Secondary school appeal form

[CoffeeAndCommas]

Hi,
We're planning on appealing because our daughter didn't get any of the preferred schools. On the appeal form, they are asking us to list all the schools that we applied for. Can they ask this information? Can we leave it blank or say prefer not to disclose? I thought the process would be independent and we will not need to disclose this. We are planning on appealing to all schools to increase the chances of getting a place.
Many thanks for reading.

I'm an appeal panel member and I will often ask parents which schools they applied for. If they've only put down schools which they have no realistic hope of getting a place at, I'm going to be less sympathetic to them claiming that they didn't get any of their preferences.

But I'm also a parent and I understand that you are going to want the best school for your child, and that you may be appealing for multiple schools.

It won't really disadvantage you to list the other schools - we are looking at whether your need for a child to have a place outweighs the disadvantage to this particular school. We don't think 'oh, they'll probably get a place at school B, so we won't offer them a place at school A'.

I'm also a panel member, and where we are, we normally get a copy of the application form so can see other schools applied for anyway.

it's not really relevant, as you are appealing for a school rather that against one, based on the specifics of an individual school. We also realise that most people have a limited number of schools that are realistic to apply to, so your choices shouldn't really come into it.

However, in reality, if your appeal focuses heavily on a specific element that is contradicted by your preferences - say, you make an argument that your child must have a single sex school, and your original application shows you only applied for one, mixed sex school - some panellists might raise an eyebrow, even if they shouldn't.

Schools are meant to ensure that they give places to the children who most qualify for a place. If your daughter didn't get any of her preferred schools, it will likely mean one of two things:

• You/your daughter chose to put down only schools she was out of catchment area for and didn't qualify on particular criteria for. OR
• You did this, but she was still denied a place because other children met the criteria better.

I think the reason the school would be asking for this information is because if you chose schools, or at least some schools, you should have been higher priority for and you got schools that are far away or unable to meet your daughter's needs, then there would be questions about whether your daughter should have been placed differently and a mistake was made, which might make her higher priority for a school you are appealing to. If you chose to fill your daughter's choices with schools that you knew you lived outside the likely geographical area for, or ones that she was likely to fail the admissions test for, then really her placement at a school she didn't want is her/your fault for not applying for schools she'd likely get to, and if she has a school place that isn't one she chose, oh well!

Many thanks everyone for your replies. We did try to pick the schools (had five preferences) that fitted our daughter's needs, but of course not all of them had all the requirements. Therefore, our appeal would be slightly different for couple of the schools. I hope this won't disadvantage our application. I think due to a recent growth in population in our area, the competition has increased. We knew it would be tough but thought we'd at least have a chance of getting one of the preferences.

What are your grounds for appeal?

In your op you said you were appealing "because our daughter didn't get any of the preferred schools". If that is your only argument then of course you will need to say which schools you applied for. If the list includes at least one preference that you had a realistic chance of getting into they are more likely to sympathise. If you only put down aspirational preferences, then they are likely to think you got what you deserved.

It's unusual to ask for the info up front, but perhaps its an opportunity for self reflection that might help reduce the numbers of weak appeals.

Hi, mainly the language provision at the school as our daughter has an aptitude for learning languages. She's bilingual and the 3rd language she's studying at her primary school is offered at three of the schools that we selected but not the one that was offered by the council. The two other schools that we selected don't offer this language but has other extracurricular activities that our daughter enjoys and also we thought we had a chance with their faith-based criteria. We also considered pastoral care at these schools. Are these acceptable grounds for appeal?

The language offered at the appealed-for schools is the kind of argument which can win you a place. Is there anything else along those lines (DC plays clarinet/football and school has orchestra/strong sports offer)?

The pastoral care is unlikely to win, as the view is that any school can offer pastoral care of an acceptable standard (or it would not be open). I would think the only way that might fly is if your DC had a specific pastoral need that was addressed by that school and only that school (not sure what that would be but imagine that’s possible).

Did you list your catchment school? What is the school you were offered like? The advice btw is to accept that school unless you are happy to HE.

Make sure you go on all WLs as well – this is automatic in some LAs but not in all. Find out where you are on the WLs as that may be how you get a place.

Grounds for appeal are unlimited, so you can appeal on whatever basis you want (hence there are a huge volume of weak, self-indulgent appeals, which are unfortunately paid for from very tight school budgets).

@PatriciaHolm and @toomuchcarrotcake
Do you deal with SEND appeals?
(Not trying to derail OP - good luck with your appeal)

Hi, yes, we can list other things but will need to look into these in the offered school. We didn't consider this school because of all the negatives associated with it (parents are trying to get their children out of this school due to bullying, staff shortages etc.). This is one of two catchment schools. The other catchment school would have been OK but we would not have gotten a place because every year the distance has been reducing due to the increased population (last year was less than 1 mile and we were discouraged by the head teacher at the open day because we lived 2.5miles from the school). So, we didn't apply.

There is nothing to stop you appealing on these grounds. You only have strong grounds for winning an appeal if the school allocation has overlooked a criterion that should have placed you higher on the list. Or if you can prove that your child would experience significantly greater benefit and more detriment of not going to this school than another child.

So the language thing would be unlikely to be a thing, unless the any of the schools you are appealing for are specialist language colleges with a focus on that language. All schools offer languages, it is not a criterion for admittance.

The same with the faith criteria. If the school says it give priority to those of your faith, and has admitted people without your faith, ahead of your daughter, then that would be grounds of appeal. It depends exactly what the faith based criteria are though.

The pastrol care, is unlikely to be a critera. All children are going to benefit from good pastrol care. You'd need to show that the benefit to your child of good pastoral care were more than they would be to another child.

"So the language thing would be unlikely to be a thing, unless the any of the schools you are appealing for are specialist language colleges with a focus on that language. All schools offer languages, it is not a criterion for admittance."

I disagree. @CoffeeAndCommas has stated that her DD is already bilingual (evidence of being able to learn language) and is studying the target language in primary school, so it will be a disadvantage if she can't continue with that. I would find that pretty persuasive.

I agree that the pastoral element on its own, without evidence that a child would particularly need or benefit from it is not going to help.

The extra-curricular stuff would need a bit more than 'she would enjoy it.'

Yes I agree with @Lougle – the language aspect is exactly the type of thing that may win an appeal.

I don't think schools are specialist language colleges these days anyway @stichguru and ofc all schools offer MFL – but @CoffeeAndCommas is talking about a specific MFL not offered everywhere, but offered at the appeal school.

"DD is already bilingual (evidence of being able to learn language) and is studying the target language in primary school, so it will be a disadvantage if she can't continue with that. I would find that pretty persuasive"

It wouldn't persuade me. The fact that she is already bilingual would be evidence that she is already in a privileged position and certainly not more disadvantaged than anyone else if not given the opportunity to learn additional languages.

It's also worth bearing in mind that most schools allow bilingual children to sit additional language GCSE's as private candidates. They don't need to sit through 5 years of lessons for a language that they are already fluent in.

Hi, she's not fluent in the language that's offered at the appeal school (she has studied that in primary school and would like to continue it through to GCSEs) and this is not one of the two languages that she's fluent already.

Then you need to convince the panel that her need to study a third language is greater than the need of the other children at the school not to be in an overcrowded classroom and the need of the teachers to not have the increased workload of one more additional child than they planned for, and greater than the needs of all the other children whose parents are also appealing.

You might get lucky if the school's case for being full is weak, and/or if other appeals are weaker than yours, and/or the panel is sympathetic to your case.

Apologies but I don't know much about this process and I don't want to say that overcrowding is good. It's not about learning a 3rd language, it's being able to support my daughter to continue with learning this language, which she's passionate about since primary school. I don't think making her learn a 4th language at the offer school is the best choice, when the appeal school already teaches the 3rd language. I hope that makes sense. We don't have extra funds to tutor her privately.

But many children who are fortunate enough to learn a language at primary school have to switch to learning a different language at secondary. That's not unusual. What is so special about your child that her disadvantage in switching language outweighs the detriment to other children of increasing the size of their class above its planned size?

That is the case you will need to make.

Some of the advice here is misleading.

To win an appeal, the parent doesn’t necessarily have to show that the oversubscription criteria have been wrongly applied (and if they have been wrongly applied, and the child has consequently missed out on a place, the admission authority ought to correct its own mistake and award the place, although some will insist that the matter goes to appeal).

At secondary level, the appeal panel has to decide whether the prejudice (ie detriment) to the child if not given a place outweighs the prejudice to the school and the pupils already in it in having to accommodate an extra pupil. The panel will listen carefully to all arguments presented by the parent and by the school - there is no prescribed list of permissible or not permissible grounds of appeal.

Our two local secondaries do 2 languages each, both do Spanish and they each do one different language. My child's whole primary school did Spanish in years 3 to 6. My friend's child from another local primary school did no language in primary. Going by what you say, that would give every child from my son's primary an extra priority point in both secondaries compared to children from my friend's son's school. It clearly wouldn't be ok if ALL the children from my son's primary got priority in both secondaries over ALL the children from the other primary. Maybe if there was an aptitude test, or language had to be one spoken regularly at home that might work...but that's a lot of work giving every child who claims language strength a test, or working out a way of checking what languages are spoken frequently in every home.

It's contextual. If this child is bilingual and has an interest in languages, and is learning the language offered already, then it strengthens their case. I'm not saying it is necessarily a winner on its own, but it's good evidence of benefit.

Many children are lucky enough to be bilingual because their parents speak two languages at home. They are already advantaged over children who speak just one language. Whether that means they should be given additional privileges for secondary transfer entirely depends on the subjective perspective of the panel. It wouldn't convince me.

On the question of language provision: oversubscription criteria sometimes provide for language places, but those are usually awarded on the basis of a language aptitude test, rather than prior experience of learning a language. At an appeal, it isn’t about who is or isn’t a priority to get a place - it’s about need, in the sense of whether the child’s need for a place (expressed in the appeals code in terms of ‘prejudice’) outweighs the school’s need to not to exceed its published admission number. Nor is it about subjective judgments of privilege.

The appeal panel is likely to want to probe arguments about language provision. An argument which boils down to “this school offers a language I’d like my child to learn” is unlikely to carry much weight, as it’s about parental preference rather than the child’s need. An argument that the child already learns this language, or needs to learn it to strengthen family relationships, and can’t learn it in other schools, may be more persuasive.

Thanks everyone for your input and advice. I think I now have an understanding of how the appeal system works.

Back to the question about being asked for other schools applied for - like @PatriciaHolm , the paperwork sent to panels on which I sit (organised under the umbrella of Democratic Services within the LA) and to the parent, includes a copy of the CAF or mid-year application form in its document bundle. A major point of this is to assist us in considering whether there may have been an error in the allocation process. e.g. parent has named a sibling in year 9 at their first preference school, so child should have been ranked under Criterion 3 for that particular school, and, also according to the school paperwork, offers were made down to Criterion 5, so a place should have been offered. But in error this wasn't taken into consideration and the school is ranking the child under Criterion 6. An error in the process like that which led to that specific pupil being denied a place would mean the appeal being upheld. Hopefully, a 'wholesale' error -- would be picked up and dealt with before the appeal hearings stage.

Personally, although at each hearing, it is only Why must your DC have a place at this particular school? that is the question, knowing that this school had only been ranked third / fourth / last on the CAF wouldn't put out of my mind that it is the parents' right to appeal for any school which has refused their application.

(However, I will admit that, Seriously? might well be my first thought at many reasons - or 'reasons' - given, at least on first sight of the appeal form. Supporting democratic rights and having views on doing things just because one can are not mutially exclusive...).

@CoffeeAndCommas have you now applied for the other local school? If it would have been 'okay' and you are within its defined catchment area, it would be an idea to apply (and being turned down, if you are, will give you the right of appeal for this one, as well; you can always withdraw from other appeals before the hearing, if a place becomes avaliable)