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?

I think you are discounting the discretion of the panel. They are entitled to take a view that the way an admissions policy is being operated is unduly prejudicial to one or more children, and that that prejudice outweighs prejudice to the school.

@JimJamJim I've only read your posts, so I may be repeating things others have said.

From what you say, it doesn't sound like a mistake has been made.

The only way you can challenge the admission criteria in an appeal is if you can show that they don't comply with the Admissions Code or the law. Arguing that the outcome is unfair won't get you anywhere. Unfortunately, the information you have posted suggests the admission criteria are in compliance.

An argument that your child is disadvantaged by not getting a place at the linked secondary school is a tough one to make. You are effectively saying that everyone at the linked primary school should get a place even if there are lots of siblings, LACs and children with EHCPs. I therefore doubt that an appeal panel would go for this. If you couple it with evidence that you were led to believe that your child would get a place it might help, so I would include this argument but I wouldn't rely on it.

Your best approach is to identify things the school offers that are missing from the allocated school - subjects, extracurricular activities, etc. If you can find one or more things that are particularly relevant to your child, you can use them to make a good case.

Agree, especially with this:

Nine bands is trying to too finely manage the issue, because small bands compound the risk of "unfair" outcomes.

Yes, some panels may do this but they are stepping outside the Appeals Code if they do so. The decisions they are supposed to make are:

• do the admission arrangements comply with the Admissions Code and relevant law
• have they been administered correctly and impartially

If the answer to both these questions is yes, the panel should move on to considering whether the prejudice to the child from not being admitted outweighs the prejudice to the school from admitting an additional pupil. This second stage allows them to admit a pupil that failed to qualify under the admission arrangements. That is not the same as saying that the way the policy is being operated is unduly prejudicial, however. It means that the pupil has a particular need for this school that is not captured by the admission arrangements, which is rather different.

Thanks for explaining, but I had in fact already understood the way the banding system works. I'm afraid I didn't express myself very clearly in my post, though. What I was trying (and failing) to say was that I think it's a bad idea to attempt to combine different systems.

As far as I understand it, there are:

• academically selective schools that admit children who pass an entrance exam or who rank most highly out of all applicants
• schools with a banding system to ensure they admit a mixed ability cohort
• schools which use the "standard" criteria of catchment, siblings, feeder schools, distance (I call these standard because I think the majority of schools do use these criteria)

I think the school should choose one of the above systems and not try to combine them, otherwise they end up with a ridiculously complicated and potentially unfair system like the OP's first choice school. If they must combine the banding system with other criteria (and you do need some way of ranking children within each band) I think the number of bands should be limited and the other criteria should be limited - perhaps 4 bands with applicants in each one ranked by siblings and distance from school.

You can't have a 9-band system prioritising siblings and also claim to prioritise a feeder school, as OP has discovered.

If you have a banding system you still need some way of determining which pupils should be admitted in each band. This immediately means you are going to give priority to LAC. You could then use distance as the sole decider, but most schools will have more categories. You therefore have to combine your second and third systems to get something that works and is legal.

The "standard" criteria would actually be LAC, siblings, distance. Almost all schools have those three categories. Formal catchment areas are rare these days, and most secondary schools don't have any feeder schools.

And EHCP, too, not just LAC.

I agree that, if any criteria would be dropped from the 'banding' school, it would be feeder primary rather than siblings (though as said above, many of the siblings are probably at the feeder primary)

If you are using banding you really can’t have siblings as well. It really isn’t fair as you could just be chance have lots of siblings in that particular band (as in the OPs case) and so they never had any chance of getting in purely because of their academic ability and pot luck that their band was full of siblings. It is completely inequitable and unjust . Siblings could be allocated first but then the band structure then reconfigured to allow new applicants a fair and equal chance of being allocated into a band.

@AnotherEmma EHCPs are dealt with separately and should be all done and dusted before normal admission rounds.

@Drfosters how would you rank within a band, then?

feeder Distance in this instance and then non feeder distance. How else would it be done?

Yes I know that but there will be fewer places available if any are taken by children with EHCPs.

So no sibling preference, just the feeder school ranked by distance, then the non feeder schools ranked by distance?

You could have the same thing happen though, in that more pupils from the feeder school are in a given band than there are spaces in that band. I would imagine a large number of the siblings that "beat" OP were also at the feeder school.

Sibling preference is so common nationally to avoid split school runs, and I would personally always want to see it ahead of almost everything else (except EHCP/LAC of course)

According to the Admissions Code, EHCP should not be an oversubscription criteria as pupils with an EHCP don't go through the normal admissions process, so banding tests and oversubscription criteria are irrelevant. But yes, they are in effect the highest oversubscription category for all schools.

Agree

You could say having siblings is not fair regardless of the system used. It is always possible that siblings will take up all the places available. I really don't see any reason that schools using fair banding should not be allowed to give sibling priority.

The thing is, if the school has 180 places split into 9 bands, with 20 places per band on average, there's a real risk that 20 siblings could take up most/all of the places in one band. But with 180 places split into, say, 4 bands with 45 places each on average, even with 20 siblings you'd still have places left for other children. For that reason I think you need fewer bands with a larger number of places in each one, especially if you're going to apply other criteria. Siblings and distance are sensible criteria IMO, for practical reasons.

Our LA has never published anything like this. I've looked every year as I find it really interesting but it's just not available!

Unusual for a secondary school to have all places taken by siblings. I don’t have a problem with sibling priority (I have made use of it myself). I think in this instance though for siblings to take up whole bands is unfair and inequitable. The bands should be independent of siblings so it is fair to all applicants. If the bell curve is slightly distorted then so be it.

Camden Girls? I believe they set their bands based on the score distribution of the girls who sit the test, not regional or national distributions. They're required to offer 30 places to girls in each band, including the bottom band. The last distance offered in each band varies but, in all cases, is not large, as it's quite a sought-after school.

The data indicates that there are virtually no girls at Camden Girls who had low achievement on KS2 SATS. The banding system should have ensured that such girls who applied qualified for places. The implication is that either very few girls who had low achievement on KS2 SATS applied to the school, or else that they didn't place the school at the top of their preferences.

What's the school supposed to do about that?

Agreed. This has happened locally. Especially odd given they're all supposed to use public transport anyway.

Just coming back to this as I’ve managed to glean some more information about the way the banding has worked out in DD’s school.

The proportion of children scoring within the top band in the test is four times the proportion of secondary spaces allocated to the top band. FOUR TIMES!

Nudging things so it slightly favours lower-attaining children is one thing but to be so very far out of line with the local population is absurd over-engineering.

@JimJamJim I understand all of your feelings as a parent of your one child just looking out for their interests. The oversubscription criteria are set up to address needs and allocate resources on a population level which is a very different goal than setting up a system that gives each child an equal chance at a spot at any given school; the system can be perfectly reasonable on that macro scale and utterly wretched in how it works for specific individuals. And of course sometimes the wider community needs change and end up out of step with the admissions critera. If that's what's happened here I hope they'll make changes quickly. I don't know the specific school or the reasoning or what prior years have looked like, but even if I did I wouldn't try to tell you you're wrong for being angry and frustrated on behalf of your own child - our primary job as parents is to look out for our kids, not the big picture or wider system.

I really hope your DC ends up at the school she wants either by waitlist movement or a successful appeal.

@JimJamJim do you know how the waiting list works? Is the waiting list also held by band, so if someone from band 6 doesn't take up their space, only a child also in band 6 could take their space?