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 Roll on 11 weeks and I recieve an email stating that her place has been withdrawn due to a change in circumstances.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.

“The school can’t (in my view) keep reviewing the situation up to and including the start of term. There comes a point (and I would argue that it’s national offer day) when the matter has to be considered settled and offers have to stand.”

This seems very reasonable - otherwise it would be possible to eg withdraw a place from a child if their older sibling died between March and September, which would be awful (and someone upthread mentioned she had heard of such a thing!)

Is there any way I am able to private message the experts off here please and I can explain everything including dates etc? I'm finding it hard to keep up with all the replies and I find some people quite rude and abrupt.
I don't agree with the one person calling me a fraud how ridiculous.
Thanks all for helpful advice on our situation.

Go to a post of someone you want to message, then there's three little dots in the bottom right hand corner. PM is one of the options there.

Good luck. Some posters like to kick people when they are down for no reason.

Yes, as above - the three dots at the bottom of this message will enable you to PM me. Happy take a look.

Also happy to take a look if you want to PM me.

I know some areas the stipulation is sibling has to be on the roll in September when you look at the rules. Have you been able to ask this?

Given that the OP was in discussions with the Head Teacher of the school in question over a period of time to determine the best outcome for her DS, it would be ludicrous for the LA to claim her application was in any way fraudulent.

She would be the worst, least subtle, fraudster in the history of the Universe.

Given that fact, I can't see how the LA would have a leg to stand on at this late stage.

SeatonCarew
I wonder, and a lot depends on how the admissions code for OP's area is worded, if the argument will be that the OP wasn't intending on her older child being in the school from September and/or something about the dates of the managed move.
prh47bridge is good on the technicalities and has offered to advise the OP by PM.

@LolaSmiles a slightly pedantic point but the Admissions Code applies to all areas. Admissions policies can vary and must comply with the Admissions Code.

@LolaSmilesa slightly pedantic point but the Admissions Code applies to all areas. Admissions policies can vary and must comply with the Admissions Code
Not pedantic at all. I meant the local policies. Good spot. Thank you for spotting that.👍

They can stipulate that the sibling is expected to be on the roll in September. No problem with that. But a stipulation that the sibling must still be on the role in September is unenforceable.

This is great, thankyou. I couldn’t see “expected” but it wasn’t directly quoted and I can now see that - apologies.

I have read your updates and I think the school is pushing a point in this instance and may have gone too far. It will depend on what the detail is about the expectation surrounding where your son was going to be in September. It sounds as if, one way or another, he was not going to be at the school and would either be at a new school or have been permanently excluded. If that is the case they can possibly claim they did make the offer in error and this might be accepted as being within the code.

It is an unusual circumstance and I suspect the school is using it as an excuse - perhaps not wanting to take your daughter because of their experience with your son. What kind of school is it? Local authority/academy/free school/religious school?

I think it would be fair comment to say there are schools that play absolutely straight with the admissions code and schools that look for 'wriggle room' to avoid some admissions.

Sadly, it isn't just schools. There are a number of LAs that breach the Admissions Code regularly because they think what they are doing is fair - withdrawing places from people who move after the offer is made, putting late applicants at the back of the waiting list and so on. Mostly, appeal panels know their stuff and put things right, but it doesn't always work out.

For example, I had some involvement in a case a year or two ago where someone had made an in-year application for a primary school place and had been allocated a school that was a long way from home. The parent argued that their child should have been treated as excepted as there were no places available within a reasonable distance from home, pointing out that statutory guidance is that anything over 45 minutes journey each way is unreasonable for primary school pupils. The LA argued that this was "only guidance" and "couldn't work here". The panel accepted this argument. However, the reality is that statutory guidance is not "only guidance". It is as close to law as it is possible to get without actually being law. The LA must follow statutory guidance unless it can show that, in a particular case, there is good reason to deviate from it.

I'm not seeing the unfairness here....if you get a place in school because there is a sibling in the school, and then you take the sibling out of the school before the child starts, they aren't entitled to that space anymore. It would the the same as getting a place due to nearness to school, and then moving across town before starting.

I'm sure you can tell me reasons why I'm wrong and I can believe it, but on the face of it, I can't for the life of me see why that's being held up as unfair. Logically, it is totally fair.

Because there is an admissions timetable. If what you write is true at the time of writing and has not changed by the time of allocation, you are at a serious disadvantage in the process if an allocated place is taken away, as the place you would have got if those circumstances had been there earlier will now not be available.

especially if those circumstances have changed through no fault of your own eg landlord has decided to sell up so your address changes.

as I noted above, if an elder sibling died between allocation day and school start day, the place could be withdrawn for the younger sibling if you take the argument to its conclusion. Is that right and fair?

as I noted above, if an elder sibling died between allocation day and school start day, the place could be withdrawn for the younger sibling if you take the argument to its conclusion. Is that right and fair?

I wouldn't say that is the conclusion of the argument, as its not remotely the same thing and is a bit offensive to use as a comparison. It's reductio ad absurdam. Exceptions are often made anyway for extreme circumstances like that. It's not the same as choosing to move a child from the school after securing a place for the sibling.

But I do take your point about the gap between application and allocations. Would you think it was fair though for someone to still get the place awarded for nearness if they had chosen to move in between allocation and start? What if that was their intent all along? still fair?

“ It's not the same as choosing to move a child from the school after securing a place for the sibling.”

In this case, it wasn’t really a choice on the part of the OP.

Personally, I think if the place is allocated on allocation day, on correct information at the time, then that should be it. Even if a family subsequently moves through free choice. And the reason for that is that an LA only allows the address that a child lives at and not a planned future address - so, quid pro quo, they shouldn’t take the place away if an applicant followed the rules at the time.

Good luck with your appeal OP - please update us here when you know the outcome. If the details at time of application were true and not misleading then no mistake was made in allocating the place to your daughter. The stuff about your house move is irrlevant and just muddying the waters - spending time on it just legitimises the incorrect view that the sibling link place shouldn't have been allocated. The fact that the sibling link isn't there any more is also irrelevant - it was there at the time of application and there on allocations day, you had no reasonable way of knowing what was going to be the case in the future, and it is well-established in the admissions code that places cannot be withdrawn after more than a few DAYS, let alone weeks, UNLESS the application was deliberately fraudulent which in this case it wasn't.

OP - prh47and panelchair are the experts in this.

This is part of their day job.

Please listen to them and ignore any advice that contradicts them, as they are the ones that actually know what they are talking about.

It sounds like you need to send this message to the admissions team and get an appeal going.

oh and PatriciaHolm 😁

Is there anywhere online with proof that thr local authority cannot take thr place away after 3 days? I've done a lot of research and read forums and people do say the limit is 3 days to withdraw a place but I cannot find this information legally it just seems like its hear say? Thanks everyone. I appreciate your responses

You won't find it online, I'm afraid. It comes from an LGO decision where the ombudsman ruled that withdrawing a place offered in error after more than 3 days amounted to maladministration. The decision in question is no longer available online.

Note that this limit only applies if the offer was withdrawn because it was made in error. It does not apply if the offer is withdrawn for another reason.

Might it be in this archive @prh47bridge ?: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C154