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?

Because they apply the national average attainment bands in an above average attainment area, it means relatively fewer places in the higher bands compared to the profile of the area.

There's an argument, but it's a weak one.
Using words like "boast" won't help you. An appeal won't be won by presenting the school as a villain because you feel hard done by, it's about presenting your child's very strong need to go to this particular school.

You would need to put this argument to the Schools Adjudicator, not the appeals panel.

Well yes that was really what the thread was about, is there an argument that we are disadvantaged by not getting a place at the partnered secondary school because we were at the primary school? Given that the schools boast about the shared curriculum etc. were you disadvantaged though? Surely the number of siblings in that band was exceptional and most would also attend the feeder.

Yes. It's the rare example of the lower attaining students being slightly over-represented rather than the higher attaining students. We have selective and partially-selective schools all over the country offering additional school options to the top students or students who are accomplished in art or music or similar.

The thought process in this structure is that a) maintaining an even spread of abilities representative of wider society has value for students and the school and b) a strong school in an above-average area is a resource that should be used to help "lift" students who are under-attaining for the area.

I mean disadvantaged by the outcome, rather than the criteria.

I do think it's a bit ridiculous to end up with children who live much further away from the school being given places, when children living closer don't get in, just because of some test they took in Y6. How on earth can one test be a fair assessment of a child's various ability levels (across all subjects) at the time of testing, let alone an accurate predictor of their academic abilities throughout secondary school?!

I also think that if you're going to use this bizarre system of admissions then it's much better to limit the number of bands; 4 seems much more sensible than 9.

I do think it's a bit ridiculous to end up with children who live much further away from the school being given places, when children living closer don't get in, just because of some test they took in Y6. How on earth can one test be a fair assessment of a child's various ability levels (across all subjects) at the time of testing, let alone an accurate predictor of their academic abilities throughout secondary school?!

Sure. But if we're going to follow that argument then all grammars and other selective and partially-selective schools have to be abolished. And there are good arguments to doing that, but as long as grammars are allowed to exist in the state education system in England there isn't a good argument against this form of banding.

So are there only 10 places for each band? Or do some bands have a lot more DC than others? If there are only 10 places per band that makes it an intake of 90 which is very small.

Banding tests are not unusual – there is one for a popular secondary local to me – but I have never come across this outcome before.

Surrey's just posted on X that 93.1% of applications resulted in a top three preference being offered.

Obviously I wouldn't use that language in an appeal but honestly we're feeling absolutely devastated and more than a bit aggrieved by the fact that we've repeatedly been told a place at the secondary was "guaranteed" by feeder status. After reading the small print of the admissions criteria we realised it was technically possible not to get a place but apparently it's the first time it's ever happened in practice.

For those baffled by banding as part of comprehensives admissions allocations... it's something like 1 in 12 secondary schools in England who use banding for admissions, so it's not the norm but it's an accepted approach. They can have 3-9 bands. One of the caveats is that a comprehensive (non-selective) school cannot use banding to allocate more places to high-attaining students and must allocate the same number of places in each band, so the school in question here can't expand that top band to accomodate additional applicants that fall into that range.

I don't know. It's either a selective school - in which case all the children who got the best test scores are offered places - or it's not, in which case you apply the usual criteria (catchment/distance, siblings, feeder schools). I think it's very weird to have some clunky attempt to combine the two systems and end up with a situation like the OP's when there is a linked primary school literally on the same site as the secondary school and not all the kids will get in.

The bands aren't equally sized, middle bands are like 30 or something - PAN is 180. So being in the top band has the double disadvantage of being in a small band (so more chance of being hit by quirks like variation in sibling numbers) and also a small relative to the number of children locally who score well in the test.

Banding is part of the usual criteria in many areas and schools.

must allocate the same number of places in each band

So the intake of the school is 90? That's tiny. And how big is the feeder school? That's still relevant.

Did your DC get allocated another school on their list @JimJamJim? Are you reasonably happy with it?

Ah x post - so that goes against what @GravyBoatWars says that all bands must be the same size.

I can sort of see the logic in this but I think 9 bands is too many. Surely they should also consider the number of places they'll have in each band and ensure a minimum number in each one.

How on earth is this fair?! No wonder you're upset! I'd be fuming!

To my knowledge the size of the bands at our school isn't the same, I'm sure it's between 10 and 30 but it aligns to the 'bell curve' of results so there size of the band is correct relative to the average (i.e. most kids are near the average so the middle bands are the biggest). So it's not giving a disadvantage or advantage to high or low attainers (at least compared to national average!)

I see I'm still calling it "our school" even though it's not "our school". 😭

It sounds as if parents are going to end up encouraging their kids to aim for average results in the tests. Ridiculous.

That was literally what I was thinking. That's just mad.

Yes, I oversimplified that in a really poor way.

Comprehensives can't use banding to overselect for high-attainers. But they're allowed to admit different numbers from each band if applicants are banded in a corresponding manner. So if the top band is smaller than the middle bands then the middle bands should also correspond to either a larger score range or a score range that contains a larger proportion of applicants.

What doesn't work is for them to expand only the top bands to accomodate additional students from the feeder school because more of them have tested into the top bands or to add spots to certain bands because of uneven sibling distribution in a year.

To be honest the headteacher at the open evening dropped hints that doing well wasn't to your advantage. I'd studied the admissions criteria and knew it wasn't helpful but I didn't think there would be any chance we'd be troubling the top band, but DC choose this moment to reveal they have a hidden talent for non-verbal reasoning we didn't know about!