between them have helped in or sat on many, many appeals and advised on many others, and whose expertise has genuinely been tested and found good over the years.

They work tirelessly each year with little acknowledgment, and the boards would be poorer without them.

Ime, School Admissions and Appeals are very lucky within the MN community in having a group of widely-experienced experts who between them have helped in or sat on many, many appeals and advised on many others, and whose expertise has genuinely been tested and found good over the years.

They work tirelessly each year with little acknowledgment, and the boards would be poorer without them.

Agree.

Yes, that's good at least, and I hope they are happy there!

I'm honestly not trying to be rude. But I sit on, and chair, appeals panels, and have done for 7+ years. We have to go through regular training in order to do so. It's very frustrating - as you can see from others here who do the same as I do - when people who either genuinely misunderstand, or simply don't know, how appeals work, give out information that is just incorrect -and could cost someone else their appeal. And that now seems to include Headteachers...

Appellants should absolutely look at weakening the schools case - it is often the key to winning - and they do not have to prove this is the only school that can meet the child's needs.