URGENT Secondary School Appeal help - appeal tomorrow

[WeaselTrap]

We have a secondary school appeal for our child tomorrow and I wondered if anyone could advise me.
We are appealing for an in-year place at an out of borough but local school in London. We originally applied under Social/Medical criteria, as the school has an outstanding provision including a dedicated hub for autistic students and prides itself on its inclusivity for Neuro Divergence in general. Our child has Autism, Tourette’s and heightened anxiety, but no EHCP and no need of one if the school environment is correct. The panel sympathized but didn’t see a strong enough link between our child’s needs and the school. The year group is currently full and has a wait list. As we live 1.01 miles from the school we are 22nd on the list, behind 3 siblings. The school’s argument is that they are full, the panel has recently asked them to admit extra pupils through appeal in other year groups and there is already a waitlist with strict criteria.
The current school, despite its excellent reputation and outstanding OFSTED, is failing our child. We have had a 2 year battle to install basic adjustments to help our child cope, that would be standard at the school we are appealing. We have letters from GP, CAMHS and TCaPS charity all saying they believe this is the correct school to cater for our child and the damage the current school is doing to their mental health.
We wrote a statement linking our experience of visiting the school and the info we have found out from in-depth chats with teachers, parents and the SEN team as to why we believe it is the only place our child will be able to thrive, and emphasized why the current school is no longer an option. My child even wrote a statement themselves highlighting what it would mean to them to be at a school where they could feel welcomed, believed and safe.
My queries are:

• What other info can we possibly present to back up our case?
• How strong is the schools argument for overcrowding/resources being spread too thin?
• If they are at capacity for that year group, but over for years 7,8 and 10 does this show there IS some wiggle room? Or just back up their overcrowding argument?
• We actually had to appeal to get into the school they are currently attending – will this be a factor in this appeal?? Will it go against us? Should we mention it?

Thanks for reading if you got this far!!

Not if the appeal is run as Stage 1 -> panel discussion to decide whether there is a need to proceed to Stage 2, and the panel decided that the school had not made its case that no extra pupil could be admitted to the year group in question. Or that there had been an error in the process which had cost the appellant’s DC a place.

I thought that stage 1 is always a group and stage 2 individual.

I don't think there was an error matter in this case but the issue with willingness to make reasonable adjustment for the child that would really benefit from that place.

Well done, OP! So pleased for you 😊

@TheGoldenGate it's only 'group' if there is more than one appeal to be heard. There are not usually hordes applying for the same year group outside of the main round appeals in the summer term (if nothing else, almost none of those main round hordes will have the right to appeal again until they are eligible to apply for year 8 in June/ July. And even if there is more than one, the same decision can be made, if the school's case is very weak (or very poorly presented, with the opportunity to improveit in response to the panel's questioning not taken), or a serious issue identified with the way the applications were handled..