2024 waiting list/appeal support thread

[Hopeful88]

I thought I'd start a support thread for everyone in the same position - either waiting on appeal outcomes or hoping for a secondary school place from a waiting list.
I've read all the advice I can and I'm doing the best I can but I'm still struggling with the unknown.
We're currently in the 20s on the waiting list for our first choice school and an unknown number for the second choice.
Fingers crossed for everyone in the same position. 🤞🏼🤞🏼

Fantastic news @AllSuggestionsTaken - let's hope it continues for others!

Ugh, my DCs school have just sent out the yearbook form to fill out where we have to say (as a compulsory field) which secondary they will be going to. Not sure what to put, the deadline is in a couple of weeks.

@Rhayader ugh indeed can you speak to the school? My ds does not even know he hasn't got his place at the school he expects, appeal on the 25th and school have said he won't hear it from them.
Hope you can sort something, things like this really rub the salt in don't they.

Thank you all. Too many to name individually to thank but @PatriciaHolm particularly has been great.

Really wishing everyone else waiting the best.

Oh that's not good. Are you still number 1 on the waiting list? I would guess that you will get the school you want but I know it would feel like tempting fate to write it down.
It's the things like that I found the hardest, small things to everyone else really hit hard when you're in this position.

Yeah still number 1 but successful appeals will go ahead of us as late applicants so we could be no1 with -10 spaces.

Last year they had 11 successful appeals out of 70.

Wow that’s a lot of successful appeals! What borough is this?.

I’ll dm you

Hi, can anybody provide some reassurance for our 2nd appeal. Was very calm and hopeful about it but cr myself about it now as it is less than a week away.

I submitted additional evidence this week, including my son's dyspraxia report which includes OT recommendations. One of the big cornerstones of our case is that his OT support is accessible very easily by foot from appeal school (15 minutes), whereas for allocated school he would have to take a bus and then walk 20 minutes. For appeal school, he would arrive in time to catch 15 minutes of the first period, for allocated school we would arrive at the beginning of the 2nd period (and that only if there is no problem with bus etc.). I have provided bus routes and google maps routes in the additional evidence pack to show this.

How do I best present this at the panel? I am worried that they'll say 'Oh you provided a bus route, you have shown that it is feasible for him to travel there to allocated school on his own and you also seem to be happy for him to walk to appeal school on his own'.

I want to emphasize

• the educational impact: he will miss more lesson time at allocated school
• the possible impact on an 11 year old who is just learning to be independent: we do think he will generally be able to cope with buses etc., but if sth goes wrong (bus not arriving, etc.) he will be stuck and we will, due to work, not always be able to rescue him immediately

How do we respond if they say it's parents' responsibility to make sure he can go to the OT sessions? We have already emphasized that our other son's additional needs put a huge strain on our jobs (which is true!). Driving him from and to OT sessions is technically possible (and he then wouldn't loose that much time in school), but it would simply have a huge impact on hour professional life.

So, essentially, we want to be very firm and want to say that him accessing the OT support is dependent on him being at appeal school and that we won't be able to facilitate the support at allocated school. How is this going to be seen by a panel? Any advice welcome! @PatriciaHolm I believe you provided some advice to other people on this thread.

@Hopeful88 That’s brilliant news! I know when we got our waiting list place I had to keep reading the email to remind myself it was true - I just couldn’t believe it!

@AllSuggestionsTaken that’s great news - we’ll done. You must be very relieved.

@dodi1978 how often would his OT happen?

You have a reasonable argument, but it will also depend very much on the schools argument that it is full. Some are much stronger than others. what are your other arguments? this alone, against a strong school case, is unlikely to be enough.

Playing devils advocate, i can see the appeal school saying that actually, arriving in time for 2nd period is much less disruptive to all concerned than going in to the last 15 mins of an established lesson.

@PatriciaHolm Thanks for your answer. The recommended OT is currently 2x per half term, plus some sessions in school. The OT has an existing relationship with appeal school due to prior engaging with kids there, whereas this is not the case for allocated school. She has confirmed this and this is part of the additional evidence I submitted.
However, we are only at the beginning of possible further assessments for my son. ASD has been raised by both the OT and his current school, so we don't know how his OT needs might develop.

Our other main argument is that the school offers a modern language he has got an association with, and that modern language is usually under- rather than oversubscribed.

The school has made a fairly robust defence about being oversubscribed. However, they would have done this in previous years, too, and yet approx. 20% of all appeals at this school are won!

As for arriving during first / just before 2nd period, we can say that at appeal school, he will definitely be able to join for start of the 2nd period (with room for a breather if the school don't want him to join for end of 1st period), whereas at allocated school, anything going wrong on the journey would prevent that, and he'd likely also be more tired from the trip.

We didn't mention at all in any documents that he doesn't know anyone at allocated school whereas at appeal school he has got a big friend group. Should we make a thing of this? We though this might weaken rather than strengthen our argument.

Congratulations @Hopeful88 @AllSuggestionsTaken!!!!

Sadly we lost both of our appeals. Im pleased we did it even though our case was not so strong, I feel secure they we tried our best for our dc. We are still at no.2 on waiting list for 2nd preference and no.10 at 3rd preference. So we will see.

though we have told our DC that we are accepting the offered school (4th preference) just so they can feel excited without the uncertainty.

Good luck all those yet to appeal

@Supamum3 Sorry to hear that. We have our 2nd appeal tomorrow and I am swerving between hopeful and not so much. What was your appeal based on? Do you know why it has been unsuccessful?

Sorry to hear that. Your waiting list positions sound promising though and apparently there's lots of movement to come in the next month or so. 🤞

Congratulations everyone that’s had good news recently. It must be such a weight off your mind.

I’ve been hearing of lots of successful appeals in the real world recently. I almost regret not appealing because particularly for our second choice school I’ve heard of a few successful appeals with fairly weak cases (obviously assuming I know the full story which I may not).

I’m going to give it until middle of next week and then call the council for an update on waiting lists. I’m feeling increasingly hopeless about it though and I’m trying to accept that I am going to have to start preparing for the rubbish school we’ve been allocated but I just don’t feel like I should have to.

Both schools had a very strong case to stay within PAN and our DC additional needs were not unique enough not to be supported by a different school. But I must say the panel for both were so lovely and made the hearing easy for DH and I even though we were nervous.

@Supamum3 Thanks for your answer. I suspect we'll be told the same. We are arguing on basis of a specific subject being available at the appeal school, and on OT support being available near appeal school (difficult to access from allocated school). The school has also made a very robust case. Yet, in the last five years, approx. 20-25% of appeals for this school have been successful, so there have been precedents. But we can only try! Luckily, the allocated school is not bad as such - it's just difficult to access and DS will not know a soul as ALL his friends are going to appeal school.

We have had our appeal date in today but not to hopefully

we have moved to number 3/7 on the waiting list this week but that was a fight to get in it self

week before we were 4/8 and 2 offers went out one of which was a parent from my nursery who declined the space

When we checked in this week they said we where still 4/8 when questioned how as we knew some one did not take the offer they sent us a big lecture on how people can add to the list daily and if they live closer will go infront which I already know

I asked how many children have added to the list they replied none I again questioned how have I not moved at least one space knowing some one declined

4 hours later I get an email I am 3/7

seems abit off in our borough

the nursery I work out a child has been admitted a school year early because the parents have a 10 year plan to move back to france where children start school at 3
apparently admin call them and told them to adjust the birth date of there child on forms and they will let them start early 😡

I don't know who to believe about movement on waiting lists... we are 45 at our 1st choice school, no 43 on 2nd choice school. Waiting lists have moved about 40 places each since the start, so not bad. Plus, the rumour mill has told me that there is also a lot of movement at 1st choice school, even in the summer and just after start of term. On the other hand, potential private school fee rises will hit hard, in particular at 1st choice school, and admissions tutor has told me she does not expect much movement any more. I have no idea what to believe!

@dodi1978 I hope you get more movment 🤞
it’s horrible waiting to see takes away from the excitment of them starting a new school

That is encouraging, and you may end up being amongst that statistic, I think if there are any gaps in the school case it’s easier to argue your position. Fingers crossed it work out for you.

My DC close friends are all separated so I hope they make new friends easily

It’s exactly this, and I can’t even get an answer to how much movement there usually is on waiting lists because our council don’t keep that data. Looking at older posts on this forum it seems people do get places but then it’s different in different areas how much movement there will be.

Just found out that my DD has got a place at grammar school. Can't quite believe it.

The process is so brutal and wouldn't wish it on anyone.

All the best to those of you all still waiting.

@Fizzyrosie Congratulations! Great news…

Still holding my thumbs for everyone else still waiting