Secondary school appeal success stories

[Hove1981]

Can I ask what grounds people have appealed on for secondary school allocations that have been successful (other than the selection criteria not having been followed correctly)?

What is usually suggested are things like:-

The school you want has a wind band/ orchestra/ dodge ball team/ tennis/ theatre/ debating society or any other specialism that your child is proficient at and the school you’ve been offered doesn’t have access to that tuition.

Does your child have a particular talent that would benefit from access to expert teaching in that way?

It's hard to say what factors will win an appeal, as the panel are balancing the issues faced by the school in admitting more pupils against the needs of the individual child to have a place at that school. If the school's case is weak, the parents are more likely to win by showing that this school would be a better 'fit' for the child.

However, in my experience, many schools are already under a lot of pressure (have already taken bulge classes, increasing SEN issues, financial issues), so only the children with unique circumstances will win.

This might be, for example, children who've been badly bullied at primary want to avoid the bullies, young carers who want to be at school near to home, a child with severe asthma who can't walk far. Really exceptional cases. Often backed up with letters of support from professionals.

That's not to say it's not worth putting in an appeal on grounds of wanting particular things in the curriculum / extra curricular activities, but just be realistic that these may not be sufficient to win an appeal.

I agree with toomuchcarrotcake - IME some pretty exceptional reasons are required. And note they need to be reasons why the child needs that school, not why the parents/family need that school.

If you do hear of appeals succeeding on fairly unexceptional grounds like “my child has X interest”, the chances are that the school didn’t make a great case about why it would cause problems to take an extra child, so it wasn’t that hard to win on the “balance of harms”.

Around 20% of secondary school appeals are successful, so you have a chance if you appeal. If no mistakes have been made, the only way you can win is by showing that the disadvantage to your child from not being admitted outweighs any disadvantage to the school from coping with an additional pupil. This is very much an individual thing, so knowing how other people won appeals is unlikely to be helpful. It is about things that are available at the appeal school but not at the allocated school and that are particularly relevant to your child.