School have revoked offer - not sure what to do next.

[Anxsi]

I'd like some advice and guidance on school admissions and appeals please.

My child is due to start secondary school in September, but the school revoked their offer on the basis that we were not living at the address used in the application.

We had been looking to buy a property in a particular area and completed the purchase earlier this year. We kept the council informed, and once we completed the purchase, our child was placed at the top of the waiting list for this school.

However, we haven’t moved in yet because the house needed repairs, which are longer than we anticipated & it would have been difficult & unsafe to live in the property while the work was being done.

The school discovered that the house was vacant and called us to clarify the situation. I explained that the house required refurbishment and that we had not yet moved in.

The school then withdrew the offer on the basis that we were not currently living at the address. The school said our child would remain on the waiting list and would move up once we had moved into the property, but couldn't give any indication of when he might be admitted, as it would depend on a place being available.

The school has said that we have the right to appeal, but I’m unsure whether it would be worthwhile. I don’t want to damage our relationship with the school any further.

I’d really appreciate some advice on what we should do next. Please be kind - my DC no longer has a secondary school, and its very stressful.

Can the builders turn it on at the end of the working day? That's what our plumber did when we had the bathroom renovated.

You have nothing to lose by applying.

Find someone with experience to put together your documentation to show the sequence of events. Maybe they can attend the hearing with you.

You won’t fall out with the school. They don’t mean it personally. The just feel they must apply the rules (as they see them) correctly. If the appeals panel allows the appeal they shouldn’t have anything against you.

Unless the house is actively dangerous, genuinely move in now and notify the school. Your son should then move up the wait list. Personally I'd put a caravan on the drive if the house was actively dangerous!

It sounds like appealing isn't going to get you anywhere but appeal by all means just do it as well as moving in and then notifying the school. You moving in won't impact the appeal, but another place may come up before September and it sounds like your DS will be at or around the top of the waiting list once you move in.

It’s true you have nothing to lose by appealing but it has no real chance of success.

Move in, prove it to school, and get bumped up waiting list - this is your best hope.

You won't succeed at appeal with arguments about the address. However, you can win if you can show that your child will be disadvantaged if they aren't admitted and this outweighs any problems the school will face from having to cope with another pupil. People on here sometimes talk about needing a compelling reason or showing that this is the only school for your child. Both of these are wrong. You simply need to show that this school is better for your child than the alternative.

The LA where you currently live must come up with a place for your child somewhere. If they don't offer a place by the time of the appeal, that will put you in a strong position as the alternative to this school is no school at all. If a place is offered, you need to look at what the appeal school offers that is missing from the allocated school and is relevant to your child. If you can identify a few such things, you will have a chance of success.

Whether you can win an appeal depends on the strength of the case you put together and the strength of the school's case to refuse admission.

Yeah, you have to have REALLY specific and evidenced reasons why one school meets your child's needs and another doesn't. LAs take a firm position that all of their schools are excellent schools. You can't just say ' we think that school is rubbish with rubbish results but this school is great.' It would have to be something like, our kid has autism and this school has a specialist autism unit and here are the specific, evidenced reasons the other school can't meet his specific needs as an autistic child.

The LA doesn't get to decide appeals. They are decided by an independent appeal panel. If the child is musically talented and the appeal school has more extracurricular musical activities, that can help to win an appeal. If the child is particularly sporty and the appeal school has more sporting activities or better facilities for sports, that can help to win an appeal. But I agree that an appeal on the basis of wanting a better school won't work. You can't win an appeal for an outstanding school on the basis that the offered school is rated inadequate.

Hi,

There aren't any reasons other than the school is close to our new house and he could just walk to school. I am taking on board what people have said and trying to move into the house asap. Have ordered as much as i can afford from Amazon to make it easier living there.

In the meantime get all your documentation swapped over eg driving licenses etc if you haven’t already.

I promise you will manage in the house for a short time even if it is a mess. We always bought wrecks and did them up over time in order to be able to afford them. We could never afford to rent elsewhere so we have lived in houses without kitchens with toddlers before, just using toasters and microwaves on the floor. We even had no bathrooms for a time, bathing the children in plastic baths. At one point we had to have a wash feet every night routine due to the dust! Somehow you manage to get through even if it does get you down for a while!

@Anxsi Have you confirmed with the LA that they will accept your new address as soon as you move in if you still own/have a rental contract on your previous house?

If not, the moving in may make no difference.

The LA don't have an issue with our address, its the school we wanted and they said to contact to them as soon as we move.

But will they consider it a move when you still own/rent your previous address?

No reasons at all, other than proximity to your new address?

Do they both offer exactly the same range of subjects, or is there a subject that the school you'd prefer offer that isn't offered at other schools? How about clubs? Sports? Pastoral care? Are the children set in ability groups earlier in one school than the others? Would that impact your DS? You can use any reason - obviously, the more specific it is, the more compelling, but it's all worth trying.

If your preferred school has a particularly weak case, then you might find that even 2 or 3 relatively weak arguments are enough to win.