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?

Yes the waiting list is also banded. Our child is at the top of the waiting list but the band is entirely full of siblings, so the chances of one of the those 10 families deciding they don't want a place is going to be incredibly slim.

Oh that’s a real shame.

Is there a date at which the school takes someone “off band” if they aren’t full?

This would normally be the case, as the waiting list must be operated according to the oversubscription criteria, whilst there are still applicants for that band on the waiting list. Once there are not, then the place still has to be offered, and the school's admissions policy should detail how this is done - e.g. firstly to the DC top of the waiting list in the band above, then to the one at the top of the list for the band below, for example

@GravyBoatWars thanks for the good wishes! I have everything crossed that somehow this works out.

I know my views on this are coloured by the impact it has had on us, but even trying to be objective about it I can't find any way I can support this as a system working as it should.

Given how much energy is put into preventing address fraud in school admissions when proximity to school is the deciding factor, to create a supposedly fair system which can be gamed by anyone by simply flunking the test is absurd.

I don't believe in grammar schools, I'm not a fan of private education. The fair solution is to focus on raising the standards of schools across the board so everyone has access to a good local school. Not to try to micro-engineer fairness into the system via convoluted admissions.

Thanks @MarchingFrogs

It doesn't seem to be that clearly documented but I understand it's something like this.

If they ignored the banding, DD would be top of the waiting list (as they're at the feeder school). But they'd effectively have to get to a zero waiting list on any of the other bands for us to have any shot. So kids from other London boroughs could be offered places ahead of DD who lives near the school and attends a primary on the same site.

I wouldn't regard flunking the test as a reliable way of gaming the system. If everyone takes this approach, anyone left in the top band would get in but many in the lower bands would miss out.

You say there were four times as many in the top band as there were places. On its own, that is meaningless. If the other bands also had four times as many as places, being in the top band was only a disadvantage because there were so many siblings in that band. However, if the other bands were less overloaded, you have a point, albeit not one that will help you at appeal.

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.

I interpret that as, for example, 6% of places being allocated to the top band but 24% of the children taking the exam being placed in the top band. This is certainly possible if, as OP states, the band boundaries are set with reference to a national distribution which is substantially different to that of the children taking the exam.

A couple of our local schools do this so I decided to put another school first.

And lucky I did as child scored band 8 out of 9 on the test.

It is a really irritating system from a parent point of view as so complex.

Yes exactly this - it's about the proportions, not the absolute numbers.

The proportion of places allocated to the top band were very small relative to the proportion of children achieving a top band score.

I think if you were expected to do well, to simply not try to do quite so well (put down your pen 15 mins before the end kind of thing) you could game it pretty successfully.

I think I would have had to advise DD to do that if those schools had been our only choices tbh.

It's not a great thing to put on a child, though - 'try not to be so clever or they won't want you'.

which ultimately should tell the school that the way they are doing it now is ridiculous and very unfair!

Well, that or that a certain subset of parents are determined to ensure that nobody else gets the place which they are eligible for by cheating. Which could possibly lead to an offer of a place being withdrawn either before or after the child arrives for their first day.

If it's a school that provides particular tuition or opportunities for the highest banding admissions, it would become pretty clear very quickly - even if they've managed to be convinced to keep on pretending that they aren't clever for a couple of weeks - that there are some who were clearly in the wrong band and for computerised tests, that they deliberately stopped early. I can't see that working out well, especially if the parent then demands that their kid gets to be moved into the highest band provision.

Yes agreed but once you have the place under these circumstances then you can’t really have it taken off you.

the banding is not the problem per se, the issue that siblings can take an entire band, thus creating a really unfair situation that a child would never get a place due to their academic ability. I don’t think that’s fair. It is about as unfair as parents rigging the test to ensure there child gets into a band where there are more places.

I'd imagine that the top bands also have the highest concentration of children who sat both that exam and other admissions exams for selective and aptitude-based spaces at other schools, so hopefully someone else will take up a selective place off waitlist or at an independent.

I think that's true @GravyBoatWars. Although DD didn't sit 11+, her school did a lot of prep for it (private).

As they’re all siblings to existing families at the school it seems unlikely we will lose anyone to private or grammar - presumably if they were minded to choose private/selective they’d have done it for the first child.

That hasn't been my experience, particularly with grammars/state selectives. It's extremely common to have one sibling that doesn't choose or get into a selective and one who does.

But I'm not going to try to pretend I know the odds, I can just hope at least one goes that way and your DC is offered the spot.

I don’t have any advice, just sympathy as I think you’ve been incredibly unlucky. I get what you’re saying about the waitlist being unlikely to move as it’s taken up by siblings, but hang in there - you never know - and the top ability band is probably the one most likely to have children getting scholarships to private and I do think in that situation most families would take it up and have the children in different schools. You can also go on the waiting list for your lower-preference schools if any of them appeal more than the 2nd choice you’ve been allocated.

Edited by MNHQ due to privacy concerns.

I've never heard of the banded criteria before - sounds weirdly over-complicated. And like it's punishing those who do well academically.
TBH OP, in your shoes I'd feel exactly the same. You've been led to believe it's going to work this way and if the school has been positioning that it's easier to transition etc to parents and children they almost have a duty of care to see that through.
I'd kick up merry hell. A massive massive stink. The waiting lists aren't often fairly administered and they may let you in first to keep you quiet.
Alternatively, private diagnoses of ADHD and autism have no waiting lists. If you think your DC has anywhere near the diagnostic criteria for either of those may be worth dropping a couple of grand there. It's move you up a group.

No, they won't let OP in first to keep her quiet, and I have no idea where you get the idea that waiting lists are not fairly administered.

In general, fair banding does not punish those who do well academically. It seems to have worked out like that at the school OP wants, but in most cases there is little or no advantage to being in any particular band.

The waiting lists aren't often fairly administered and they may let you in first to keep you quiet.

What evidence are you basing this on?

Alternatively, private diagnoses of ADHD and autism have no waiting lists.

A diagnosis doesn’t increase priority. Only an EHCP naming the school.

I agree with @prh47bridge and @SheilaFentiman – waiting lists are fairly administered, and what form would kicking up a stink take anyway?

And I don't recall anything in the OP's posts to suggest that their DC is ND (apols if I missed it) so to talk of "dropping a couple of grand on a dx" to jump up the list (which is not how it works either) is an ill-though-out suggestion at best.