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.

It won’t matter. The current numbers won’t affect whether she wins an appeal or not as it’s all done on her child/the process. If anything, she’s more likely to get in on the waiting list when someone inevitably drops out as her child may only be eg. 2nd on the waiting list instead of 7th.

So are you disappointed more children aren’t going to the same school as your child so they could journey together or that your child didn’t get a space? Or both? I’m a bit confused.

The current numbers won’t affect whether she wins an appeal or not as it’s all done on her child/the process.

Um, no, not for secondary. The OP has to prove that the prejudice for her child not going is greater than the prejudice to the school in taking an extra child. If the class is already over-full, the school’s case not to admit extra children is stronger.

@SheilaFentiman i do know that the 5 extra allocated were given it based on it being their first preference, as no children were allocated a place from outside the GPA and no children with siblings at the school from outside the GPA got a place either (which is the next criteria down the list)

Ahh, well that’s a different thing. I understand you’d be happier sending your child to the allocated school if some of their mates were going. But in terms of process, I don’t see how the PAN aspect helps your appeal. If anything, it’s made your child’s position on the waiting list higher so there’s a chance they’ll get in that way.
As long as the oversubscription criteria were applied fairly, there’s no grounds for appeal on process. You weren’t close to getting in if they’ve gone 5 over PAN. Was your plan always to appeal?
Hopefully you’ve got a case on your individual circs.

It depends on the capacity across the school.

One school may have more SLT, a better Ofsted grade, larger space, Unused space, less staff and child mobility isuues. No long term absences, less vulnerable children, less parents needing support, No ECT, less EHCPs, less contextual safeguarding issues, better attendance, Some barriers are hidden and some years are harder than others. You may have x amount of children awaiting an EHCP, high EAL, LAC, CIN. CP. low starting levels.

Every school is unique and one school may take 10 additional children more easily than other can take 2.

There are also guidelines on hard-to-place children and where they can be placed above PAN. A school with perhaps spaces and RI would not be expected to take any, while a full good school might have to accept 3 per year based on the LA agreement which is often 3.

The school has to agree to accept children over pan and some refuse.

@SheilaFentiman This is my point, by the school taking 5 over pan unnecessarily, they are more able to argue that the school is “full” but this shouldn’t have been up to them to decide, it should have been for an appeal panel to decide who had the strongest case. And makes it feel like an unfair process.

What country are you in?

We don't have school districts and GPA here so I'm not entirely following your issues and you may be getting inaccurate advice?

I understand your point, I just don’t think it’s in breach of the admissions code because the extra places were allocated by published criteria.

It would be different if they went over PAN to admit the Head’s niece or something.

@KilkennyCats It is a suitable school for the children who are able to access it without having to get 2 public buses and walk for 20 minutes both morning and afternoon. It isn’t suitable for the 4 children ever to have been allocated this school from anywhere within a 3 miles radius of where we live.

How were they allocated by published criteria? Genuinely want to understand what you mean by this. These extra places weren’t in the determined admission arrangements, nor were they publicly consulted upon. So you mean the published oversubscription criteria? @SheilaFentiman

@BinBadger what country are you in? I’m talking about England.

Yes, the published oversubscription criteria… siblings, distance, whatever they were. So the applications were ordered in a fair and transparent way in line with these.

I'm in the UK too but have never heard anyone discuss "education districts" and "GPA" locally and am unsure what an education district is and how it impacts your choice of school. You say there are only 6 schools in your education district but does that mean you are limited to those? Is the school you haven't got a place at the designated school for your address?

We have the Local Authority who coordinate admissions but it is done by applying admission criteria in preference order. Therefore if you didn't get a place at your first choice then that's because more people had higher admission criteria than you.

How many schools did you name as choices? Is your allocated school one you named?

A GPA is a geographical priority area. These are used by our local authority to ensure people have a reasonable chance of accessing their local school. We live in a fairly rural area but within the GPA of our preferred school. The district is how the local authority described it to us. But it means the collection of schools that they must place you in when applying for a school in our area. @BinBadger

@BinBadger we did only
list our preferred school yes. This was reasonable in our case as it was the only school in our area that wouldn’t require 2 public buses to get to. And if we had listed any of the others (which we had already deemed unsuitable travel wise) they treat all your preferences equally, so if we had been given one of them, but still appealed for our local school, they would have been able to say that we put that school down as a preference and why did we do that if it wasn’t suitable.

they would have been able to say that we put that school down as a preference and why did we do that if it wasn’t suitable.

That’s not how it works, appeal panels would expect parents to use all the choices, you wouldn’t be judged for doing so.

@SheilaFentiman We couldn’t put any other school down. 3 were ruled out completely because of the area they are located in, this posed a safety and welfare risk to my child because of my partners job (we have evidenced this as part of our appeal) the other 2 required 2 public buses, my child has SEN and anxiety (diagnosed after the application had to be in) which would mean he wouldn’t able to make those journeys. (Evidenced by consultant reports and other medical professional reports plus school senco) all of which now have been submitted as part of our appeal. Due to there being very few schools to choose from in our area we could not stipulate 3 equal preferences.

I have never heard of equal preferences, usually it would be 1, 2, 3

I'm afraid you've been misled or misunderstood there. You need to use all of your choices to express a preference

You may find that's why others were offered the over PAN 5 spaces for eg

You said in your OP that all the secondaries in your "education district" (I am still unsure what this denotes) were a reasonable distance from you?

@SheilaFentiman sorry, it states on the LA website that all preferences will be considered equally.

@BinBadger the schools are all within 75 minutes of travel time (just about) which is what I meant by that. But we based our preferences on our child’s specific abilities considering his SEN. So were unable to list 3 preferences as knew he wouldn’t manage the journey to any of the other schools as a child with his specific (and now evidenced) needs.

Can you say which LA it is?
The whole point of a preference listing is so people can rank their preferences

The PAN of the school you have been allocated is totally irrelevant.

It does not matter why that school has under-allocated its places, this is not a factor.

The only relevant detail is, for your more preferred schools, were the oversubscription criteria correctly applied to you? Was the distance from your home to the school correctly measured and is that distance greater than the greatest distance offered, in thr category you come under.

If each school that had a higher PAN has allocated all those places (normal PAN+5) according to its published oversubscription criteria then it is correct for your child to be given a place at the school with an available space for them.

If you turn up at an appeal with the kind of ramble as is in your OP you will be categorised as a green-crayon-writing loon. You will not be successful.

The schools that have offered over PAN are ones where the LA decides how many places to offer. They don't have the same control over academies.