Appeal

[citrusfruit1]

Hi,

Has anyone used a company to help successfully appeal a secondary school place? We are aware our chances are slim but would just like to give it our best shot. Information online seems really limited and I would hate it if we had something that would be helpful and we didn’t bring it to the table because we didn’t know it would help.

Thanks for any insight.

You don't need a company. The process is designed to be accessible by parents.

If a mistake hasn't been made, the panel will balance how strong your case is against how strong the prejudice is against the school having to take another pupil/pupils.

What grounds are you going to appeal on? Friendships, transport, and convenience are not grounds that win, so it needs to be something about the school provision, really, unless there are exceptional social and emotional grounds.

What are your grounds?

Appropriate ones would be e.g. my child is county level in hockey, the school we are appealing for has a new astroturf pitch and a hockey team that plays at high level.

Not travel, friendship, pastoral care, convenience etc.

Asd, lack of support network at the allocated school and the risk of school refusal are our reasons.

May I ask how you both know that the reasons you have listed are categorically not grounds for appeal or reasons that win? As I have said I have found very little information online so I wondered where this information comes from, aside from anecdotal reports of people who have/haven’t been successful.

I really wouldn’t encourage you to use a company or a lawyer.

As pp say you need to explain what this school can offer your child that others cannot. A better Ofsted or better academic results or reputation will not be valid reasons. TBH these are the real reasons most parents are appealing (whatever they say), and the panel will realise pretty quickly if this is your real reason.

Friendship and convenience could occasionally have some weight but only in rare circumstances eg my child is a young carer so needs a nearby school to give him time to do his caring responsibilities. Or my child has been violently bullied, is currently scared to go to school and needs to be with her friends to feel safe. Obviously both these examples would need evidence to back them up ideally from professionals.

Don’t be shy to nitpick the school’s case on the detriment of taking another child. Some schools genuinely are full to bursting, but others less so when you dig. Ask if the school has taken extra students (above PAN) in prior years and if so, did the school manage ok. Sometimes it turns out that the school regularly takes a few extra, this helps your case as the balance is more in your favour.

Make sure you have investigated which other schools in the area have space and can explain why those can’t offer your child the same as the appeal school. Panels will be unimpressed if you haven’t considered other options and just focused on the appeal school.

Cross posted.

You will really need some letters from medical professionals/ counsellors / his current school to evidence his risk of school refusal and to say why a support network (I presume that means going to same school as friends?) will help him go to school. Remember a lot of appellants claim their child is “anxious” and needs to be with friends, so you’ll need to show it’s much more than that in this case.

You’ll be asked if you’ve got an EHCP (as this would get you into a whole different admissions system) - if not, why not. Appreciate there is a long waiting list so it may be in progress?

ASD - all schools should in theory be able to support ASD so you’d need some specific reasons why this school can support him better than others.

Many of the posters on here are or have chaired appeal panels and know what they are talking about!

Risk of school refusal isn’t a strong point, you can’t appeal for something that might happen, or might not! All schools should be able to support a child with ASD so think about what it is that the school you want has that other schools don’t? Does it have an ASD base? Does it have specialist provision for children with ASD, or any other neurodiversity, what support network does it have that is essential for your child that the allocated school doesn’t have- but remember you are NOT appealing against the allocated school, you are appealing FOR the preferred one.

Nothing to do with the strength of the school here, the bare facts are that he has asd, cannot comprehend why he is going to one school and the rest of the class is going to another and I am very concerned that he will never see it as ‘his’ school and will refuse to go there. I understand that the panel won’t care that it is something that ‘might’ happen, but I very much do, hence wanting to pay for some support with my appeal so I can say the right things/tick the right boxes or at least have the best chance of doing so because ‘might’ is not a risk I wish to take.

Fwiw, I would be happy with either school, if he was.

A company or lawyer is not going to be any better at articulating these arguments than you are.

What will actually have a chance of helping, is some written letters from his medical professionals and current school teachers, to back up what you are saying. There needs to be some professional evidence saying this school is necessary for your child because there is a strong chance he will refuse to go to another school. Do you think you can get this?

Thank you @minipie

We have some evidence from his diagnosis, and will be able to get a letter of support from his teacher/Sendco I think.

Aside from this I can’t think of any further evidence I can get. He does not have an EHCP, needs are not high enough. I guess I could look at evidence of things he has refused to do, of which there are many! This could probably be evidenced through the teacher’s report.

Have you visited the school he’s been allocated? His feelings are not unusual, ASD or not. It’s hard to watch friends go to a different school. Often these are knee jerk reactions that settle with time.

Thanks, yeh, we did visit but I could see he wasn’t paying attention really as it wasn’t his school. To be fair to him he would’ve got into first choice in all previous years so he is just finding it really hard to process, and we probably didn’t prepare him enough as it was a shock to us too.

When I appealed, I did not have a clue about the process or what was a good reason to appeal and what was not. But I found out by reading up on it all. I read everything that the LEA sent and I read loads of old thread on here as well as asking questions. When I wrote my statement I understood just what I needed to include as well as what I shouldn’t say as it could muddy the waters.

You can learn so much about the appeal process from old threads on Mumsnet, as @ChinaPlates has said. Click on 'advanced' search and search for anything in the 'Secondary Education' and 'Education' sections with the word 'appeal' in the title.

Do you know where you are on the waiting list for the preferred school?

Previous posters have been categorical about what won’t be a winning argument at appeal because some arguments will fail except in very rare circumstances. To take the example of transport: arguments about ease of transport (such as the parent wanting to drop the child at school) are unlikely to succeed, because it is assumed that secondary age children are capable of getting themselves to school independently, and so the appeal panel would expect to see evidence of why that wasn’t the case for this particular child (disability, lack of public transport or school bus, or whatever).

In the circumstances described here, the preferred school’s argument is likely to be that ASD is not a rare condition, all schools can support children with ASD and it can’t offer any more or better support than the allocated school. The appeal panel is likely therefore to be looking for evidence from medical practitioners setting out why, in their professional opinion, the preferred school is better able to meet the child’s needs and how they will be disadvantaged if not given a place.

@citrusfruit1 just to say that submitting professional advice is definitely not a magic bullet.
If the school is heavily oversubscribed ime even significant SEN grounds supported by very solid professional evidence hasn't been successful.

Have you explained the admissions policies to him? In my experience, autistic children understand and accept the logic when it's explained to them.

Obviously it is better if that is explained long before offer day so that their expectations are managed in advance.

I think @minipie is making a great point here. When it comes to the 2nd stage, the hearing, don't only present your child's case. Also try to pick apart the school's case. We won an appeal two years ago (20% success rate in my area). When it came to the appeal hearing, there were three other pairs of parents, so four parties appealing altogether.
We had done our homework beforehand and carefully read the school's case, which suggested that they were over PAN every year for a few years running. In the year above my son's entry year, they were 4 over PAN. During the meeting, we asked very targeted questions about whether the fact that they were oversubscribed had, in the last few years led to them not being able to offer something they would have liked to offer, whether they had been any accidents due to overcrowding etc. My husband then made the killer move by openly stating. "So even if the panel today admits all four students appealing, the school would not be any worse off than in previous years, which according to the school has not caused any detriment to education or safety.". BINGO :-)!
We also had a good case based on our son's needs and what the school can provide for him, but I truly think this swung the pendulum further in balancing the arguments on 'detriment'.

I am currently appealing a secondary placement refusal for similarish reasons - my DD has ASD, she's in the feeder school for her secondary of choice where all her friends are going and she has a history of school refusal/anxiety at the gates - fortunately, I have emails from her primary documenting this. Do you have anything which might be evidence of the risk? She's also been on an enhanced transition to that same secondary school for a few months - i'm in Scotland so not sure if you're England and have that? If so, was your DS on it? The way i'm approaching it is to point out the risk of refusal given her history, and also the fact that the LA had already put her onto a path of enhanced transition precisely for this reason, presumably accounting for her attendance as part of that, only to refuse it now.

Enhanced transition isn’t something I’m familiar with - is it like gradually familiarising her with the secondary (and also familiarising the secondary school with her needs)? If so then I would say that is a pretty strong appeal argument why she needs this school in particular. The LA has recognised she needs this additional help with transition, she will not have had this help in relation to any other school, therefore she needs this specific school.

Why didn’t she get a place if at the feeder and all her friends did - is it on distance?