secondary appeals - info missing and admissions criteria not applied

[theremaybeouting]

This WILL be outing hence the NC but I was wanting some MN admissions appeal advice (if you recognise this story… no you don’t…)

We live in a borough that does a banding test to ensure that mixed abilities are allocated within the schools (which is a great thing IMHO but I digress) These tests are administered by the local primaries and sent to the Local Authority. Local primaries include states and a couple of prep schools.

It appears that for unknown reasons one of the local prep school students banding results were not held by the LA and therefore not taken into account when doing the state school allocations. This could be a school issue or an LA issue.

The effect has been that these students have been put as unbanded which means that they are then they are the last to be allocated places within the LA. As a result a few have not got any allocations they had on their list at all as they were allocated their closest under subscribed school.

What happens for appeals in this case? As if the banding results were applied correctly the admissions criteria for schools have not been met. Does it matter whose fault it is with the fact the banding results and will that affect the route that is followed….

It’s not the parents fault as both LA and Prep school confirmed the test results would be supplied by the school. A number of students go to local state schools from this prep every year, so it’s a process that should be well known and there is no reason for the parents to even question it all.

There are a large number of kids who this has affected, but not all it will matter as a some of these kids will go private or have a school allocated elsewhere.

But it does mean that there are quite children who it does materially matter, as they didn’t get the schools they should have based on the councils published criteria.

So - do any knowledgable admissions appeals people know of what happens in this case? Is it individual appeals, does the council correct it and then fix (if they can??)…. Is this something that they have seen happen before?

While we are trying to get to the bottom of what happened but also need to consider best course of action to see if we can try to get this rectified….

Worth digging to find out exactly what happened as this possibly could find a clear error which could mean you get allocated a place ahead of any appeal.

The information is also important for any appeal. Some years ago, I was on a panel where a number of children did not get a place because one of the primaries had collected the supplementary information (faith) forms and not given them to the secondary school (the normal arrangement). This meant the children did not get a place. As the appeals were heard, it became clear to the Panel that there was a significant issue and all affected had their appeals upheld at Stage 1. We took the view that the system as a whole had not operated properly.

The key will be what exactly happened and when.

If the prep just completely failed to send the results, then the admissions authority can claim it's not their responsibility, arrangements were applied correctly, and each appeal would be heard on the balance of prejudice.

If the LA had the results but failed to take them into account, that would be their error, which they should correct. Unfortunately, some LA's will make parents take this to appeal anyway, even though they shouldn't.

There is a small grey area around what the LA could reasonably have been expected to know in terms of what it was missing; if it's clear the school failed to upload data, this was obvious to the LA but they failed to follow it up, one could argue they have some culpability. However many LAs will force this to appeal even if the evidence suggests fault.

Thanks both for replying! Will be then interested to see how forth coming the school or the LA is as to who is at fault here.

The school hasn’t acknowledged it’s even an issue yet (they are looking into it) and the LA understandably haven’t got back to us.

As to whether the LA should have known or clocked it, unsure as it won’t have been clear from the allocations made as some kids would have been allocated places in a neighbouring LA (where I know the scores were definitely provided to even though it wasn’t the schools actual LA).

It’s a real mess as I know that this also has had potential knock on effect to kids outside of the school based on some of the cross borough allocations that wouldn’t have been made if the right admissions criteria was applied.

So apparently the school offered to the LA to provide the scores but the LA never responded (according to the school). The school also said a neighbouring LA offered to send the scores and the home LA refused them.

The LA is yet to respond to confirm their side of story.

We are currently awaiting the evidence from the school in preparation for appeals.

So it looks like it was the schools fault and they absolutely should have pushed this further knowing what the consequences were, but the LA possibly also was aware.

Meanwhile the school is frantically trying to speak to heads and getting kids to top of waiting lists (which I am not sure even is possible due the LA controlling the WLs at this stage) and more shockingly are NOT sending an email out to parents to inform them of this issue. They are waiting for unhappy parents to realise and speak to them….

I don’t see how your head can do any of that. The waiting lists are not at the discretion of the school and in any case it needs to be the parents acting, not a proxy. It all sounds very distressing for you and I sympathise but I suspect this now needs to go into the formal appeals process and work its way through.

Indeed, I didn’t think they could help at all but they are in damage limitation mode.

The LA control the waitlists so if anything they should be liaising with the LA…

Meanwhile we are now just trying to get the evidence of who did what when and hopefully getting the LA to engage.

In reality it’s probably only a handful who are materially affected by it thankfully so there is hope that these kids will get into preferred schools even if it’s not their top choice but at least one of them.

I'm surprised that the prep school was allowed to administer the banding test tbh

The head should be talking to the LA about the process issues although I suspect there’s little to be done. But putting children on to waiting lists and lodging appeals needs to be done by parents - are you all aware of the need to do this? The head can’t act for you.

Yes, despite the school saying they are going to sort we understandably don’t trust them anyway!!

We have asked for all the evidence from their side and already have contacted the LA to flag this and ask information from them so we we can gather the required facts and info to lodge an appeal if needed.

@Roomgigi why are you surprised? It’s a computer based test that is a CAT one, and it’s the same one for everyone in the borough. There are a couple of preps in this borough and they all have historically done this and not been an issue before as far as we know. It saves the LA having to accommodate a separate session for these kids, and there isn’t risk of gaming system because it is in no one’s interest to have all the kids competing against each other for places if they are all in the ‘top’ band.

Thanks all for the input. Has been good to get some validation of next steps and confirmation to continue to not trust the school!

Whilst the school could have done more, if there is evidence that the LA allowed them to administer the banding tests but then failed to collect the scores (or, worse, refused to accept them), I would class that as a clear mistake by the LA. If the appeal panel agree, it should, in theory at least, be a straightforward win if the LA insist on making parents go to appeal. However, if a lot of people were affected the appeal panel may decide that the school can't take all of them, in which case they will decide how many the school can take and admit those with the best case. If you are forced to go to appeal, you therefore need to have a positive case as to why your child will be disadvantaged if they don't get a place at this school as well as your evidence that a mistake has been made.

How did you get on. Op?

Despite the fact that there were clear failures on both the LA’s side and the Schools (both seem to have a recollection of what happened at odds with each) the LA took the banding scores in the end and kids got reshuffled on waiting lists. Due to the fact that the children affected were either v close to the school or had other criteria like siblings meant that I think almost all of those affected got offered places at preferred schools as they were top of the lists when they were opened. As far as I know there are none going to appeal now.

But neither the LA or the School have confirmed what measures they are putting in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again, and it is disappointing that it was a parent who uncovered what happened as if this didn’t happen potentially would never have been discovered. It’s super disappointing all around especially when the parents did everything they should have based on the LA and the schools written advice!