Appealing a secondary school place

[Mevy]

Hi,
I have been offered a place for my daughter her second option. I wanted to ask can i appeal for the first choice solely just on what enrichment activities they offer and how it will be beneficial for my daughter who loves those subjects? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Your case will be stronger if you can evidence a genuine interest. You can submit some physical evidence for this if you have it, but some of it they will take your word for. What makes a case fairly weak is if you are just saying she is interested but hasn't pursued before.

For example this would be a stronger case: school offers water polo. She attends X swimming club twice a week and recently won a medal at X competition. She tried out water polo at a summer camp and loved it and wants to pursue it but there are no local clubs. You could provide a copy of a certificate or a photo of her receiving a medal.

This would be a much weaker case: She is really interested to try dancing and gymnastics. She has always loved doing these at home. The panel might wonder why you never took her to an out of school class, as these are fairly common activities.

Good schools guide appeals this article might help.

@Mevy you can appeal on this basis, but unless the school puts up a weak defence you're unlikely to be successful. In the meantime you'll be wasting your own time and (more importantly) the school's time and money. Each appeal costs the school several hundred pounds and several hours work.

So the question is not can you appeal, but should you appeal. I suggest you ask the school for its appeal stats for the last few years. If few of their appeals are successful, their defence against going over PAN is likely to be robust.

Enrichment activities change over time as teachers cone and go, so it is a weak argument.

@Mevy - there is no way you can know the strength of the school's case without it going to appeal.

The marginal cost of one extra appellant is neither here nor there - the school's case for whether it is full is the same whether there are two or twenty appellants. You have a right to appeal. Do not be put off that the exercising of your rights means that schools and admission authorities must respond

If you appeal, do you stay on the waiting lists?

We were offered 6th choice so we are on 5 waiting lists. One of the schools may have a chance of appeal. But I'd take any of the others if they came up. Does anyone know?

Generally you have to give reasons why the school is right for your child, not why others are unsuitable.

Is your daughter already doing some of these activities, or has an interest? For example, learns the violin and school has good orchestras etc. I think you need to prove the activities will be beneficial.

Appeal stats from previous years are not hugely helpful in and of themselves. There’s no way of knowing the strength of the cases in previous years. A school that hadn’t admitted an appeal for years could end up admitting several if the panel found the cases strong enough to outweigh the school’s.

It is however useful to know if they have gone above PAN in previous years (whether due to appeals or for other reasons) as that may show they have experience of coping with additional students.

"The marginal cost of one extra appellant is neither here nor there "

I disagree. They add up to thousands of pounds, and too many people on these threads are being encouraged to "have a go" on spurious grounds. Schools are on their knees as it is and being forced to defend appeals against grabby parents who are trying their luck is costing them a fortune. They have no control over these costs.

It would be good to see the appeals system move towards a "loser pays" model in future.

It would be better to see schools properly funded in the first place.

It would be good to see the appeals system move towards a "loser pays" model in future.

God yes a model where the rich can get places at desirable schools while the deserving poor can't would be amazing. FFS.

Yes, the appeal process is completely separate to waiting lists.

You can appeal for whatever reason you want to. If you've had a refusal, you have that right.

However, to be successful you will need to prove that it would be more detrimental for your child not to have a place than it would be for the school to accept them.

It's unlikely enrichment activities will swing this for you.

If a place becomes available via the waiting list, admissions will contact you. And you can lose at appeal but still get a place from the waiting list

The links below may be useful in helping to prepare an appeal if that's what you decide to do. I'd also advise a call to the LA education department who may be able to give you some further advice.

The information I've given so far was from my own experience, and other people have found things differently.

You have a right to appeal so gathering up as much relevant information about your child and the school you are appealing to is the best place to start. In the meantime accept the offer so that your child has a place for September. As a PP says there may be movement before now and then with waiting lists but you don't want to be without a place if the appeal doesn't go your way.

Best of luck

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/admission-appeals-for-school-places/advice-for-parents-and-guardians-on-school-admission-appeals

https://www.ace-ed.org.uk/advice/school-admissions-and-appeals/disappointed-with-the-school-place-offered-to-your-child/

You say she was given your second choice though?

It is harder to appeal if you’ve actually stated a preference for another school and it has been offered to you.

Following. We're in a similar situation except that my son got offered our third choice. I really don't think the school is right for him for several reasons.
I'm very interested in these responses.

We were told that if you don’t want your kid to go to a certain school, don’t put it on the list.

it means you have already said that school is suitable for your son. It means an appeal is much more difficult.

i know it’s really tough, but honestly, people get so upset about this. In reality, i think its very difficult for parents to make considered judgments on schools on the basis of an old ofsted report and a 30 minute tour.

i have to say while i may have liked ‘the vibe’ of one school over another, it was basically just about posters on the walls. One school was much the same as the others. My DD got her second choice, but really I’d have been happy with any of the 6 we chose.

as long as you chose a good school, it will be fine

You appeal for the school you want, not against the one you have been allocated, so this makes little sense.

The strong advice is always to use all of your choices (preferences). Panels know the process and know that parents may list a ‘banker’ school or other schools. That won’t be held against them. By that argument they wouldn’t hold waiting lists either.

The advice is always to list them in your true order of preference (with your safest option in there somewhere), so no you shouldn’t list a school you don’t want first, but in many areas of the country, there are very few schools to list.

Not using your preferences/only listing one school/declining a lower offer could be more detrimental, as it could
look like you are trying to game the system/pressure the panel if you are left without a school.

Following

I know what you mean @Pardonnezmoimadame but during applications the advice is usually to put a "banker" school that is your least worst option so you don't get a random school.

All our closest schools had very small distances last offer day so we were borderline. We visited three more distant schools that had "admitted all" in the local admissions info for the last few years and chose one as our 6th choice.

As it turns out all the distances offered were even smaller this year, so we have been offered the banker.

"They offer 10 GCSEs rather than 9 and DS is very academic"

No. 9 GCSEs are enough, and more than many schools, so your child won't be significantly disadvantaged by it, and certainly not enough to warrant forcing the preferred school over numbers so that their student:staff ratio increases.

Most chn go on to A Level at the same school (ditto)

No. A levels are 5 years away, and many students transfer to other schools - it's very common. Ditto re numbers.

Preferred school is non-religious

No (unfortunately). Faith schools have to cater for children from non-religious backgrounds.

There is nothing exceptional in your reasons. You may be lucky - the school may put up a weak defence However, if it were possible to routinely win appeals on such run-of-the-mill grounds the school would be swamped with appeals, and crammed to the rafters.

Is the preferred school an academy or an LA-run school? You may have more chance with the latter. Sometimes, popular LA-run schools want to increase their PAN for financial reasons, but the LA won't let them because there is too much local capacity (i.e. space in less popular schools). If so, the school may put up a weak defence which goes in your favour. However, you also may find that the presenting officer is from the LA, not the school, in which case you're stuffed.

It's always a good idea to check the school's appeals stats for recent years.

Thank you for taking the time to respond; that's very helpful.

I think this whole system is ridiculous. People are given the illusion of choice, but there isn’t any.

its also unfair that you have been given a school further away from others which you haven’t been offered a place for. We were in similar situation. Lots of school nearby but with tiny catchments.

everyones banker school should be the one closest.

It’s very clear in the relevant codes that parents aren’t offered a choice, they’re offered the opportunity to express a preference, which each school’s admissions criteria may or may not be able to accommodate.

In my experience, panels understand that the schools parents list are those they’d be willing to accept, not necessarily those they think are a perfect fit for their child.

Another thing to remember is that the panel is looking for evidence of why the child needs a place at the appeal school and will face prejudice (detriment) if they don’t get it. This goes beyond things like number of GCSE options, whether it’s a single sex or faith school, which are generally more about parental preference than they are the child’s needs.

Hello, new to the thread.

Our LA's schools website says you can appeal for a place at any school you applied to, so could I please run this scenario by the group?

DC has been offered the school we put as first choice, which was the best school that we were likely to get given the distance criteria. The school we put as second choice is the school I think would actually be best for him. Both are highly oversubscribed and I thought putting the second school first would run the risk of us not getting the school we have been allocated because they'd have enough people putting it first that no-one who put it second would get in. Hope that makes sense?

Since we applied in October there have been significant developments in understanding DS's special needs. He has been diagnosed with autism and ADHD and we're in the long slow process of applying for an EHCP.

There are (I think) valid reasons why school 2 would a better fit for him (eg, calmer more structured environment that would enable him to focus better, and normal-length class periods instead of a timetable of all double-periods that the school we've been offered follows).

Do we have any chance of success if we appeal? Is it worth trying in this case? Thank you!