Secondary school appeal hearing

[Beizzyanddizzy]

Hi everyone,
I have an appeal hearing in Friday.

The school are arguing that they are oversubscribed so the usual arguments.

How can I prove that the school being oversubscribed has not impacted the quality of education. Their gcse results are above average.

Also they have provided me with only this year's PAN. Shall I ask for the last 5 years?

Apparently the suitability survey shows that the corridors are overcrowded. Can I request this?

What other arguments can I put forward for the school being oversubscribed

My sons suffers from anxiety and this school as a very good welfare department compared to the school he is currently attending. Is this a strong argument. They also have a better curriculum. I currently drive him tk school as he is anxious about taking public transport. This means I'm picking up my daughter 30 minutes early from nursery so I'm not late for him..the school I want is a 20 min walk.

Any advice appreciated as I'm desperate for him to get into this school.

Oh gosh, that is great news!

I wonder why the school is letting appeals go to appeal hearing if they have space ?? Why not just offer those spaces to the children on waiting list?? Seems odd but glad it has worked out well for your DS.

It isn't just odd. It is wrong. If there was a waiting list, places should have been offered to those at the head of the list rather than allocated to appellants in this way. If there was no waiting list, it was a waste of everyone's time to have a hearing.

If a space became available it is offered to the waiting list first.

If there is no waiting list then you would accept an appeal. It may be they have only recently been able to confirm a person has left and started elsewhere or that the place was offered on and no longer needed by that person. We have spaces awaiting confirmation of an offer.

It does seem odd. However, there wasn't 'officially' a space. This year's PAN was 240 and next year's is 270 following the handover of the new building this month. In anticipation of that extra space they over-filled this year to 257 - it would have been interesting to know why 257 rather than 258 or 270 (depending on the size of the waiting list). It may have been political. As it is a maintained school it may be that the local authority were doing a behind-the-scenes balancing act to make sure other schools' admissions weren't negatively impacted by the unplanned early increase in intake for this more popular school. (If it had been an academy, I expect they would have been trying to fill up the additional spaces as quickly as possible to help their budget, and wanting to avoid the cost of an unnecessary appeal for the same reason).

If you take a child you need to have it on the October Roll to get any fundng. If you miss that deadline there is no money for that child for the whole year nor any pupil premium money. Miss by even a day and the previous school gets any money. Was this a consideration? I can not say.

We operate our own admissions and pay per appeal.
Most school buy into a SLA and pay a fee regardless of how many you do.

Glad you got the school you wanted