Another appeal question

[beanhunter]

Good morning. Hoping to use the huge amount of knowledge on here to help me support our appeal. I have read so many threads on here!

To summarise we moved in Jan 2023 and therefore our daughter was not allocated a local secondary school place. In fact she was initially not allocated any place. Subsequently she has been allocated a school 10 miles away with a distrous ofsted which states 'children cannot learn due to disruption in lessons' and 'safeguarding is inadequate'.

We are appealing for our closest (catchment) secondary. We have included distance, the significant social upheaval and the need for pastoral care in our initial documentation but I suspect these will be considered nothing special. As we live 1 mile away from this school there is a small chance we may get an offer next week and then not have to proceed to the appeal a week later.

We have now received the info from the school. Each year the pan is 230. In round 1 they agreed to offered 237 places to accommodate all catchment children at the request of the council. There is also reference to wanting the school to remain a 'local school'.

By the reallocation round (when my daughter was offered the other school) they had 12 declines and offered 2 sibling and 3 non catchment children taking them back to 230.
Of note they are above pan in all year group, year 9 is at over 250 which they say is primarily due to children from Ukraine who moved into catchment.

On these grounds how would you approach this appeal? My thoughts is to explain again why we wanted the school in terms of location but to say that they were planning to admit 237 shows that going over 230 clearly negates their prejudice argument and that the same priority they gave to children from.ukraine moving into the area to remain local (who presumably in a number of cases needed increased support) is reasonable to consider for a late mover in terms of being able to accommodate more children?

I'd welcome any advice as I'm horrified at thr prospect of sending my fairly short daughter to the offered school where I think her academic progress will falter (she's working at greater depth in all areas) and I'm worried for her safety let alone her emotional wellbeing and happiness.

Thanks in advance if you've read this far!

I should add please don't jump on me and assume I am saying that only my child shouldn't be at the allocated school. I'm.horrifed than any child should be in a position of being unsafe at school.

I'd have a look at clubs etc that your DD would particularly benefit from that the offered school doesn't have but that your preferred one does.

e.g. She plays clarinet, preferred school has a wind band, offered school doesn't.
Or - she's top set maths, preferred school does maths challenge and offers additional maths GCSE, offered school does neither.

If you aren't already, get her on waiting lists for any other schools you refer over the offered one.

If they were previously going to admit 237 and now haven't, then that's a good argument for you.

Them being above PAN in all year groups may not work in your favour, as they may state the site is overcrowded.

However, you need arguments to show why your daughter would benefit from this school specifically- you're not arguing against the allocated school.

Being closer, helping to build local friendships is an argument you can use, but it may not be enough. The panel can't really agree with you that the other school doesn't offer appropriate pastoral care to students who have moved into the area. If you want to say the pastoral care would be better for your daughter, then you need to show a) why this would be needed and b) what, specifically, the new school offers that is special. Moving house is quite a common thing, and all schools are expected to be able to support this.

You should also look at subjects and extra curricular your desired school offer- can you build any arguments around this?

And yes, go onto waiting lists for all schools that you would prefer!

If this school is your catchment school, when reallocation happened do you know why 3 out of catchment were offered places, but your child in catchment wasn't offered, as surely they would have been higher up the list as a catchment child? That would be where I would start, depending on admission criteria order.

They moved house so were late applicants.

Yes, but when reallocation happened for the 2nd round, they should have been on the wait list in order, not by late application- that was only for the March allocation, any late applications join the wait list for 2and round, if recieved by a certain date (I think 1st March).

Oh yes, you're right. Good question.

I agree. The fact that PAN+7 offers were made weakens the argument that is usually part of any school’s case, that going over PAN would be detrimental to the efficient provision of education. By the time second offers were made, you should have been (as I read it) on the waiting list and (depending on the oversubscription criteria) somewhere near the top. Again depending on the oversubscription criteria, I would have expected you to be offered a place after the siblings but before the out of catchment children. This sounds as if it might be an error (perhaps because of a delay in adding you to the waiting list) so probe this more deeply.

The council stated that address changes are not taken into account for the reallocation round and that our address is therefore onky changed for the offer round on 12th May. Personally this seems bonkers but that is their rule.

In terms of pastoral care we have included that she needed thus previously and has also had a recent close family bereavement.

For extra curricular there is very little offered at the offered school buy strong sport and dance where she excels and have included this.

Am hoping the 237 and request to accept all children in catchment helps us.

I wish this were the case but they consider this a round 1 reallocation and not a round 2. Which to me seems wrong and she's missed the best chance. I'm hoping we are very near the top now and may get an offer on Friday before the appeal but I can rely on that I guess.

I plan to go hard on the 237 offers, some mistakes in the transfer of her application and the lack of communication causing distress - we also were told she shouldn't be offered anywhere in the reallocation round and I wonder if the fact she wqs is an admission of this error?

"2.15 Each admission authority must maintain a clear, fair, and objective
waiting list until at least 31 December of each school year of admission, stating
in their arrangements that each added child will require the list to be ranked
again in line with the published oversubscription criteria. Priority must not be
given to children based on the date their application was received, or their name
was added to the list. Looked after children or previously looked after children
allocated a place at the school in accordance with a Fair Access Protocol must
take precedence over those on a waiting list."

The above is from the code of practice - The waiting list, which I thought became active after 1st March (not later), as otherwise that adversely affects those that move, enter the country, parents forget and gives priority to those that apply on time. This might be one to ask for the school adjudicator to look at the admissions policy.

That is interesting. How could I find out if Bucks are wrong then? I admit I have taken at face value that they were correct in saying she was not eligible for an offer now?

So the issue was the waiting list was actuve but still based on address at 31.10.22 otherwise we would have got one of those spaces I assume?

I think, at the appeal, this will depend on what view the panel take of the LEA’s actions. That in turn may depend on dates: how soon after you moved in January did you inform the LEA of your new address? When exactly were the new offers made (presumably the LEA had known of your new address for weeks, not days)? What you can argue here is that it was unreasonable of the LEA to ignore the new address and so deprive your child of the opportunity to get an in-catchment place in the new offers. The panel might well agree.

I don’t have time to re-read the admissions code but it’s available online and I suggest you check what it says about changes of address. There’s a cut-off point for including new addresses in the first round but (check this) I don’t recall anything suggesting LEAs cannot or should not update addresses as soon as the first round is over. Saying “this is our policy” is no defence, if that policy is incompatible with the admissions or appeals codes.

We moved on jan 13th and provided address evidence immediately (I know we did this correctly as our younger daughter was considered an ontime applicant for primary offers). I have emails from them confirming this but also stating they do not consider changes of address until after 1.4.23.

The cut off for the offers on 1.3.23 was address changes before 31.10.22 so I do not dispute she shouldn't have been considered in the offer day but I think she has been disadvantaged by how they have chosen to apply the reallocation round as an effective not full round 2 of offers and will look at the code.

Oh yes, there’s nothing unreasonable about the initial cut-off, but the debate here is whether it’s reasonable for the LEA to ignore your new address (which it has known about for weeks) when making further offers. I think it’s not (although, as I said, I haven’t reread the code) and the panel might agree.

Was your child on the waiting list on 1sg March I.e, when you applied in Oct 22, did you put the schools you wanted in Bucks, regardless of address you were applying from. Their website doesn't imply that they don't take change of address into account until 3rd round, just they have to be on the waiting list on 1st March (https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools-index/school-admissions/school-admissions-guides-policies-and-statistics/guide-to-moving-up-to-secondary-school/later-allocation-rounds/), which would normally include any late applications).

Yes, the point of contention here is when the LEA took heed of the change of address and put the child in their correct place on the waiting list.

Yes it was always our first choice school.
That page does say that new address evidence after the October cut off isn't included until round 2 (ie not the reallocation round as you'll note you are not allowed to provide new evidence) so we were still called as living 98 miles away on 31st March.

I cannot find anywhere in the admissions code that says this is either right or wrong.

So as far as I can see she's only in the right place now for the 12th May offer date.

I’ve been looking at the admissions code.

As you say, there’s nothing which says conclusively that the LEA is right or wrong, but (in my view) the instruction in paragraph 2.15 that priority must not be given to children based on the date their application was received supports the argument that the LEA should have updated your address and used it as soon as the first round of offers were out of the way; not doing this put you at the back of the queue for the ad hoc offers.

I think a panel may therefore be sympathetic to the argument that not using your new address when the ad hoc offers were made was a procedural unfairness (an error) which cost your child a place and so they should be given a place now.

You might want to ask the Adjudicator for their view of the LEA’s policy here.

Thank you for this @PanelChair
Apologies for my ignorance but the adjudicator is one of the panel?

The Office of the Schools Adjudicator was mentioned upthread. They rule on (amongst other things) complaints about admissions arrangements. That’s not the same as an appeal, and they can’t direct that your child should be admitted, but they may be able to give you a view on whether the LEA’s actions have been reasonable.

@beanhunter you haven't moved to Aylesbury have you?