Appeal - Causing Major distress to child

[Nickw87]

Hi any advice welcome - We are going through the appeals process as our child did not get into our preference school. This school is the only school in the area that can accommodate her passions and needs.

Currently she is very depressed, not eating drinking and refusing to eat- Do I take her to the see the GP ? I don't what this to hinder the appeals

This is has rocked our family and due to the stress placed on our child we are becoming highly anxious as well.

Hello. How old is your child? Is the school place for primary or secondary school?

Why would taking her to the gp hinder your appeal? Or are you hoping it would help?

Are there other factors at play here... that's a very extreme reaction

Goodness me.

Secondary school

Not trying to be difficult but is her anxiety feeding off you? It seems a very strong reaction. What's her passions and interests? Can they not be followed out of school.

Is she on the waiting list and what number? And not being rude but was it ever a realistic choice?

she is currently under diagnosis for Autisim, mainly social and emotional needs. She does react badly to environmental changes. All of her life long friends got into the school she wanted. Her passions are dance and preforming arts and the school is renowned for this. The allocated school have no offering so her whole social system and environment has been taken away.

I wouldn't do GP yet, it has only been a few days, she needs time to get over the disappointment.

You need a 2 pronged approach, talk up the offered school whilst appealing. Talk down the chance of appeal success.

(It all sounds a bit dramatic. You will have known preferred school wasn't a certainty.)

If you provide more info on passions and needs you will get help on which will have most traction in an appeal.

As someone else said was it a realistic choice eg are you massively out of area? Is she on the waiting list? If so do you know where?

So how would you taking her to the GP HINDER the appeal? Surely this would bolster it?

We were also told that if she comes across as too difficult a child - it could go against us in the appeal due to the school already being stretched

XPost. Sounds like you have good arguments. How come all her friends got in and she didn't? I assume you are further away?

Yes it was realistic - not majorly out of area. We are also on the waiting list.

Our son didn’t get any of our 3 preferences and was faced with the prospect of attending the one and only poor and undersubscribed school in our area.

We put a positive spin on it and didn’t even mention that we were appealing. I thought the worst thing would be to get his hopes up. I found nothing but positives to say about his allocated school and he got used to the idea after his initial disappointment. I’d advise anyone to do this for the sake of the child.

We got a place at our first choice through appealing, but it would’ve been terribly unfair to expose him to any of the stress we went through to achieve this.

If you are worried about her mental health, then you should take her to the GP. Depending on the circumstances, it's possible that it might help your appeal (many parents say their children are anxious about secondary school, not so many are actually anxious to the point of needing health intervention).

However, you as a parent should be mindful that nationally only about 20% of appeals are successful. If the school in question is already struggling with the numbers of pupils, then it may be an uphill battle to win an appeal.

It sounds like you have a fair case here, and we can help you put it together, but I think for her sake you should have a Plan B ready in case the appeal fails.

Could she do dance and performing arts outside school? Join a group now to get to know other people sharing her interests? Can you approach the offered school to ask about extra help with transition? Most of them will offer something for those with additional needs. Anything to help her see that this isn't the end of the world.

Yes, we are a little further anway. Unfortunately the school is well oversubscribed this year. No refusals in the last two years !

A school that doesn't offer performing arts sounds soulless.
But if talking things up there must be some good things about the school, and could she do drama and dance out of school maybe?

Yes she does both outside of school however she wanted to further this educationally and this school offers a dance academy which her friends will be attending along with the choice to study performing arts.

Any help on appeals is appreciated

we are trying to come up with a plan b looking at schools further out of area. We are just juggling the logistics.

Thank you - how did you find the appeals process ?

do you mind me asking on what grounds you won the appeal

Weren’t places only allocated this week? She’s known for 5 days? Did she stop eating and drinking immediately? If so then yes she definitely needs to be seen by a medic.

Please try to shield her from your disappointment and anxiety while quietly working on your appeal (don’t involve her in this as it may not succeed). What are you doing to be positive about the school allocation?

Waiting lists won’t be available yet so crack on with your appeal, there are lots of good threads on here about this already. I assume you know to accept the place that you’ve been given, not focus on what it doesn’t have /do in your appeal but focus on how your preferred school is better able to meet her needs - what they offer. Get as much evidence from her current school, medical teams etc to support your appeal. Good luck!

Isn’t it too early to appeal? National Offer day was only last Monday and presumably you are on the waiting list for your greater preference schools.
We got offered our first choice but nothing will be firmed up until 17th March at the earliest because that is the deadline by which we have to accept. So you at least need to wait until after that date.

I found it ok, but I did my research and challenged every single point the admissions authority made as to why he could not be admitted. I looked at space factors, in year vacancies, government comparators etc.

I also found every single thing I could that our preferred school offered that our allocated school did not and spoke at length about how important those things were to us. The important things - our allocated school is verging on special measures, is known to be a bit crap…I could not mention.

Thank you - where / how do I find the facts and figures ?

Thank you, the context is clearer now. I used to work in a primary school and the buzz around the year 6s discussing their school places with each other was very elevated. There’s no getting away from it for her is there, plus the teachers will be talking about it too in preparation for the leap to the new school. It’s a massive life change for her, and a time when sadly all the children that have known each since nursery are going to separate. Have her friends got a place at the preferred school? Have any of her friends got a school place at the school she’s been given? I’m so sorry that your daughter feels depressed and isn’t wanting to eat, I’m out of my depth with providing an answer to your dilemma about that. However if she’s been feeling depressed and not eating for a while, she will need to be seen by a GP if she’s unwell. It’s so important that you don’t get stressed or over dramatic about her not getting into the preferred school in front of her. You must try to find as many positives about the school she’s been given a place at (even if you really don’t like the school!) Hope you don’t mind me asking but was the preferred school a SEND school?

"However, you as a parent should be mindful that nationally only about 20% of appeals are successful."

This figure varies massively between local authority areas, with some being much closer to 0%. @Nickw87 can check the success rate for their local area in this data: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-admission-appeals

It is an extreme reaction and presumably she has only had a few days to process it. Try to distract her and be positive about the offered school. An appeal will take a while and there is no guarantee of success so she needs to get on board with plan b.