Secondary appeal - not offered place from feeder school

[JimJamJim]

Trying to work out if we have the basis for an appeal.

Child attends a primary on the same site as secondary.
Primary school has been designated as a feeder school for the secondary - in practice this means children from the primary are a priority group within the oversubscription criteria (after SEN and siblings).

The published rationale for having feeder school status is talks about things like facilitating curriculum alignment between the schools and primary school children "knowing they can join [secondary] in Y7". At various points we have received written communication from the primary saying things like children will have an "automatic" place at the secondary.

Easing the adjustment between primary and secondary was a key reason we chose the primary, child has always assumed they would go there.

We haven't been offered a place! Currently no reason to believe the admissions criteria haven't been applied correctly (though we are looking into it).

There's various other secondary reasons that the school particularly suits the child in terms of ethos, curriculum etc. But would the simple fact of it being a feeder we were encouraged to assume was a guarantee, and both us and the school preparing the child for that transition, be a case we could argue?

Did you put it as your first choice? What are the admissions criteria? How bizarre if is a "feeder school".

Do you have the admissions categories online anywhere for the school? Have all the other kids got in?

I don't understand. You seem to be saying that the feeder school are the priority group after looked after etc children but you think the admissions criteria have been correctly applied. These statements seem to contradict each other.

Probably a completely different area, but in my DDs year, 59/61 children in her Primary were offered places at the linked Secondary. (Of the other 2, 1 had chosen private school instead and the other lived too far away).

Did you check the admissions policy?

does that state that primary students are given priority?

find the admissions criteria and check. That’s the only way you’ll know if it’s the correct decision or not. Have any students not currently at the primary been admitted?

if it turns out primary students aren’t a higher priority, then not much you can do but go on the wait list. Your mistake was to assume, you should have checked.

Presumably, it’s to do with the distance from your house to the school, by whatever measure they use.

Schools can have several feeders. I worked in one where one feeder was on the same overall site, but other schools in the area were regarded as feeder schools too.

You can certainly appeal on the basis that that school offers something your child has a particular aptitude for, or interest in, that the offered school doesn’t. You should also be on the waiting list for the school you

Your local authority should have the data on its website about how places were allocated this year so I would take a look. The only things I can thing of are:

a/ there were more kids at the feeder school than places available so further over subscription criteria applied, which seems highly unlikely as secondary schools are generally much bigger.

b/ there’s been a cock up in which case you have a strong chance at appeal.

c/ you made an error on your application form (ie forgot to fill in the bit that states that your child goes to a feeder school) in which case you might need to make an in year transfer application and your child will go to the top of the waiting list.

O/p seems to think this is more than “considered” a feeder.

some secondaries do have a number of primaries which are perceived as “feeders” as in most kids will go to that secondary.

in o/p’s case she seems to have been led to believe that it’s written into the admissions policy- so

1. sen/lac etc
2. siblings
3. students at primary school X.
4. all other children, decided by home to school distance.

so a child already at the primary living 2 km away will get a place over a child not at that primary, who lives 0.2 km away.

o/p needs to actually check the admissions policy with the LA to find out whether the above is the case, or whether she’s just assumed. If number 3 isn’t there, she’s stuck.

yes if you are amazed not to have got a place, you need to understand why or you can't know it's not a mistake.

This happened in our area but it was because in-catchment children came above feeder school in the admissions criteria, so there weren't enough places for out of catchment children from the feeder school. It was unusual - most years the increase in year group size meant everyone could go up, but that year it wasn't enough.

Don't assume they got it right - understand why first and then see if it sounds plausible. Mistakes do happen.

Is the secondary year group bigger than the primary, and has the ratio changed at all?

Round here there is a secondary school with four designated feeder schools which add up to 300 places per year, and the school takes 210. The decider is distance home to school. Being at the closest feeder doesn't get you priority over pupils of other feeder schools.

Where I am it goes something like
Looked after
In catchment sibling
In catchment
Linked school sibling
Linked school
Other siblings
Other

So it very much depends on the admission criteria

They might be a 'priority' group, but they're unlikely to be the 'top priority' group.
It's usually roughly: 1 looked after children / children with SEN who have the school designated by an EHCP, 2 catchment children who attend a feeder school, 3 catchment children with siblings, 4 catchment children without siblings, 5 feeder school children who live out of catchment, but have sibilngs at the secondary, 6, feeder school children who live out of catchment, and so on...

Are you in catchment OP?

But @JimJamJim says that attending the feeder school is the third priority after SEN (and presumably LAC) and siblings – which I take to mean siblings of DC at the school now.

If that”s the case it seems odd, assuming they applied on time and listed the school as top preference.

Is it the case though – it would be unusual IME and also a bit unfair to offer places to DC at a specific primary school, regardless of where they live, over DC who live close to the school (but went somewhere else for primary).

OP the written info about the child having an automatic place at the secondary would surely work in your favour. Is this the third criterion though and have you checked – I ask bc you also say in your post we were encouraged to assume it was a guarantee which suggests it wasn't guaranteed, and you maybe did not actually check this? Apols if I have read it wrong though.

There will be published admissions priority criteria that the school has to follow. OP's loose 'third criterion' doesn't necessarily they are 3rd on the criteria list that will be published on the school's site somewhere.

Your first priority is to clarify exactly what the admissions criteria are to see whether your child should have been allocated a place.
If the criteria have been wrongly applied you should be given a place immediately.

If there is no error then you will have to appeal. Being encouraged to assume it was a guarantee, and both us and the school preparing the child for that transition is not a good basis for an appeal though. If you have something in writing from the LA (or possibly current school) guaranteeing a place that might be worth sharing with the appeals panel but assumptions will carry no weight unfortunately. You’ll need to build your argument around why your child would be disadvantaged if they couldn’t attend this school.

OK just to try to clarify.

The admissions criteria are:

1. SEN/looked after
2. Siblings
3. Children attending the feeder primary school
4. Other

Tiebreaker is distance from school.

We assume that there have been a surge in numbers of children in category 1 and 2 (SEN and siblings) such that not all children in category 3 (feeder school) have been offered a place. This has never previously happened.

I was fully aware that this was how the admissions system worked. Some other parents thought it the feeder school children literally had a guaranteed place.

So (notwithstanding movement on the waiting list etc, which may still happen) and assuming there are no errors in allocations (possible) we'd be relying on arguing that the secondary go over PAN to admit child on basis of disadvantage caused by not being able to attend the school that they had been prepared (by the schools own policies/practice) to attend.

how many per year in the feeder school and how many is the PAN for the secondary. As a PP has said primaries are usually smaller than secondaries and presumably a number of kids that go to the feeder school will also be in categories 1-3 so not counted in 4 so it does seem a bit odd that not all kids from the feeder school got in.

Double checking - is there just one feeder school, OP? In my area there are 3-4 primaries for each secondary.

can you see how the allocations were made on your local authority website? They should have a breakdown in the secondary admissions section. See example below.

Yes i agree, what sort of numbers are we talking. Standard secondary round my way is about 200-220 students in a year. I don't think I have ever come across a primary that big (biggest one I know of has 5 classes in a year so about 150 DC and that is very unusual).

So if you primary is (say) 60 students – is this a very small secondary? There surely cannot be 140 siblings?

Also a number of the siblings were probably at the feeder as well, so would have qualified under that if they didn't qualify higher up as a sibling.

Unfortunately it’s happening everywhere and I imagine one of the unspoken about culprits is the vat on private schools pushing sen kids and secondary kids to the local state schools. I’m sure it will get eye rolls, but it’s worth mentioning

I don't follow the logic here: if someone is leaving private primary for state secondary, they wouldn't be in the feeder school.

And whilst OP has put SEN at the top, I assume she means 'a child with SEN and an EHCP naming the school' or a specific medical need for the school eg if it has accessible classrooms when other local schools don't.

ETA: not disputing the wider point of increased state place pressure, just don't think it's the cause here

@JimJamJim assuming there are no other feeder schools, and assuming the PAN of the secondary is significantly bigger than the PAN of the primary then a mistake may have been made. Check that first because, if so, they are likely to rectify it without any need for you to appeal.

However, if this is effectively an "all through" school, with a secondary PAN similar in size to the primary PAN, then you are probably right that you have been leap-frogged in the oversubscription criteria. If so, your appeal case will need to be stronger than the school's case for not having capacity for more students.

Check your application details carefully - could you have forgotten to add them as your highest preference, did you put somewhere else higher, could you have forgotten to enter your current school? (All of these have been reasons for phone calls wanting to know why somebody hasn't got a place before - umm, because you didn't apply/didn't tell us you've got an older child there/you said you wanted somewhere else more?).

If you have applied and given this information, check that a) the school has known this/haven't made a mistake and b) that you're on the waiting list. If you haven't, then contact the school and the LA to make sure you are and they have the information now.

If all looks OK, you need to follow the instructions on the school website for how to submit an appeal.

And accept your current place so if all else fails, you have somewhere for September.