School place withdrawn

[LittleHens]

@prh47bridge @schooladmission and other admissions experts I would be grateful for advice. My daughter received an offer at our 1st preference school on National
School Offer Day (3rd March) which we accepted later that day. Yesterday (20th March) we received an email from the LA to say that her place had been withdrawn as ‘unfortunately, the system did not pick up the out-of-borough address and calculated the school offer based on your old address we had on our system’.
Needless to say my 11 daughter is heartbroken.

We realise she would not have got a place based on the admissions criteria (we are now out-of-catchment) but for the LA to withdraw the offer after 17 days when it is their error (and not a fraudent application) is unacceptable in my mind. Can anyone offer any advice on the appeal process?
Thanks!

This is more an entirely different situation than a slightly different perspective. It’s as relevant as a recipe for a Victoria Sponge cake.

I spend a lot of time in my present job pointing out the mistakes my LA makes in schools admissions procedures. Good luck OP I think schools admissions in London secondary schools are insane.
Children spend hours commuting to schools all over London. And they pass so many other schools on the way. I've worked in secondary schools for 30 years now and they are all very similar and the rules are pretty much the same and the exams are the same. If the kids work hard and attend and listen in class they do well. Doesn't matter which school they are in.

It's quite plausible that system used for applying to schools in London would do this, you create an account and it keeps details for a whole so if you apply for one child a few years after another you will see details in there of the old application you did.

However, the OP clearly says it was the LA error - she had given the new address and they used the old one. Possibly they looked at an old application, possibly there was a system glitch.

Why are people being so odd about this, looking for fault with the OP, and even trying to mumsplain admission processes to her, like the poster asking about sibling preference (which clearly doesn't apply in this case for whatever reason) as if the OP and LA both don't know about it.

Sorry, where?

This is really simple. @LittleHens applied for the school. The LA mucked up and allocated based on a historic address. The LA only realised 20 days later. They are out of time.

My DD's have EHCPs. I got an email from the case officer saying "Have you moved to Reading??" Reading is 50 miles away. Someone had updated an address but accidentally applied it to the wrong case file.

Mistakes happen.

NaughtyParent · Yesterday 10:25

She didn't apply fraudulently. The LA made a mistake and used an old address they had on the system

Last year the oversubscribed school near us accidentally de-prioritised 11 students who had siblings and the school and didn’t allocate them space.

The school admitted their error and has had to accept all 11 over PAN as it was their mistake. All dealt with by the day after allocation day.

I’m not sure that’s any useful precedent, but the school should accept it’s their error and they are too late to change the allocation now.

And can people please read and digest the OP before accusing fraud!

We moved 2 years before secondary application time, and still our secondary application was queried as the LA had failed to update our address, despite the primary telling them repeatedly. Thankfully this was picked up before the application deadline so there was no effect, but I can well imagine LAs being crap at having accurate records.

@NaughtyParent Thank you for finding/providing these links to the Ombudsman's report. I've looked through and can't find any reference in the case to acceptable time periods for withdrawal of an offer made in error.
@prh47bridge Is this case (<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120604234104/www.lgo.org.uk/GetAsset.aspx?id=fAAxADEAOAAyAHwAfABUAHIAdQBlAHwAfAAwAHwA0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LGO Ombudsman Report - April 2000) definitely the correct case? Not sure how to use if no specific reference to time periods.

Yes, that is the case.

Paragraphs 33-35 set out the crucial bit of what happened - the head teacher wrote to 5 parents on 25 May offering places, the council wrote to the parents withdrawing those offers on 28 May on the basis that the head teacher did not have the authority to make them. What happened thereafter is complicated, but after initially being excluded, the children affected were admitted after the council received legal advice that they would probably lose if the parents took the case to court. The LGO did not disagree with this legal advice.

Although there is no specific mention of a time limit, it is generally regarded that this case established that an offer made in error cannot be withdrawn more than 3 days after it was made.

The offer that you were made created a legitimate expectation that your child has a place at the school and, in the circumstances, it would be unfair to withdraw the place. After all, if the place is withdrawn the council is not going to arrange for your daughter to get the place she would have got if no mistake had been made, and you could have spent money on uniform and even entered into binding contracts for child care arrangements and the like on the basis of this offer.

I live in Derbyshire and a nationally high performing secondary near me has changed admissions criteria to distance over siblings. Too many people got one child in then moved out of catchment meaning local children couldn’t get a place. Difference between in/out of catchment on a 4-bed is about £100k so you can see why! I am not surprised similar is happening in London where populations are far more dense.

In admissions, the parent has to manually add the second child and update fields like contact details.

I did this, using the LA admission portal, it didn't stop the LA trying to use our old address. However, the checks and balances seemed to work - the LA queried our primary school as the address we used on the admission portal was not the same one they held for us. Primary school confirmed new address - and that we had informed the school when we moved a couple of years prior.

@prh47bridge thank you for your advice. In your opinion do you think it is sensible to attach my daughter’s latest school reports as evidence in the appeal to demonstrate that admitting another child (i.e my daughter) at the school would not prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources as she has excellent attendance, effort and academic achievement?

I'm not @prh47bridge but I can tell you that the panel is not allowed to make a judgement on the worth of your child to the school. They are only allowed to decide 4 things:

1. Has a mistake been made that has cost your child a place? (If so, you win)
2. If not, has the school demonstrated that it is full? (If not, you win, as long as there aren't more appellants than spaces)
3. If so, has it demonstrated that it is so full that admitting even one more student would cause prejudice to the efficient education of other students?
4. If not, how many appellants could it reasonably admit?
5. Is this number exceeded by the number of appellants?
6. If so, which of the appellants have the strongest case for admission?

They simply can't use the character, ability or academic record of a child to make that decision. They have to base it on the reasons the appellants give for their appeal. A very lovely student whose parents cite friendships and travel plans will lose out to a very unlovely student whose parents cite strong pastoral needs that can be best met by that particular school.

No, I wouldn't do that. That isn't how the panel looks at things. The prejudice to the school will be about things like overcrowding in classrooms, insufficient equipment and so on. Arguing that your daughter will be an asset to the school won't help, I'm afraid.

Okay thanks!

@prh47bridge you mentioned a JR decision. Do you have a reference for that? I'll try looking on national archives too. A high court decision is likely to be binding so should be very persuasive in the circumstances.

I assume LGO decisions are case specific? That isn't to say they aren't useful points of reference but I assume the LA aren't bound by them. A successful JR is much harder to ignore.

@LittleHens are you just planning to take this forward via appeal? I would get another iron in the fire via the complaint process too. Your MP may be a useful port of call.

@PatChaunceysFruitCake yes planning to appeal on the basis that the time scale from offer to withdrawal was too long (17 days). We don’t have any other basis to appeal as had the system worked correctly we would not have been offered a place based on the admissions criteria.

We are aware that cut-off distances change year on year due to the amount of applicants etc. but on the the fact that she would have got a place in all previously years meant we did not even consider that this offer had been made in error. It was a shock for it to be withdrawn.

@PatChaunceysFruitCake I recommend you read the full thread as it would have answered your questions. Someone has already found the case reference.

@PatChaunceysFruitCake - I can't immediately find the reference for the judicial review decision, but I wouldn't worry about that. All it actually established was that an offer made in error can be withdrawn the same day it was made, so it isn't particularly helpful in this case.

The LGO decision was driven by counsel's opinion as to what the courts would find. Whilst it is not directly binding, it strongly suggests that any parent losing an appeal in these circumstances would be able to get the decision overturned if they went to the LGO or ESFA (depending on the type of school). And whilst the decision is case specific, it set a fairly straightforward precedent. Five families were offered places verbally by the head and accepted them. Three days later the LA found out and wrote to them, withdrawing the offers. That was found to be too late, and the offers were re-instated.

No they haven't, those are LGO decisions, no JR.

@prh47bridge fair enough, you are right, that wouldn't be that impactful. A high court decision stating that it is irrational to withdraw an offer outside a certain window would have been extremely persuasive and no one could argue it is case specific.

@LittleHens the appeal process obviously gives the possibility of reinstatement of the place as a remedy which means it is the most relevant process here. You've already had some good advice on this process.

There is no harm in creating more focus on this case for the LA though. Given it is such a clear error on the part of the LA a complaint running alongside the appeal would be sensible. At the very least you need an assurance they have investigated the error. A polite and factual complaint via your MP may help to turn up the heat on the LA.