Application to 6th form rejected due to social anxiety

[JT619]

Hi,

Can anyone give us some advice please?

My son really struggled during lockdown as many did. He went from a bright student to struggling to attend lessons. However we pushed through, and with lots and lots of hard work he did at home himself, he managed to achieve 8 GCSE passes.

He then strugged to make it into 6th form. He tried, but the same problems reared their head. And so we decided to take a year out to sort out the social anxiety problems.

In the past year he's done really well. Re-connected with society, had therapy, and has taken on various volunteering jobs, one of which was actually working in a local school in classrooms to put his dislike of classrooms behind him.

We've applied for a different Sixth Form this year. The one he really wanted him to go had an interview day in March. We worked with the support team, who say they recommended he should be allowed to join but with a 6-week care package in-place. They passed that on to the admissions team, who duly rejected his application!

We're gutted and a bit angry. He's trying to put his struggles behind him. But also confused - how can it be that the student support team gave him the thumbs up, he has the required grades and yet he's been rejected?

We're going to appeal, but are wondering where we stand with this? It seems to me to be almost discrimnatory - social anxiety is classed as a disability, he has the grades and he's been turned down due to his disability.

Any thoughts or help would be really useful. The college usefully took 4 months to decide this (and didn't ask for any extra informstion in the meantime) and only let us know yesterday so other college options are looking limited at this late-ish stage. Thanks in advance.

JT619

I'm so sorry, op. This sounds awful .

In that case, I'd contact them and explain you've been told that your DS have been rejected, in part due to his induction day- however, this is not mentioned as a possibility on their admissions policy.

Highlight to the admissions team that they have broken their own policy and are probably being discriminatory- and see what happens.

Do you have any of the discussion about the second day in writing?

No, none regarding the second day in writing.

In terms of the legal requirements to adhere to the admissions code - I don't know, you'd need one of the admissions experts for that.

In terms of funding and regulation though, FE colleges are funded directly by the ESFA, a DfE quango, whereas sixth form colleges are funded by either their local authority, or via their academy trust, the same way schools are.

I think this is one of the key questions for me. I just need a way to work out what the college is!

I linked earlier to the school admissions code for England. Paragraph 3 there says it applies to “(a) admissions authorities of maintained schools as defined in section 88 (1) (a) and (b) of the [School Standards and Framework Act 1988]”, which then have a statutory duty to act in accordance with the Code.

So, it’s important to establish the legal status of the college - my initial assumption that it’s a school, governed by the code, now seems wrong. I’m not aware of any comparable code for FE colleges (if that is what this college is). Bottom line, though, is it is bound by (amongst other things) the Equality Act. There’s a useful guide from Scope.

Thanks PanelChair, that's extremely useful. I'm struggling it difficult to find the legal status - anyone any ideas how?

If it is a college as you say rather than a school then unless it is a UTC (which are actually schools rather than colleges), which from your posts I doubt it is, it doesn’t matter what type of college it is, the admissions code doesn’t apply. However, if you want to know you can search for the college here.

Try trawling through the college website, especially for any documents recording its formation or (if it’s an old institution with a new name) when it took on its new role/status. Also look for anything showing who funds it.

Looking through the website should also unearth the college’s admissions criteria, inclusion policies and so on, which might help OP decide on next steps.

If you search for the school or college here then I believe you can find out its funding status: https://www.find-school-performance-data.service.gov.uk/

However, I think if they're offering degrees that means FE.