Y8 in-year application and FAP

[SlowerMovingVehicle]

Hello, looking for advice / Wwyd.

DD12 just relocated back to UK after very poor Y7 education in European country. Local UK schools full. She's fully bilingual written and spoken, bright, well behaved, no issues.

I put 1 Outstanding grammar, 1self-determining academy, and 1 Good-rated comp on the application. All 3 full but the grammar said she could take exam anyway. Also applied to local Outstanding faith school who've said nothing about free places/numbers but won't assess her till November.

DD failed the admission for the 1 place available at the selective grammar (I believe due to poor maths teaching at European school).

The academy school, rated good after years of outstanding, literally 5 mins walk down the road from us, have given appeal date of 6 Sep with up to a week before they let us know. Their appeal grounds are based on: exceeding class size of 25, small science lab and having lots of cared-for and SEND pupils (they sounded angry and resentful in their communication tbh). Local authority FAP on same date, but they've tentatively offered 1 school very recently upgraded (3 months ago) to Good after 10 years of RI, but with just 35% GCSE pass rate, plus another school with problematic intake and no 6th form that's basically been RI since the 1980s.

Due to the relocation DD just needs a school she can stay in till 18, she hates upheaval, I don't want to move her.

Thanks if you got this far. Currently thinking I should go with the Good comp so she's got a school on 6 Sep but what's that going to do to my appeal chances?

Send her to the comp for the time being. I don't know loads about appeals but you need to show that the school you are appealing is exactly what your child needs, not that the one she has been allocated doesn't suit her needs. So why does she need the academy?

You accepted an offered place because you want your DD to be in education, in school, (you would have to organise home education equivalent to a dull time curriculum for her if she had no school place), but having studied all the possible schools, you believe that the one for which you are appealing is still the better school for your DD <for the following reasons>.

BTW in the state system, year 12 is a new formal point of entry, so you can only guarantee tht she will have a place to the end of KS4 and hope that she meets the entry requirements for that school if she wants to stay there for A levels (or any other school wich she may by then like the look of more for 6th form).

Grab the offered school with both hands. There is nothing to say you can't also appeal for the school you want, but if you fail at appeal you are left with nothing if you don't accept.
I totally get the not wanting to move again, and given a choice it would be what my kids would prefer, having move countries twice in primary, but there is no guarantee of Y12 transfer, and it's it 4 years on the future.

On what grounds would you be appealing for your prefered school?

Yeh agree - I would accept offered school (which sounds OK - what is the journey like? walkable?) and then appeal for the other school - things to cite are specific offer such as orchestra if she plays instrument, MFL she has studied, coding club with evidence of her keenness on the subject. Or specific subjects on offer at GCSE or sports clubs when she is good at that sport.

What do you mean by 35% GCSE pass rate? Only 35% are passed? Or 35% of students gain 5 passes? It's more relevant to look at Progress and attainment 8 as they take prior attainment and ability into account - if the brightest are creamed off by a grammar school (as I infer) then the comp school is not going to get very high results. That doesn't mean your DD will not do really well tho.

Thanks for your replies, very helpful. Cats I'm struggling on the appeal grounds, except academy is v close, has music (she's musical) and has excellent attainment 8. @clary yes the grammar school is massive and gets the brightest. Attainment 8 of the Good comp has gone up 5.5 points since new head took over so I guess it's worth the risk. The 35% GCSE was the number getting 5 or above in Maths and English. Which to my mind is too low whichever way you look at it but new head's only been there a short time.

Attainment 8 and closeness of the appeal school are not workable appeal grounds unfortunately. The music may be - is the offer (school orchestra, choir, GCSE music, peripatetic teachers?) a lot better than the allocated school? When you say she is musical, do you mean she plays an instrument?

35% is not really too low IMHO - my DCs' leafy suburban school has 45% on the same measure and it is fully comp so the brightest pupils are there too. I would say 35% for that figure is not bad for a sec mod, if that is what it is. What is the progress 8 figure?

Progress 8 is -0.04. I don't want to get too hung up on the stats because I'll obviously make sure DD gets tutored for GCSE if worst comes to worst, I just don't want her coming home looking demoralised and "Mum I didn't learn anything today and x child won't let me concentrate" as was the case at previous school.

A progress 8 score of zero means that the pupils' GCSE grades are in line with the progress expected between leaving primary school and taking GCSEs.
You cannot use the OFSTED rating as part of an appeal either. The OFSTED criteria keep getting tougher, so a school rated as Good 3 months ago may be better than a school rated Outstanding more than 5 years ago. (Some Outstanding schools may not have been inspected for 10 years!)

Accept the place at the comp- if you don't, then not only is she without a school on 6th September, but she could also be without a school long term if your appeal fails- this won't hurt your appeal chances.

For your appeal, you need to explain why she needs the outstanding academy specifically. You need to talk about things that are specific to her- every parent wants their child to go to the school that's best performing academically and has the best Ofsted- that won't be a strong appeal.

You need to explain what this school offers that she specifically needs- for example, do they offer a GCSE in the language she's been speaking whilst you were abroad, but other local schools don't? Do they have specific aspects of their pastoral care which will meet her needs better if she's going to a new school and knows no-one? You can talk about it being her local school and how it will help her settle in to her new community, but the more arguments you have the better.

A maximum class size of 25 is very small for a state school- do they explain why this is their class size limit?

I've requested the place at the good comp in the meantime.

Class size 25 is v small and I think just an excuse; as I said upthread they sound resentful in their appeal grounds prob because their exam performance used to be amazing but has taken a battering for reasons also mentioned upthread. A long time ago I used to go to this same academy school, pre-academy days, and class size was 28 with similar year group size, it never felt overcrowded. Since then they've also extended the school so not sure why the big fuss.

My main reason is this academy school is just around the corner and as a single parent WFH in a stressful job, it's going to make my and dd's life a lot easier if no buses or car travel involved. I realise the school won't care at all about that, they've put something like "this appeal is not decided on catchment" followed by 5 paragraphs mostly about high numbers of SEND and CLA, little else. But as the academy is now rated the same as the comp I think I have no chance.

Accepting a place will have no impact on your appeal chances - panels appreciate that you need a space, and need to take what you are offered. In fact not taking it can sometimes look as if you are trying to blackmail a panel with the idea that your child won't have a school place unless you win, which is never a good idea.

In terms of appeal, you need to show the detriment to the child of not attending is greater than the detriment to the school of taking another child; it sounds, on the face of it, that their argument is weak, but at present so is yours I'm afraid.

The OFSTED is irrelevant, as is the fact it's next door, unless there are documented medical reasons for needing the closest school. The music side might have merit - does the appeal school have an offering that suits this specifically? what do they offer she would benefit from?

Just to note - it's not the school that decide the appeal - it's the independent panel. So it doesn't matter what the school care about! ;-)