Secondary School Third Choice Allocated - can we appeal?

[kdandml]

Hello, I hope someone can help.

We recently learned our daughter has been allocated her third choice school. This school is close to us but has a bad name, which is why we put it as third choice rather than first or second.

All her current school friends are going to her first choice, and our child is distraught. We had reasons for choosing the first choice as we did and we feel there is a grounds to appeal on those bases, however I am not sure that the distance rule has been applied correctly in any case.

Her friends do all live closer to <FIRST CHOICE> than us, but it seems that crucially, they don't live too close to <THIRD CHOICE>. We emailed the admissions team at the council to say we weren't happy with the offer and below is an extract from the reply, with the schools redacted. It appears that we have been penalised for living too close to a bad school, which is bizarre, Is this right?

Thanks in advance.

Extract from the reply:
<FIRST CHOICE SCHOOL> was oversubscribed and we had to apply the oversubscription criteria in order to allocate places. The last person offered a place at this school lived 2.56 miles in the nearest school criterion and you live 1.55 miles from the school in the distance criterion. <THIRD CHOICE SCHOOL> is your closest school, therefore your application was refused on distance. <SECOND CHOICE SCHOOL> was also over subscribed and the last person offered lived 1.82 miles in the distance criterion. You live 3.41 miles from this school and this application was also refused on distance.

Does it definitely say that the last person offered a place was 2.56 miles but you live 1.55 miles away?

Have they got their numbers mixed up perhaps?

You're not being penalised. You qualified for an offer in the initial round because you were closer than others. At the same time, people living closer to the other schools got their offers.

You can appeal with appropriate grounds, but each application is treated independently and you did not live close enough to the other schools to be offered a place, as there were 100/150/240/whatever other children who live closer.

Can you PM me your local authority name? Do they have any special criteria about nearest schools?

From what you have said, I presume the admissions criteria for the schools give a higher priority to those for whom it is their closest school?

School 3 is your closest school, and therefore you did not qualify for that category, but a lower ‘distance’ category where it is simply based on your distance to the school.

That is a reasonably common criterion to help avoid admissions black spots, and it sounds as though it has been applied correctly?

That's what I'm thinking @EduCated . They can't allocate purely on distance.

So they look at everyone who put school A as a first choice and then work through the criteria. If what they have written about the furthest person being 2.56 miles away and you live 1.55 miles away then yes, you can absolutely appeal! Your distance from the third choice school shouldn't even be looked at until they've worked their way through the oversubscription criteria.

Yes, the quote above is correct.
We know of children who have been acecpted who definitely live further away. I'll pm. Thanks

Go on to the schools website and look at admissions, it will have a copy of their criteria. It's usually looked after children, ehcp, siblings, staff kids and then distance. If that's the case then you can appeal but if it's like something PP have suggested then it will make sense how they've done it.

sorry, I dont understnad what you mean re "qualified for an offer in the initial round.....".

Does your area give priority to children for whom its the closest school?

You can still appeal on the grounds that the school is more suitable.

What are the categories for the admissions criteria, and does it have a category along the lines of ‘children for whom this is their nearest school’?

What do the admissions criteria rules for the school say? If it's a "normal" rule of admitting based on distance then you should have been given a place. However some schools have criteria where they can admit people from further away if the school is their closest school (so a school on the very edge of a city can preferentially admit pupils from the surrounding countryside leaving the city centre schools to take the city-dwelling pupils) but it has to be written out clearly and followed fairly.

If a genuine mistake was made you may not need to appeal - if it's clearly a mistake they should rectify it immediately before appeal if possible. Even if no mistake was made you can always appeal - there's loads of good threads on here with advice about how

Not necessarily. Some Local Authorities prioritise children for whom the school is their nearest rather than purely distance to the school. So a child may live 5 miles away but school A is their nearest school, whereas another child may only live 2 miles away from school A, but has school B only 1 mile away from them. In that situation, the first child would get the place.

The initial round is the batch of offers made on National Offer Day.

Not everybody offered a place on March 1st takes it up - some go private, some get places offered from waiting lists for other schools, some go to grammars, some get places at other schools on appeal - which means further offers are made in a few weeks.

I think / assume this to be the case, although I fail to see anywhere where they actually state that. Indeed all i can find supports the simple distance rule.

You need to carefully read the over subscription criteria that the council publish to understand the rules they should apply. Without this the email doesn’t make sense.

For example in my council there are catchment areas for each regular (non religious and non selective) comprehensive school and the areas do not overlap, you are only in one. On the criteria being in catchment trumps being outside it even if geographically closer.

As @EduCated thought @kdandml , the reason you haven't been offered the place is because children who have applied to their nearest school are prioritised above other children (after the usual LAC/EHCP). So those children who live further away from first choice that have been offered the place, have been offered it because your first choice school is their nearest school.

(iv) Applicants to their nearest school - those children who have applied for a place at the nearest school to their home address measured by the shortest walking route

(v) All other applicants

From your LA admissions page @kdandml

From the school website right now: Applicants nearest to <THE SCHOOL>
Children who have applied for a place at <SCHOOL> as measured by the distance from their home address, to the main entrance, measured by the shortest walking route

This may be your grounds for appeal. If they don't make it clear what their criteria is, and if by putting the third school down you effectively ruled out the first one without having any way of knowing this, then this isn't a fair process.

I would take screenshots of the web pages now, before they update them, so you have proof of what they say now.

Or, PDF the relevant pages and save them (go to print it, then select PDF as the printer).

Or, save them on a web archive like this one (use the "save page now" box https://archive.org/web/

If you don't take a copy now, they could update the site and you'd have no way of prooving it.

That has changed from what it was when we applied - the document you have found is undated. I found that tonight too.... but if i understnad that correctly then it is saying, priority is being disregarded and we're being penalised for naming a school close ot us as third choice. Is that how everyone else reads it?

First off accept the third choice school place. Then see where you are on waitlist for both
then properly look at the criteria because if you are that close it’s odd

The LA website is very clear that children who apply to their nearest school are prioritised over other children (bar LAC/EHCP/exceptional medical reasons).