Admissions day - tips and info if you are disappointed.

[PatriciaHolm]

I've posted this before and it seemed to be helpful, so reposting today...especially as we are already getting the "you can only appeal if the admissions policy hasn't been followed" nonsense being posted on other appeals threads.

OK, so it's National Offer Day for Secondaries today so I thought it might be useful to do a quick summary post, primarily on what to do if you aren't happy, as I know it will come up a lot today....(FWIW, I Chair Appeals Panels, and am also a Chair of Governors. There are several other experienced panelists around too.)

What to do if you get a school you don't want?

1 - Accept it. This is does not signal to the LA that you are happy, it just locks in a "last resort" option. It has NO impact on waiting lists - you get no preferential treatment on lists or at appeal if you turn the place down, nor are you negatively impacted if you have accepted a place.

If you turn it down, the LA no longer has an obligation to find you a place, so you will be dependent on waiting lists/appeals. If they don't come through, you could find yourself with no place in September. So ONLY turn it down if homeschool (or private) is definitely an option......

2 - Get yourself onto Waiting lists for schools you do want. In some areas you are automatically put on lists for schools higher in your preferences that you don't get into, in some cases you need to ask, so check - your LA website, email, or login portal will probably tell you what to do. You can also add yourself to lists for schools you didn't apply for (some LAs limit the amount of lists you can be on though.). The LA may also have an idea of which schools still have places, you never know there might be something that appeals.

3 - Check there has been no mistake. If you are genuinely surprised and you think a mistake might have been made - wrong distance used, sibling link ignored etc - it's worth checking. Your decision letter/portal is likely to have the criteria you were assessed under for each school and, for example, the distance used in the case of distance criteria, so check all is well. If it doesn't, check with the LA. But be patient, lots of people will be calling/emailing today and tomorrow....the letter will be in the post soon.

4 - Think about appeals. You can appeal for any school you applied for and didn't get into. I won't go into depth here as each appeal is different, but essentially you need to show that the detriment to the school of taking another pupil is less than the detriment to your child of getting a place. If you decide to do this, post and ask for help! A number of us here are happy to do so. Appeals for secondary do not have to rely on a mistake being made, or be based on admissions grounds only. (Years R 1,2, under infant class size rules are different).

If you are happy - great! Accept it, if you need to (some LAs will auto accept for you.) And be patient - most secondaries are a bit busy right now (!) so it may be a while before you hear from your chosen school re. induction etc.

Any questions, do ask. Sometimes it's easier for someone not emotionally involved to figure out the answer or find a detail.

I have stepped back from appeals threads, but am making an exception to say ‘hear, hear’ to everything PatriciaHolm has said and bump this to the top of the secondary appeal threads, at least for a moment.

Some of the misinformation people are spouting would be true if we were talking about primary admissions where the infant class size rules apply, but we’re not. I would encourage everyone to read the school admissions code and appeals code for England and Wales, search the hundreds of previous threads which between them cover just about any appeal scenario they might be facing and, above all, to heed PatriciaHolm’s advice here.

Hi @PatriciaHolm I actually so glad to see this post as really want to appeal but don’t know if its worth a try.

the main reason I wanted to apply was for food tech she loves her cooking baking etc and the school i applied for has 3/4 sessions of cooking baking after school clubs which would have been brilliant in helping her express her hobby. The school that she has been offered does do food tech but there is not much focus or enrichment on it which is a real shame.

also the school she has been given a place at does not do the language which she is intrested in and been taking classes in and really wanted to continue this is secondary school whereas the school we didn't get a place at does.

would this be a sufficient reason to appeal? Any help will he appreciated.

My tuppence worth - if you are phoning the school or LA, get the name of the person you are dealing with and immediately after the call send an email to them, outlining what was said in the call. This is important if you are going to rely on the advice they give you - if you have for some reason misunderstood, or if they have misspoken, then they get a chance to make a correction. It's always worth having a contemporaneous account in writing

@Mevy - it's worth a try. If you do not think there has been an error, then you are making the case that the detriment (prejudice) to your DC by not attending is greater than the detriment to the school and its other pupils by going over numbers in that year group. So it depends on two things - the strength of the school's case that they really are full, and the strength of the cases of the appellants. So if the school has historically been able to manage with x number of extras, it might be hard for them to say that they can't cope with x again. And you are showing why your DC needs to be one of x. So every point where the appealed-for school offers more/better than the currently offered one will help. Having evidence of your DC's interests, in addition to parental assertion, will be helpful - so get a letter from the people who run the cookery clubs to say she's talented/enthusiastic etc, and from the language class to prove she'd already studying it

OTOH, if the school says it's genuinely stuffed to the gunnels at the moment, eg having taken in bulge classes in 3 of the last 5 years, it might be difficult/impossible to win a prejudice appeal. But you won't know that unless you try, and you lose nothing by trying

The one thing missing from that list is an encouragement: you might get in from the waiting list. This particularly applies where there are private options that people might have been considering alongside state options. Now that they know which schools they're choosing from, some people will be turning down the state place they've been offered because their child has got a place at a private they'd prefer. And of course if they turn down a place at School A, there may be someone who gets in from that waiting list who releases a place at School B, so there will be a bit of a ripple effect.

(In my DD's year, nobody in our village got the second nearest school unless they had a sibling. Then over the next few weeks, they all got offered places.)

Thank you for this - it’s really helpful.

My DD has an offer for the school we expected but isn’t what we wanted. Is it worth appealing on the grounds of being better suited to a smaller school? I will speak to her teachers next week, but I am pretty confident they would support that as she has an ADHD/ ASD diagnosis (but no EHCP) and has some interventions in place.
The school she has been offered is considerably bigger.

Thanks

Thank you for posting this thread @PatriciaHolm.

Would these be possible appeal reasons for our #1 preferred school?

• They offer 10 GCSEs rather than 9 and DS is very academic
• Most chn go on to A Level at the same school (ditto)
• Preferred school is non-religious

Alternatively we could appeal for preferred school #2 which has an Arts specialism - could be a reason to try and admit him? Allocated school also does music and drama but not at specialist level.

Place marking. Thank you

I'm not an expert @MsJuniper but they don't sound great grounds tbh.

9 or 10 GCSEs makes no difference - 9 is fine even for an able child.

Sixth form is not usually considered as so many DC switch schools post 16 anyway, as your DS could.

Religious - you can withdraw your child from religious assemblies etc so I doubt that would carry any weight either.

The arts specialism is more the kind of thing - but as I understand it you would need some evidence of interest from your DS - ie appearing in extra curricular shows, playing an instrument, summer schools, that kind of thing.

@KirriIrry An appeal is a one-way bet. If you win, your child gets a place. If you lose, you are no worse off than you are now. Sometimes the school's case to refuse admission is so weak that almost any appeal will win. Sometimes the school's case is so strong that no appeal can win. In your case, that is worth a try but it will stand a better chance if you can get evidence from teachers and/or medical professionals to support your case.

@MsJuniper I agree with @clary that those aren't particularly strong. It will be another 3 years before your son starts his GCSEs, so the number of GCSEs each school will offer may change. A-level is even further away and wanting a non-religious school is not relevant at all for appeal. The arts specialism at school 2 is a better case provided you can show it is relevant to your son.

1. The only way to receive an offer of a place is to either have a successful appeal or to move up to the top of the waiting list and a space to open up. No amount of canvassing Headteachers, Governors, teacher friends or turning up at the school and refusing to leave has any effect upon the outcome.
2. Making an appeal does not influence the likelihood of being offered a place prior to panel. They're not connected at all - by all means exercise your legal right to appeal, but you would have been offered that place even if you hadn't. Chances are that the only time the person handling the admissions even knows about an appeal is when they're asked to provide copies of the application for the bundles.
3. The only involvement the Head has had with the process has been 'Is the computer system working? How many applications have we had? Do I have to attend the Admissions Committee meeting, or can it go ahead without me?'. Even at the committee, they don't know the names of the children concerned, as the identifying details are removed beforehand.
4. Decisions are not made by one person alone - whilst one person may have processed the hundreds of applications, their work is scrutinised by Governors.
5. Bear in mind that people have a right to privacy - you may see somebody's child who lives further away being offered a place, but that doesn't mean you know everything about them. And nobody is going to tell you why.
6. Give the school a chance. They can't offer more places if the existing ones haven't been accepted or declined - and the Law says that they can't have their offer withdrawn for not responding unless they've been given a decent period of time and they've been warned it could happen, especially when neighbouring authorities may not have uploaded their acceptances yet.
7. School want to be full. If there's a place, they want to fill it.
8. If you get a place on appeal, we're happy for you and nobody will know that you went to appeal by September 7th. So there won't be any 'comeback' or detriment to your child. Nobody will know (other than the person who put them onto the system and they'll have forgotten it by tomorrow). They will likely remember the person who came up the school and shouted at Reception about how they're going to make the school give them what they want because they'll regret it otherwise - but not the perfectly reasonable parent who submitted an appeal that was successful.
9. The details of how to appeal are on the school website. It's the Law to have them there.
10. Good luck!

Really useful thread thank you.
My daughter hasn't got either of our choices and I am appealing on medical grounds - she has juvenile idiopathic arthritis and the school of choice has a lift, allocated school doesn't have a lift and has loads of stairs. I have plenty of consultants/OT/physio letters I am going to use. She is on the SEN register but doesn't have an EHCP.

I was wondering if anyone knows this -
Am appealing for 1st choice school. Can I also appeal 2nd choice school? 2nd choice also has a lift but is bigger which is why it was 2nd choice. I have had conflicting information from the schools. Basically I just want the best chance of getting her into a smaller school where she's not going to have to climb loads of stairs everyday as this is something she struggles with.

Any tips would also be appreciated
Thank you

If you decide to appeal, take a deep breath, and hold fire for a couple of weeks. At this moment you’re probably feeling a little sensitive. It feels personal - your child has been rejected (although it’s not personal in any way…. if it was, that’d be very strong grounds for appeal).

There is no benefit to filling in the appeal form early. All appeals are held at the same time regardless. In a few days you’ll be able to fill in the appeal paper work in a much calmer frame of mind.

@theworldhasgoneinsane
In our area, you can appeal to as many schools as you want.

You sound like you have an extremely strong ground for appeal. Good luck.

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies thank you that's reassuring. It's quite unclear about how many schools you can appeal as both schools (first and second choice) are saying different things about whether I can appeal second choice school. I will ring the council on Monday

Thank you so much for the feedback. It's appreciated.

@theworldhasgoneinsane Yes, you can appeal for as many schools as you want.

You have the legal right to appeal the decision not to admit at each school that has turned your application down.

(But if copying and pasting any part of your written submission - and there may be genuine reasons 'Why this school' is also 'Why this school', like the accessibility issue - please remember to change the name of the school concerned, if you have mentioned it in that section. Panel members are reasonable folk and understand the multiple appeal scenario, but it does look a bit odd).

Thanks @MarchingFrogs that's really helpful. I'm a bit annoyed second choice school told me I couldn't appeal. That's misleading but will apply for then aswell this week. They are not as over subscribed so think it'll be worth me appealing that one too

What reason was given re not being able to appeal???

You named the school on your CAF?
Your DC was not offered a place? (I would say 'and you were not offered a higher preference school?', but in Essex, at least, this wouldn't be relevant)

Therefore you have the right of appeal.

@MarchingFrogs the receptionist at second choice school said because it was my second choice and not my first choice I can't appeal it

@prh47bridge Thats very helpful, thank you for responding.

one more question if I may - and I warn you, it’s a daft one! Are appeals in person or a review of submitted paperwork en masse by a panel?!

@KirriIrry from what I've read they're completed by Microsoft teams, think it was the gov website that said that

Coming back to add another point to PatriciaHolm’s excellent list:

• If you’re trying to get information from the admissions authority (school or local authority) by phone, make sure you are speaking to someone on the admissions team. As theworldhasgoneinsane’s post shows, receptionists, people on switchboards and others are not always familiar with how admissions and appeals work and sometimes confidently give out information that’s misleading or simply wrong,

@theworldhasgoneinsane Thank you

I'm going to add something too:

Don' talk down the offered school to your DC - they may end up going there. Be positive about it (whilst still trying to see if you can get into a preferred school.)