Secondary school appeal help

[ForLilacSheep]

I’m just writing to ask for a bit of advice. We have done a lot of digging into why we weren’t allocated a place at our local school mainly due to the fact that it was such a shock, and that we know that anyone from our address would have been offered a place at our preferred school for the last 10 years at least. For context there are only 6 schools within our education district and all are within the reasonable travel time for secondary schools from one end of the district to the other. From this investigating we have found out the following:

There was a “primarily unforeseen slight shortfall” of secondary school places within our district this year. (This has been confirmed to us by our local authority school place planning team)

As a solution to this the council asked each school in the district to take 5 children over PAN. (We’re not sure at what point this was decided or why they did not do what they state in their planning strategy, which is to put a bulge year in a single school to meet the need temporarily.) We are also fairly sure that the shortfall in places across the district was somewhere between 2 and 8 children.

We know that 18 children from within our preferred schools GPA (geographical priority area) were unable to secure a place at our preferred school based on their original PAN of 145. This subsequently reduced to 13 children once the additional 5 places were given. Only once before (in 2023) have they not been able to allocate all the children from within the GPA to our preferred school and this affected just 1 child.

We have now found out that the school we have been allocated, which has been deemed suitable for us, has not allocated all its places this year. It’s PAN is 150, and only 138 places have been allocated there for September 2025. We know that atleast 2 of the 5 schools within the district have offered 5 places over PAN. (Confirmed by the schools)

What we cannot understand is why some schools have been made to go over their PAN by 5, when there is a school in the district that has been deemed suitable for us which is undersubscribed and still 12 under PAN?

We believe that in doing this they have not only made it harder for people to appeal to those schools as the schools are able to say they are already 5 over PAN. But also that if there is a school which is deemed suitable for us, we cannot understand why those 12 places that are still available at that school weren’t allocated to children before they made other schools exceed their PAN? The schools that we know for sure have accepted 5 over PAN are community schools controlled by the local authority.

Please can you advise on this situation as we see this as being hugely unfair. If the local authority have asked schools to go over PAN to accommodate parental preferences, leaving one school undersubscribed, they must have done so because they deemed the school they have allocated us to be unsuitable for some children but not others.

can anyone shed any light on this situation?

To make it clear, we have a very good stage 2 argument to put forward specifically for our child but I’m trying to find out how this has been allowed to happen as it doesn’t seem to comply with the admissions code as it doesn’t seem fair, clear or transparent.

Thanks in advance.

Sorry it’s been very hard to follow you but I think regardless - I am assuming if your preferred schools went 5 over PAN (you don’t say what PAN is but I am assuming it’s allocated numbers) …. And despite these schools going 5 over PAN your child was not allocated a space there than the kids that were one of those 5 live closer to those schools then you do … ? Unless what you are getting at is you feel you can not appeal as these schools are over subsribed already now.

To process things you might find it helpful to say what grounds you were going to appeal on and experienced others might be able to reassure you, regardless of these extra kids or not, an appeal might be unlikely to succeed?

Surely the extra children included in the over PAN numbers were also higher priority than your child?
Those extra places will have been allocated in accordance with the admission code, just like all the other places.

What’s your appeal? I personally wouldn’t favour sending my child to a school already over pan because those extra few children in each classroom do make a difference. It probably sounds like a small amount but having that extra couple of children in my class has lots of small impacts- in an hour lesson it takes that extra bit of time getting them in and out, moving around the room to assist/check work/spot students struggling is that little bit more difficult and I’m more likely to miss something, for a one off lesson it’s ok but 25 hours a week for 5 years is a lot.

If they were that close to being able to offer everyone a place, then the chances are that by the time those going private have turned down their spaces, everyone will get a place.

So perhaps they should have just stuck to the original numbers, told the unlucky few that they didn't have a place yet, and then wait for the offers to be declined. At that point, schools start offering off their waiting list. School A has five spaces, so they offer them to those near the top, who then pull out from schools B and C, who can then offer spaces to five other kids, which perhaps makes another space in school A and a couple in schools D and E. Eventually the music stops and everyone has a place.

I can see some sense in suggesting schools go over their PAN. That way, when school A has five kids declining their places, they don't make any changes. It will cut down a lot of the chop and change, at the expense of some schools ending up with up to five more pupils.

Your child would have done no better if they had stuck to the original numbers. Some of their peers will have got in to a preferred school they might not have done otherwise, and some will have got in at the first pass rather than having to wait for the waiting lists to shift. And either way, the unpopular undersubscribed school probably remains undersubscribed, as it's likely that by the time the private school attendees are taken out of the equation, there are more places across the district than are needed.

they must have done so because they deemed the school they have allocated us to be unsuitable for some children but not others.

Ummm... no, I don't think this is it.

It's possible that they asked around regarding a bulge class (which would presumably be up to 30 children), got a lot of push back and so split the 'possible 30' across all 6 schools, asking each to take 5 over PAN. This might have been done before any preferences were identified, just based on numbers of applicants in the system.

A bulge class of 30 can be more problematic for a school than a temporary increase in PAN by 5 - for example, creates a larger pool of sibling priority, might not be a spare classroom etc.

Indeed.

And surely OP they look at the schools individual situations and decide how many extras they can take? What works for one isn’t going to work for all the others?

What is your hopeful outcome? That they shoehorn your child in?

Do you have independent schools near you? It might be due to the VAT pushing lots of kids back into the state sector.

Have you asked what place you are in the waiting list for your current school, stressful to wait but there can often be a fair amount of movement before September.

Schools can go over their PAN if they want to as long as they allocate from their waiting list. It has usually nothing to do with other schools in the area.

OP I don’t understand your position. You are prepared to go into an almighty battle that is over allocated and full. Why? They aren’t going to be able to magic up even more places nor are they going to say to other kids - sorry we are revoking your place after a lengthy process of selection and over PAN because one disgruntled parent didn’t get their preferred school. It isn’t your right to have you local school and this happens all the time. There are other schools available. Yeah disappointing but what are you actually trying to achieve.

Since there isn’t a clear outcome it just sounds like you are throwing your toys out because you didn’t get what you wanted .

@SheilaFentiman I did think this could possibly have been likely. However I can’t see why you would then take 5 over PAN when there is a school in the district with places available. That means that the 5 children who got those extra places were treated differently to other children in the area. They were accommodated by the school going over PAN in order to meet their preference. When there was a perfectly “suitable” school with places still available in the district. And other children weren’t afforded the same privilege. I can’t see how that can be deemed as fair or transparent with regards to the admissions code?

I think OP’s question is why weren’t the 12 spaces in her allocated school used, rather than asking other schools to temporarily increase their PAN by 5? Which does seem an odd thing for the council to do - they should have placed 12 of the shortfall kids at that school, then asked the others to all take an extra 3. In the school with spaces a long way away?

@Calmdownpeople Im trying to understand how the process works that’s all. I think you need to take your own advice and calm down. If you can’t be helpful or provide any information it’s probably better not to say anything.

You do know lots of schools, particularly at secondary level admit quite a few over PAN following appeal? It’s not a particulalry outrageous thing to do appealing.

@titchy thank you, this is exactly what I was trying to get to the bottom of. Why overfill some schools and leave another undersubscribed. It doesn’t make sense to me. I feel like 12 other children from our area should have been allocated the same school as us, and potentially the shortfall of 2/3 that we’re closest to the preferred school should have been admitted.

@titchy hi yes the school with places is a long way away, it’s 2 public buses and then a 20 minute walk. And the people from our area who have been allocated this school are the furthest away from that school than anyone else in the district. For context our preferred choice was the only school that was walkable (45 minutes) all the other schools in the district are at a minimum 2 public buses away. And nobody from our area does or ever has gone there before. But that’s besides the point. As I mentioned we do have a really strong case for stage 2 of the appeal anyway, and hopefully it will be enough. But it feels wrong that the school are able to turn up to the appeal and say “we’ve already taken 5 over pan, we’re full” when they really didn’t need to be considering there was another school in the district that could have accommodated that 5 without going over PAN.

Yeah, I do understand the question - I'm not sure when in the process the LA makes the decision, though. So if on 1st Nov, it says "ah, we have 2030 applicants and 2000 places" - does it then decide how to create 30 places and decide that 5 over PAN each is the best way.

And only later find out that one school is undersubscribed, and perhaps there are dropouts between application and allocation, meaning actually the LA only needed to create 18 more spaces in total, but it's too late cos schools have been asked and accepted and planned on that basis.

@RabbitPlate my point is that they shouldn’t have needed to take any extra over PAN as there was a school in the district that was undersubscribed and had places available.

I don’t understand OP - your child wasn’t one of the 5 extra who got your preferred school, so it’s irrelevant whether they were over PAN and another school was under. The places are allocated in accordance with the oversubscription criteria. If the PAN at your preferred school was 5 less, your child still wouldn’t have gotten a place.

I get what you’re saying, I think the point I was trying to make (albeit badly) is that is it not possible it’s due to what schooos people have requested and what needs the school have? Presumably they’re ever changing, and as someone else mentioned ruined, waiting list situations. I imagine it’s not as cut and dry as ‘this school 1007 and this school 1208’. I honestly don’t know the answer, I just feel like it won’t be as straightforward as your thinking.

You need someone who works in the LA to explain the intricacies of how allocations are decided I suppose. Good luck with your appeal.

@SheilaFentiman That scenario does make sense to me, and I appreciate that thank you. The reason I asked in here is because I couldn’t not find anything on the admissions code, or the place planning strategy, or any government guidance or anywhere online which suggests that this is a way to deal with an unforeseen shortfall. And even though the outcome is unintended, it still means that a school has gone over pan to accommodate preferences for some children and not for others.

You’re just looking at it from the point of view of you not getting the place you wanted, though.
You were allocated a place at the undersubscribed school and don’t want it…
Why is it good enough for other people’s children, but not yours?

I think OP is saying that it is harder for her to win an appeal if the school is already 5 over PAN than it would be if it was at PAN. Which is probably true.

it still means that a school has gone over pan to accommodate preferences for some children and not for others.

I don't think it is 'to accommodate preferences" though - you don't know if any of the 5 over PAN at any of the schools had it as a high preference, just that they didn't have the undersubscribed school as a higher preference (or they filled out only one slot and didn't get it but got the nearest with space!)

@PurplGirl correct, however if they hadn’t gone over pan to accommodate some children in their preferred schools, more children from our area would have been allocated to the currently undersubscribed school, meaning it potentially wouldnt have been so isolating for our child and potentially more safe to make the journey there with other children etc. I’m only trying to understand the process, not overthrow the whole system.