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. 🤞🏼🤞🏼

@Rhayader I really can't say. The first school we appealed to said that, after appals, they are trying to get back to PAN before admitting from waiting list. The 2nd school didn't really comment on this.
But - the 12 kids over PAN may not all be from appeals. Some schools apparently over-offer on offer day, because they know that a certain number of offers will be declined. Maybe the 12 over PAN are from this rather than successful appeals... but this may not make any difference to waiting list.
This must be so frustrating from you - I really feel for you.
A colleague told me that her daughter has been on 1st position on waiting list for a popular catholic school for the whole of year 7. She is now hoping that families have waited until the end of the academic year to move away, to maybe get a place for year 8.

@Rhayader council admissions should be able to tell you why they are so many over PAN . In our case they were already 25 over but this was due to them having an operational capacity so the +25 number was what admissions were working to with the waiting list .

So they were 2 over pan on offer day. I know 3 people who declined the school, either friends or friends of friends (so the latter may not have actually sent the email) and now they are 12 over PAN. We’ve been 1/400+ since day 1 of the waiting list.

but I doubt I know everyone who declined the school!

@Rhayader dont loose hope you still have almost 3 months for people to drop out and they may have a lot of appeals to reply to what week day do waiting list get reranked ours is every Tuesday

Are the school obliged to tell me how many upheld appeals there have been? The school does their own admissions so the council might not know…. The council couldn’t even tell us our position on the waiting list

@Rhayader yeah they should be able to tell you give them a call

They're not obliged to but I don't see why they wouldn't , it does sound like 10 appeals were upheld

Still no movement on the waiting list 😡

Just heard from the school that they’ve had a significant number of additional kids with ehcp which is why they are so over PAN. I fear it may be over for us - I’m really not sure what to do. If I submit an appeal now when will it be heard.

Any appeal submitted now won't be heard until the new school year I'm afraid.

Probably work getting the ball rolling on this… if I don’t have any other options. I can’t believe there have been double the number of ehcp since March.. I would have thought those parents would have sorted it ages ago, unless they are new ehcp.

I'm sorry to hear that, that's a huge amount of late EHCPs. I still have a feeling you'll get lucky before September, fingers crossed for you. 🤞🏼 It's almost unheard of for number one on the list not to get a place.

It’s 10% of the year 7 cohort now!

I’ve been looking at this because I thought we had a strong case but it says this is for maintained schools and our school is an academy. Have I misinterpreted this?

The funding agreement for an academy requires it to comply with all relevant admissions law. That includes this provision of the School Standards and Framework Act.

Perfect thanks! I think i just found a section of the academies act that lists all the bits of the 1998 bill that dont apply and section 85 is not one of those listed.

We did not win our appeal knew we wouldn’t tho

Sorry to hear this 😞

Sorry to hear that. 😞 I hope you have better luck with the waiting list

Sorry to read your news @Mummyk13
Fingers crossed for the waiting list. It really is almost impossible to win a primary appeal, so well done for even trying.

We’ve just heard we are number 6 for our second choice which is not bad at all. I got some more numbers from our first choice school and they’ve only had 2 kids say no to the school (plus a load of extra ehcp). That’s not very many kids going private for the area we live in so I expect they will have a bunch drop out or just not turn up in September. It’s going to be a long summer.

@Rhayader it sure will be let’s hope we get offered soon 🤞

I just heard from the school that they don’t do any admissions stuff over the summer. So unless all the kids drop out this week they won’t process any withdrawals until September, meaning DD has no chance of starting at the beginning of September. Is this normal?

Yes , that's pretty normal. Many secondaries are their own admissions authority and by now may well be operating their own waiting lists, so the LA cannot allocate without talking to them so most of the time allocations don't happen over the summer, even for LA schools, as it would mean only some schools allocating.

@Rhayader Yes, I think that's normal - they then reopen the waiting lists in September. Really sorry for you!