Appeal hearing prep

[Bluecrumble]

I’m very much hoping for some guidance please as I have a Y7 appeal hearing next week and I feel very unprepared for it.

I’m a full time sandwich carer for both my disabled son with complex needs and my mother who has dementia. The reason I’m so unprepared for this hearing is my son came home just yesterday after being in hospital for almost three weeks including a stint in intensive care so it’s been a truly worry and difficult time.

I’ve pulled together an appeal based on my daughter’s social and emotional needs with the help of old threads on here. She is extremely shy, lacks confidence and suffers from anxiety which is impacted by her brother’s health. She has been seeing the therapist at her primary school and has had ELSA support for the last few years. In my written statement I talked about the impact of being a young carer and how art has been a way for her to express herself and has been part of her therapy sessions. I have a letter of support from her SENCO, my son’s social worker talking about the impact of caring on the her and the family, and my daughter’s art teacher. The school therapist has been signed off from work so I’ve not been able to get a letter which I was really hoping for.

The school I’m appealing for is the smallest in this area which offers art and textiles and has a very unique art ethos which really fits my daughters needs. It’s a faith school with a chaplain who trained as a counsellor as well as two other specialist therapists who between them work full time. One of these has links with the young carers trust. Plus, there is a strong link with her primary school and year in year children have attended this school which will aid her transition. Another sibling attends her allocated school so I know it well and they don’t have anything near the same pastoral support and it is much larger which she finds overwhelming.

I’ve just received the appeal pack and it looks as though it’s an individual hearing with Stage 1 and Stage 2 together - I was expecting a joint stage 1. I’ve looked through the schools case papers and the only thing included is my daughter’s school application and their standard admissions information. Am I right to have expected it to include their reasons for not admitting? I’ve read lots on here about arguments around class sizes, overcrowding etc so I’m confused OR do I need to follow up with school for this information as they may bring it up at the hearing?

Ask the school to provide data on the last 7 years admission numbers. General number how many they admitted and then secondary how many SEN kids ( your child falls in this category). If they acxepted more last year than this year you have an argument. Also, check planning portal if there were any extension to the school and when.
You would need a document from a therapist with the recommendation that extended art classes are helpful for your child. You need also prove that you are of this faith to make your case stronger ( baptised churchgoer)

Thanks @Persimonne72! I didn’t know where to start. I will send this request to the appeal school now and get something from our church re faith. Sadly I don’t think we will get something from the therapist before the hearing but I will chase again on Monday.

My brother appealed for a really over subscribed school when my niece was in year nine as it offered textiles at GCSE and my niece wanted to be a costume designer. The school she was at didn't do it. She had been going to a sewing class for years and my brother had letters from her sewing teacher as well as the art teacher at her school. Anyway, it was successful and she got in.

They asked a lot of questions about where else she could study GCSE textiles and also how she would get there as it was relatively far away.

The appeal pack should include the school's case. It should state why you didn't get a place and set out the issues they claim they will have if another pupil is admitted. If that isn't there, check with the clerk. If the school genuinely haven't submitted a written case and then try to make a case in the hearing, be clear that their failure to provide a written case has hampered your ability to prepare for the hearing.

Thanks @LittleBrenda I do like to hear these successes as it gives me hope!

Thanks @prh47bridge I will check with the clerk. The only information in the pack was general admissions information, a copy of our original application, a copy of the letter about why we didn’t get a place on offer day, and the emails regarding waiting list position. So all documents which we had already seen and nothing appeal specific.

The appeals code is clear that the school must provide the reasons to refuse admission and an explanation as to how admission of an additional pupil will cause prejudice. The letter saying why you didn't get a place on offer day should cover the first point, although many such letters don't go into enough detail. However, the documents you've been sent clearly don't cover the second point. Either the clerk has forgotten to send you the school's case or they haven't submitted one. If the school hasn't submitted a case and they turn up to the hearing with one, you can ask for an adjournment, making it clear that you haven't seen this before and therefore have been unable to prepare your response to the school's case. Alternatively, the panel is able to refuse to consider the school's case in this situation.

I sincerely hope the school is not attempting to ambush parents by withholding its case until the hearing.

I am a bit afraid that many parents appeal because...mandarin is in that school, art provision, rugby team is good and similar. The panel then have no reason to prioritise one child above another.

Thanks @prh47bridge I’ve heard back from the clerk and there aren’t any addition documents expected for the school’s case. I will go through everything again tomorrow and make a note of anything I think is relevant but there isn’t much to go on so I suspect as you’ve said they may be planning an ambush as it’s a popular school and I imagine that they are used to having a high number of appeals.

I hear what you’re saying @Persimonne72 and it’s been a case of bad timing in regard to the therapist being signed off. I do hope after half term that I hear back from her with enough time to get something across to the clerk. Either way I have to put my best foot forward and try my best with the appeal as this is really the best fit for my daughter.

If the panel allow them to ambush you and you lose, you should definitely take it further. Hope it doesn't come to that.

The appeal is only to some extent about how valid is your reason. But it is also about if you manage to prove to the school that they can accommodate one more child. They can dismiss many valid reasons stating that cannot streach any further in terms of space. It would help if you looked at the numbers patterns of last year, SEN numbers that the accommodated ( your daughter falls under this category). Maybe the target number of kids is lower than last year, maybe they altered buildings in any way. These things you got to prepare.

But it is also about if you manage to prove to the school that they can accommodate one more child.

Nothing at all about convincing the school that it can accommodate one more child.

Both the school and the appellant present their respective cases to the independent appeal panel. Which makes the decision, in the first place, as to whether the school's case is proven - if not, all appeals being heard for that school at that time will be upheld, however strong / weak any individual appellant’s case may be. This is not very common where there are several appelants for the same year group.

If the panel finds at this first stage that the school has made a valid case, each individual appellant is heard in their own stage 2.

After all the individual cases have been heard, the panel decides, for each one individually, whether the appellant's case to be admitted outweighs the school's case not to admit further pupils. Unless there are so many 'upholdable' cases that the panel recognises that the sxhool genuinely could not be expected to take all of them, all of those whose case the panel would uphold, will be notified that they have been successful - at the same time, the school is informed that those pupils must be admitted.

(If the number that the panel would direct the school to admit is obviously significantly too great, the panel should then decide between the cases - this is the only time that appellants' cases are compared to each other).

There is a lady here who in another thread provided her story how she won. And she proved that the school could accomodate several more pupils.

But the point is appellants are not convincing the school that it can take more. They need to are convince an independent appeal panel. (I chair appeals panels). That was marchingfrogs point.

One doesn't contradicts the other. Often it is that there are 10 appeals with similar grounds equally convincing and the school simply refuses basing on the fact that they don't have capacity. The poster in another thread who won appeal and told me about her process she provided during the hearing evidence that they have capacity due to the building extension. This + her child circumstances led to the winning case.

If there is an appeal, it is always because the school is refusing. If they weren't, there would be no need for an appeal. The poster to whom you refer clearly convinced the appeal panel that the school could cope with more pupils. They did not convince the school. That isn't how appeals work.

Correct. And if she does, she will need to have strong arguments to convince them otherwise.

Arguments "only your school offers(put the subject name)" are very very common and half of the appealing parents will have them. The same for distance from school and ease of trip. For SEN kids in the pre appeal letter they always include data how many SEN kids they plan to have on roll and with how many they can cope in the given year.

You need to say why the school is a good fit for your dc, not why others aren’t.

The eleven plus.co.uk website has a good section on appeals (and a lot is relevant to non-grammar schools).

Our Appeal was upheld! I received the figures for the schools upheld appeals just a day or so before and roughly 5% over the past 7 years have been upheld so when I saw that I almost gave up. I’m still pretty stunned that we were successful.

Many thanks to you all for your advice not just on this thread, but also the many others that I’ve looked at on the boards to help prepare.

@prh47bridge there was a case put forward by the school so it was an ambush of sorts - she was representing the school but it was being very gently done.

Well done. That's good news.

I hope someone points out to the school that they must submit a proper written case in future.