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?

And that now seems to include Headteachers...

As a teacher, I have often been shocked at how little other staff know / understand about admissions, especially if they have not been through the system as a parent. So, while I would expect better of a Head, I am not overly surprised.

That’s kind of you to say so, but when threads about admission appeals get bogged down it’s very often because people are offering opinion or anecdote without any knowledge behind it. Appeal threads aren’t (or, I would argue, shouldn’t be) like other MN threads where everyone pitches in with opinion. They are (or should be) about real, informed knowledge. They’re more like the legal matters threads, in that respect.

Over the years, I’ve seen countless examples of terrible advice along the lines of “if you say you really, really want a place at this school, they’ll understand and will allow your appeal” (no they won’t, unless you demonstrate prejudice), “you’ll only win if you show a mistake has been made” (not necessarily, as that’s only true for infant class size appeals) and so on. Then there’s the well-intentioned advice from people who’ve won their appeals, but seem to have misunderstood why they won, so they offer things like “I did/said [something completely irrelevant], so if you do/say [something completely irrelevant], you’ll win too”.

Panel members have mandatory training every two years. We comb though every paragraph of the appeals code, looking at any changes and case law. Our LEA’s training is open to headteachers but there’s only one who regularly attends.

They’re more like the legal matters threads, in that respect.

Unfortunately, those aren't always about real, informed knowledge either. We regularly get people pitching in with legal "advice" that is wildly incorrect.

Oh yes, I’ve seen that, but it doesn’t seem quite as prevalent as it is, alas, on the appeals threads. Perhaps it’s that trope that “people are tired of experts”; everyone’s an (untrained) lawyer now.

And what I was trying to say is that appeal threads are like legal matters threads in that they ought to be a Q&A between people asking questions and people with the real, informed knowledge to answer them. The reality, though, is that both (and especially the appeal threads) get hijacked by people confidently spouting uninformed nonsense.

Apologies, I don’t think I was quite clear. Of course it would be better - across mn quite widely, imo - if threads were a dialogue between those seeking help and those with the best expertise to advise them, but that isn’t the underlying MN model, which is one of open contribution.

Legal matters is a section on its own, a but like medical matters, iirc? I think it’s easier there for mn to out a disclaimer about expertise and for posters to realise that expertise is expected.

Appeals / admissions are within general education boards, where anything goes, in terms of posts from parents, teachers, those with agendas of different sorts, as well as experts in different niches.

Would a separate ‘admissions and appeals’ board help, I wonder?

Is that something I can ask after they put forward their ‘speech’ in the hearing?

@Hye000 I would ask now. If you ask at the appeal, they are unlikely to have it to hand, and getting may well cause an adjournment whilst they call the school and have someone find it.

Oh yes, I wasn’t having a dig at you, more thinking aloud about how MN’s usual model of open contribution doesn’t work very well for appeal threads (and also wondering, frankly, about the agenda of those people who pitch up and confidently offer terrible ‘advice’ that would cost people their appeal if they followed it).

I’m not sure what would help. Any sort of gate-keeping (“you can only join this thread if you know what you’re talking about”) would be difficult to enforce and, again, not in the usual spirit of MN.

It's a bit like the maths threads, only with a more serious consequence for the OP with following incorrect advice.

Normally with maths threads, the correct answer is posted within the first few posts, and then 10 pages later you still have people who don't know order of operations / BODMAS confidently asserting they are right and the maths teacher / maths degree people are wrong.

No, they have increased from 252 to 280 since 2019

As a slight aside from the appeal 28 seems like a pretty large number on pupils to have in any one classroom, I'm not surprised that a good school doesn't want to have more.
The school my dc goes to has a maximum of 15 which is normal for private schools where we live. On that basis 28 seems more than enough.

I never look at the maths threads, but I’ve seen the same thing on maths puzzles on Facebook where four bananas = 40 etc etc, so what is 5 cherries + 2 bananas x 3 satsumas?

Though to be fair a number of those ones aren't really maths they are tricks with stupid things like the number of petals on a flower changing and nonsense like that!

Oh yes, but every one I’ve seen has various + - x operations so, if you don’t know BODMAS, you’ll get it wrong.

Your dc are lucky - my children are all in classes of 30, which tends to be the norm around here, and the minute one leaves, another fills the space.

Also private schools where we are tend to be 20-22 in a class.

20-22 still seems a much better number pushing for more than 28 doesn't seem a particularly good way to get a decent education.

OP - just a suggestion on the classroom sizes, if it is a recently built school as you suggest, then the floorplans should be on the Council's website in the 'planning' section. Do a search for planning applications, and then use the school's address to find the application submission. The plans they submit for planning are legally binding, so they must be accurate - if they claim at the hearing the plans don't match the actual school building, then they are in breach of their planning permission which is a much bigger problem for them! I would also take a read over the planning application submission documents, specifically the 'design and access statement' as that might contain some information about classroom sizes. This may well undermine the school's argument (if the rooms are bigger than minimum standards)

What are the official sizes per pupil as when I google it there seems to be different answers, I don’t want to embarrass myself using misinformation from the internet 😬

@sexnotgenders thank you. I will look into this!

these types of additions to threads are what makes MN so helpful. Just picking other people’s brains.

Big thank you to the experts aswell!!!

You're very welcome @Hye000 !!

It's certainly not for me to judge the merits of your case, but you are a mother advocating exceptionally hard for your child, and so I reckon you deserve as much help and support as you can get! I wish you the very best of luck (and let me know if you have any issues finding the planning application as I would be happy to help where I can).

It depends on what the classroom is being used for, but for a general classroom 55sqm is the current standard for 30 pupils. It used to be 49sqm, but they put it up in 2005.

Not sure if it’s not there or I’m looking in the wrong place but I can’t seem to find it on the LA website, I’ve found documents about the planning, like peoples objections etc but no detailed planning such as building size and room sizes