Grounds for secondary appeal

[MintPoster]

My DD didn’t get a place at her first choice secondary. We’re in a different county so we only fall under distance for this school, despite it being our nearest secondary.

First round of continuing interest happened last week and we’ve not heard anything to say we’ve got a place, yet they have a document that shows the furthest child admitted is now 50-60 metres further away than we are.

Distance criteria is worked out on ‘straight line’ measurement and there is a distance calculator on the county website that shows our distance as less than ‘the furthest child admitted’

Trying to get information out of the county admissions dept is really difficult! Anyone think we’d have grounds to use this in an appeal or am I missing something really obvious?

It depends how they've set out the document. If, for example, they have a sibling criteria, they could have a distance of 1.2 miles, but that could be a sibling.

What you need clarity on is what category the last child admitted was in and the last distance awarded from the distance category.

And I'm sure you have checked - but you haven't been allocated a place as well, and just not received the information yet (it may well come via your own LA, not the school).

It’s a line of text next to the distance rule that says “Home to school distance of the most distant child admitted” - the siblings rule is 4th on the list of rule, whereas distance is the 8th rule.

So presumably the last child admitted had a sibling already there 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ive contacted my own LA and they say it’s nothing to do with them any more, they could see DD was on the waiting list but wouldn’t/couldn’t tell us where. They told us to contact the LA where the school is. But when I spoke to them by email and phone, they said I need to go to my own LA! 🙄

I don’t think I’m following you sorry! So my LA’s summary says

1. EHC Plan - 10
2. Children looked after - 3
3. Children of staff - 3
4. Siblings - 84
5. medical/social - 0
6. Local parish - 119
7. Religion - 10
8. Distance - 11 - Home to school distance of most distant child admitted is 3418.50metres
9. Non ranked allocation - 0

So I’ve taken this to mean the child furthest away under the distance rule is 3418.50 metres away - I am closer than this.

No, I would read it as the last child admitted under the distance rule. For siblings, distance is irrelevant so there would be no reason to publish it.

@MintPoster , it sounds like you may have a case for appeal, but it's difficult to know without seeing the full admissions policy.

You should be able to write to the school's LA and ask them to confirm that the distance you have calculated is correct, and to ask them to confirm whether you are still on the waiting list given that your distance is less than the one published.

I’ve just sent this off in an email tonight and copied in admissions for both LA’s! The distance I have is actually from the LA website of our 1st choice school. But I’ve checked a couple of other websites and I’m getting pretty much the same distance as that. The furthest distance is around 60 metres more than us now.

If these numbers are correct then it is probable that an appeal would be successful or that you may get offered a place before the appeal date arrives once the school's/LA's representative reads your evidence. For an appeal to fail they would have to show that the criteria were correctly applied and I can't see how that could be.

Your grounds are simple - they made a mistake in applying the oversubscription rules and if they hadn't made this mistake your DC would have a place.

Possible things you could fall down on - was your application definitely on-time. If your application was late then no mistake was made. Was the allocation you quoted from the first round of places offered? If not, was there any time when your DC was not on the waiting list?

If the last distance is further than you are, then you have grounds for appeal but they should offer you the place before appeal, ideally.

My application was 100% on time. The allocation I quoted above is from the LA’s ‘first round of continuing interest’ so the first reallocation after everyone has accepted/rejected their choices. The information I’ve got on my portal says I would be automatically added to the waiting list of any higher ranked school than the one I was offered, unless I opted out - which I haven’t. (I also ticked the option ‘go on waiting list’ just to be sure!)

@MintPoster The information I’ve got on my portal says I would be automatically added to the waiting list of any higher ranked school than the one I was offered, unless I opted out - which I haven’t. (I also ticked the option ‘go on waiting list’ just to be sure!)

This may be where it fell down. The portal will be for your LA of residence and will be correct for the majority of website users however I would bet good money that when the higher ranked school is in a different LA area the procedure for waiting lists is different and doesn't happen automatically. That doesn't mean they didn't make a mistake and yiur appeal could still be successful but they may try to argue that it was your responsibility to make sure you were on the waiting lists managed by the other LA.

It sounds like a mistake but the wording in the distance category sounds slightly ambiguous, possibly it is the furthest child admitted in any category and not just in the distance category.

I would 100% check the LA has your correct address and confirm how/where they are measuring distance from. Most school sites are larger than 60m, so if it's e.g. from the front entrance or something, maybe the distance is slightly longer than the calculator shown.

But yes, if it's a mistake definitely appeal and they should rectify it!

So are you sure the other child doesn't have any of those other reasons to give them priority over yours? A combination for example?

I would question that distance, also make sure you are on the waiting list and check your progress regularly.
But I would also prepare to appeal, explaining why this school is the most suitable for your child - what about it particularly suits your child.

Hopefully they will offer you a place before appeal but you do need to read up to prepare for appeal. Secondary school appeals are not like Primary school ones.

How, exactly, is the distance measured for this school? 'Front door to nearest entrance' type of thing? Or using a GIS which uses the single data point for your address to the single single data point for the school?

(I'm not sure about currently, but when we last applied for schools, every single school in our LA used a straight line distance - apart from our actual priority area school, which used 'safe walking distance', which bumped us out of the 'offerable'area, due to the 'dog legs' involved in the walk).

Yes it could be that an error has been made OP and it's good to question it.
Are you sure that there isn't an extra criteria being applied here e.g. that the child living in the school LEA has priority or does the school have a formal catchment area?

It is illegal to give a child priority just because they live in the school's LA.

It is possible that late applicants who fall into the higher categories (e.g. due to faith) have gone ahead of OP on the waiting list. However, given that they have admitted down to category 8, if OP lives closer to the school than the last child admitted there is definitely an issue. The one question I would have is whether the online calculators OP has used are accurate. Many measure from the centre of the postcode rather than the home address. That could easily account for a difference of 60m.

Are you sure that there isn't an extra criteria being applied here e.g. that the child living in the school LEA has priority

Do you mean, an extra criterion, not stated in the school's formal listed oversubscription criteria in its determined admissions policy? Hopefully not, but the application of such would be an automatic finding in favour of any appellant, were they to be able to prove that it had happened.

Plus the footnote to para 1.14 of the Admissions Code (which deals with Catchment Areas), states R v Greenwich London Borough Council, ex parte John Ball Primary School (1989) 88 LGR 589 [1990] Fam Law 469 held that pupils should not be discriminated against in relation to admission to the school simply because they reside outside the local authority area in which the school is situated. So the formal catchment area for the school could be wholly contained within the school's LA (presumably, the 'local parish' in the given list, slightly odd if just the one parish, though, if this refers to civil parish, not CofE?) - in which case, those living outside that LA would be no more discriminated against than someone living in the same LA but outside of the catchment area - but could not have the boundary of the LA as the boundary of its catchment area.

I had a phone call from the LA of our 1st choice school today - my DD has been offered a place at the school she wanted!! I’m so relieved.

Sounds like one big mess, but basically 1st choice LA ran their reallocation list on Thursday last week and the LA I live in sent their emails out yesterday. Because of the bank holiday weekend they said they didn’t have time to include the out of county changes in their emails this week. Instead they plan to wait until the 16th May to let parents know.

I made sure I got it in writing too just to be 100%!

"Instead they plan to wait until the 16th May to let parents know."

May? Presumably you meant April, i.e. straight after the Easter holidays?

Sounds like a cock-up.

Nope, definitely 16th May! 🤦‍♀️ I don’t understand why they won’t tell parents sooner, especially as appeals hearings are due to start at the beginning of May.

Complete cock-up!

@MintPoster in that case, I would lodge an appeal "just in case". I know you said you have it in writing that a place will be offered, but that will only be any good to you at an appeal. If you miss the appeals deadline, and have to request a late appeal, you may not get one this side of September.

It will also help to expose whatever cock-up or conspiracy has taken place.