Withdrawal of high school place after 11 weeks

[Mel198]

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone can give me some advice at all please.

My daughter is due to start year 7 in September, she was offered her first choice place on the national offer day. Roll on 11 weeks and I recieve an email stating that her place has been withdrawn due to a change in circumstances.
At the time of the application and the offer, her sibling was attending the school. We have only recently transfered him to another local school which fits better for his needs.
We are also in the process of buying a property within a 5 minute walk to the school, I haven't sent all the proof from the estate agents and solicitors letters, but all the local authorities keep saying to me is that this isn't sufficient enough evidence and I need to be permanently residing in the property and have a council tax bill with our names on to even reasses my daughters position kn the waiting list.(she's 88 on the waiting list)
We are absolutely distraught, my daughter is extremely shy and suffers with anxiety. She is really struggling coming to terms with the decision.
I've spoken to the local authority and they aren't being helpful at all. I've explained that I've read the School admissions code and under their grounds of withdrawing a school place, none of them apply to my daughter's situation.
All of my daughters friends are going to said school and we have bought uniform. I just can't believe this.
As a gesture of goodwill(or so they say) they have agreed to hold my daughters place for 4 weeks to give us time to move into our new house. This is ridiculous as 4 weeks is never going to happen as we are in the early stages!
I have put a complaint in with the ombudsman'slast I'm not able to appeal yet.

Can anyone help me with some advice please
Thanks so much.

Surely you appeal, and move to new house which will.move her up waiting list as well?

Given the timings of the plan to move him they may have reason to believe that it was intentional

Glad to see prh47bridge here!

The school’s position (as you describe it) is contradictory. A change of circumstances is not (in my view) an “error”, which is why I suggested taking this to appeal to get the panel’s view. Even if it is an “error”, it’s far too late to withdraw the place now. If the school believe you misled them, they will need to show that you applied for the place knowing that you would be withdrawing your older child and (as the admissions code says) they must allow you to appeal.

For all those people saying that you “have” to have the older sibling attending the school when the younger sibling starts; that is what the admissions criteria usually say, but the system allows for there to be a change in circumstances. The nearest parallel (in my view) is when after offer day families move out of catchment or beyond the distance at which the last place was awarded. As prh says, places can’t then be withdrawn.

This needs an appeal, so the panel can take an independent look.

It's unlucky to say the least.

There was a similar case once where the sibling at the school sadly died and then the LA removed the place for the sibling who was joining. It made the local paper.

The offer to keep the place open for four weeks sounds dodgy as hell too. Potentially if they believe they should withdraw your place they should do so immediately, thus freeing up a waiting list place.

I’m struggling to keep up with the pace of this thread.

I’ve now read the email from the LEA. To me, it’s nonsense. The decision to give your child a place was correct at the time. It’s too much of a stretch to say the later change of circumstances made the earlier decision wrong or an “error”.

Insist on your right to appeal.

I agree with PanelChair and prhbridge, as ever. You are entitled to an appeal, and request one immediately.

The exact wording of the admissions criteria and the exact dates of the managed move, will I suspect be critical here. For example, Surrey make it very clear in their criteria that -

"If a sibling leaves the school concerned or a linked school after the application but before the national offer day, the applicant must let the School Admissions team know as this may affect the child’s sibling priority. We reserve the right to withdraw an offer of a place that has been made on the basis of sibling priority if information comes to light that the applicant had claimed that priority in the knowledge that the child’s sibling would have left the school or linked school by the time of the child’s admission; or if the applicant failed to tell us of a change that took place prior to the national offer day that would affect the child’s sibling priority"

If the criteria are as above, and the issues with the sibling were such before March 1 that is was clear they would not be at the school come Sept, the LA could make a case - as the managed move happened in March, the sibling was clearly having issues for a while before that as they are normally pretty much a last resort before expulsion.

However, as PanelChair says, the fact they are saying it's a error is contradictory - that suggests they made an error, which they didn't, and it's usually quite clear that an error on the LAs part cannot be corrected this late.

If they were saying it was withdrawn because the application was misleading, that is slightly different. I suspect if you go to appeal, this will be their case, and they would need to show that OP was deliberately misleading.

Thank you for all taking the time to reply to me. Its very much helpful as I've been losing my mind over this. And quite frankly have cried a few times, I know it may seem ridiculous to some but my daughter is so sensitive and this has affected her badly.
The house we are also buying is only because of daughter being offered the place there. Its all a big mess.
She is going to miss her induction day on the 6th July as the place will have been withdrawn again (we have until 7th June to move into new property)

This too. If they are withdrawing the place, they need to do so, and then you can reapply based on your new address, and appeal - they can't sort-of withdraw it, but hold it in case.

Personally, I would wait until you have moved into the new house and apply again. If refused, appeal under their fair access policy.

An error hasn't been made so they can't withdraw on those grounds (and not after 11 weeks anyway).

The only question is whether you applied fraudulently.

Did you know, when you applied/on offer day, that your child wouldn't have a sibling at the school in September?

Either way I would appeal and argue your case asap.

@Mel198 you mentioned that you are new to this forum so I would urge you to focus on the replies from @PanelChair @PatriciaHolm @prh47bridge and follow the advice they have given.
They are experts in this topic and have given invaluable advice to many over the years.

I in turn agree with PatriciaHolm.

I expect the appeal panel will want to look at key dates: when did it become apparent that the older sibling could not remain at the school, when was a managed move first discussed and so on? National offer day was 1 March and (without scrolling back to check) I recall you said the managed move happened on 17 March, so things happened very quickly. I also suspect the school might change their argument and say this wasn’t an “error” on their part but bad faith on yours. All the more reason for insisting on your right to an independent appeal.

Agree. Please listen to the ever helpful and knowledgeable experts listed in this message. They know what they are talking about.

The other thing is who are the admissions for the school - the school themselves or LA(on behalf of the school). You need a clear timeline, when did the school/ you start looking at a managed move/move for your older child. Go through admissions policy with a fine tooth comb. Has your daughter got any school place for September? Is the school your older child at now suitable? Given she would then be higher priority.

My daughter has been offered a school but it's further away from her 1sr choice school and the school doesn't have a very good rep at all.
My son was only taken officially off roll at the school we want for my daughter at the start of May.
He started a trial at his new school in April.
Therefore this was way past the national offer day.
This wasn't planned at all, there were talks about excluding my son but we agreed on trying him at another school which so far has all gone OK.
Should I have known this wiuld have happened to my daughters place I would of fought for him to stay at the original school. I hope it all doesn't sound too confusing
So basically all I'm asking for advice on is the council wrong to withdraw a school place under the grounds of change in circumstances after 11 weeks time.
They say the change in circumstance comes under category error and they believe they have acted accordingly to school admissions code.

Definitely listen to the advice above and appeal.

You should definitely appeal. Were you in dialogue with the school about moving your son before National Offer Day?

They could have stated fraudulent application as well.

You applied under sibling criteria, so got a place on the basis that she would have a sibling in the school. Then you removed the sibling from the school. You knew when you applied for her that you would be removing him? That's fraud.

Now you want a place based on living close to the school...but you do not live in the address you are giving the school. That also gets prety close to fraud.

What were you even thinking here? If it was so important for your dd to go to this school, why did you cause all of this trouble?

Shocked u moved yr son, when yr d was allocated a place to to them being there.
Buying a house in the area changes nothing, u tried beating the system and got caught.

“You knew when you applied for her that you would be removing him? That's fraud.”

No she didn’t.

Closing date for applications is 31st October. The son moved school mid March. You do the maths.

Did you agree to a managed move before February 28th? Does the admissions policy say you need to contact admissions for any change in circumstances between submitting application and offer day? Appeal and you have a chance, given this is unusual circumstances particularly if the managed move was only suggested/ offered after March 1st as goes against the admissions code.

You don't decide to move schools on a whim. It would have to have been talked about long before.

But even if not, its still correct to withdraw the place. You get priority for having a sibling at the school. No sibling at school ,no priority. The circumstances under which you gained a place no longer exist, therefore the place is no longer yours.

Why should someone else not get a place because someone else utilised an advantage they are not entitled to?

@shammalammadingdong interesting how the admissions experts disagree with you, though.

Interesting that the admissions experts at the school in question complete agree with me, though.