School place withdrawn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 Yesterday (20th March) we received an email from the LA to say that her place had been withdrawn as ‘unfortunately, the system did not pick up the out-of-borough address and calculated the school offer based on your old address we had on our system’.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!

Eh?

No, that isn't the case.

The OP correctly entered her current address onto the application system.

The LA cross referenced to an undisclosed record and applied an old address to the application criteria. It issued a place based on an error in their processing.

The place was withdrawn 17 days later when the LA realised their error.

The OP is arguing that a more appropriate remedy needs to be agreed. Withdrawal of the place 17 days later is an unreasonable remedy given the LA agree they have made an error.

No one has 'fucked up'. The LA has made an error.

op I think you have a good chance of the lea backing down here, good luck

make sure she’s on the waiting list in the meantime.

No apology for saying the OP fucked up then?

She applied when out of catchment because it was worth a punt.
She was given the school by the LA in error, THEIR ERROR.
The LA eventually realised and withdrew the place, ADMITTING IT WAS THEIR ERROR.
They can't do that.
Hence the appeal.

You clearly know nothing about admissions.

Anyone can apply for any school at any time. If the school you really want is out of catchment, you can still name it. If you are lucky, you might get a place. If not, you haven't damaged your chances of getting your second choice. So you might as well go for it.

OP has not messed up in any way. This is entirely the LA's fault.

Your earlier post doubting she will be successful just shows that you don't know how these things work. The LA has admitted it made a mistake in offering the place. They should have stood by the offer and additionally admitted the child who should have got the place. That is provided for in the Admissions Code. Instead, they are attempting to withdraw the place when they are out of time to do so. With a properly trained appeal panel, this should be an easy win for OP.

I was thinking the same! Where I live, it’s only physically possible to live in the catchment for one school, but we can put up to six in our application. They advise you to include your catchment school, but you don’t have to put it first!

@Abstracts maybe (a) read the actual posts from the OP (b) don’t be unpleasant to her and (c) don’t make definitive statements when you don’t have expertise?

Just some things to ponder.

What was she supposed to do? Put one school and hope for the best?

Seriously this thread just gets weirder and weirder.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it on a school appeals thread.

Re:catchment areas. The OP didn’t say she was out of catchment. She said she was out of borough. And that her DD would have been offered a place in all previous years. Which by most reasoning would make her ‘in catchment’ as far as they exist for most London schools.

Borough (and LA lines across the country tbh) are arbitrary lines on a map. They don’t generally demarcate admissions priority for the simple reason that your closest or most early accessible school might not be on the same authority you live in. I believe there’s already been a ruling on this (Greenwich maybe?). You’d have to be totally mad to not put a school you live inside the admissions footprint for and that you want on your application in London. There’s a pan London admissions process for a reason.

So many people hard of reading on here 🙄

The other thing I’d point out to the LEA is that in terms of GDPR, they should be making sure that your details are stored safely and accurately. They might want to consider reporting themselves to the ICO.

Omg. Best don’t reply if you have not read the thread and don’t understand admissions. What is the point of your responses if they are uninformed?

parents did not mess up. LA did. This happens all the time in admissions.

you can absolutely apply somewhere out of catchment and she clearly has a sibling there so would have most likely put her above others out of catchment. Depending on birth rate that year schools will often take children out of catchment, especially siblings. When you apply you are effectively trying your luck and obviously parents would want children at the same school for ease.

@RafaistheKingofClay - Yes, Greenwich is the ruling that made it clear that it is illegal to prioritise applicants simply for living within the borough/council.

My years on MN haven’t been entirely wasted then. I’ve learnt something. 😂

Thank you for all the supportive messages and advice.

Just to clarify we are out of borough and for this particular school the catchment boundary is the borough boundary too, so therefore out of catchment too. In all previous years my daughter would have been offered a place based on her sibling and our out of catchment distance to the school as per their admissions policy.

However, due to the school being oversubscribed this year she should not have been offered a place based on her sibling and our out of catchment address. She was though offered a place due to an error from the LA and therefore we are appealing the withdrawal as a 17 day delay from offer to withdrawal we believe is unacceptable.

"and for this particular school the catchment boundary is the borough boundary too"

@LittleHens If it is literally the borough boundary (not, for example, a road, or river, or parish boundary that just happens to coincide with the borough boundary), then that is a breach of the admissions code. See info on Greenwich Judgement here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwichjudgment

@plushi Ah that is interesting. It is definitely the borough boundary on our side of the catchment area. Just had a read of the Wikipedia article and it does state this:

Some grammar schools, community schools and academies which have historically aligned their catchments with administrative boundaries, have been able to sustain their arrangements in spite of the Greenwich judgment.[15][16][17][18] More recently there have been local authorities who have set up new catchment areas coinciding with their borough boundary, and these have been judged to be acceptable by the Schools Adjudicator.[19]

The catchment area is mapped on the LA website and therefore I assume it is allowed. It is frustrating as we are closer to the school than the in-catchment cut off distance (that is 1.4 miles and we live 1.1 miles) but because we are out-of-catchment we drop down the list in terms of admissions priorities.

Disputing the catchment won't help at appeal. Even if it is wrong, the appeal panel won't redraw it. The most they would do is refer it to the Schools Adjudicator so that it gets fixed next year.

@prh47bridge just out of interest… if that catchment boundary coincides with the borough boundary what justification could the school have for it? It’s not distance as we live closer than the catchment boundary in other directions and actually closer than the catchment cut-off distance for offers this year.
It’s not a geographical feature or anything I can see apart from the borough administrative boundary.

I know the catchments in our area are designed so that every village has priority for one school, otherwise some families would have a choice of several schools while others would not ge close enough to any. At the edge, this means it runs along the county boundary.