Secondary school appeal format

[Peabody25]

Hi all,
I'm looking at secondary school appeal meetings and processes to help a friend. I’ve googled the order of the meeting and just have a couple of questions. Do the appealing parents introduce the reason for appeal in terms of having an introductory statement for example or do they go straight into the reasons for appealing?

With the reasons for appealing, is it best to state reason 1 then give a list of bullet points/ evidence that comes under reason 1, then move onto reason 2 and bullet points for example?

In terms of summing up, is there a best way to do this?

Any other general tips that might help?

Thanks all!

Can anybody help?

We’ve just been through a hearing - I don’t know whether all panels will be exactly the same or not, but for us at Stage 2 the chair of the panel gave us the floor initially with an opener along the lines of “tell us about your DD” - I had a couple of wider contextual points I wanted to make sure were covered so I think I said something like “before I tell you about DC I just want to make sure you understand X and Y” - then started talking about DD, her needs and why we felt the school best met them.

We were then asked a series of questions by the panel - these seemed to be pre-prepared and probed on particular aspects of our written submission, giving us a chance to elaborate on those points.

We were given the opportunity to add anything else at the end but we didn’t feel there was anything that hadn’t been covered. We didn’t make a closing statement or anything.

All in it took about 30 mins. It was conversational, not overly formal and it didn’t feel like the panel was trying to trip us up or undermine our argument, just to make sure they had really understood our case.

There is no required format, as pp said it’s all pretty informal.

As you know, the parents put their case second, after the school has put its case. (Don’t forget parent is allowed to challenge the school’s case about being full - eg have they taken extra kids previously. Appeal panel should do this too).

Parent should explain their reasons for appealling in whatever way they think is best. Personally I wouldn’t do an introduction as the appeal papers hopefully should already give an indication of the reasons for appeal. Maybe just say “I have 3 points I want to cover”. Then explain the points one by one, pointing to any evidence for each.

Summing up - IME there isn’t really much need for a sum up unless there have been a lot of complicated reasons. Most people just say something like “my child needs a place at this school for the reasons already explained and thank you for your time”.

They really don’t need to worry about getting anything “wrong” in terms of format.

Thanks so much this really helps!

I chair appeals and do things differently in every appeal.
Some parents are really nervous and in those cases I offer to read out the main points of what the panel already know to get things going and we then ask questions rather than the parents having to make a statement.
Other more confident ones will have something prepared so they make their case/statement and then we discuss that.
Some parents get upset and I always have tissues to hand and give them time to recover by changing the subject that is causing distress and go back to it later if they are able to.
There is no right or wrong, I always ask towards the end whether the parents are confident that the panel have a good understanding of their situation and give them time to check their notes before they leave.
It usually ends up as a conversation .
Good luck to your friend.