Appealing for places at full local secondary after county move

[Sunflower1818]

Hi,
I was wondering if anyone had been in this situation and what the outcome was. We are about to move house into a new county and the local secondary school is full. The school is a 5 minute walk from the new house. I have two children 12 and 14. The eldest will start his GCSEs in September so I really don't want to disrupt these 2 years. Has anyone successfully appealed? Its a pretty rural area and getting them to school anywhere else would be a nightmare! I'm so stressed about it all.

If the school is full you will probably have to go on a waiting list. There are special circumstances, but my guess is you won’t meet these. We get a lot of parents appealing, but classrooms have a limit on how many pupils can be taught in them.
if there is not a long waiting list, then stay optimistic, pupils leave for a variety of reasons and places become available.

Do other schools in the area (you may be entitled to transport) have spaces? If not, the Fair Access Protocol might kick in but if there's a school half an hour away with a school bus, probably not.

To be fair tho not that many people will choose to leave at the end of year 9 and definitely not the start of year 10, for obvious reasons. You might get lucky @Sunflower1818 with someone making a late year 9 move.

The LA has to offer your DC a school place and if you have applied for the local school, and the allocated school is more than three miles away, my understanding at least is that the LA has to provide transport (could be simply in the form of a bus pass). How far away is the next nearest school? Are there buses?

You can appeal (and there are lots of very helpful threads on here about the process) but you need to find a reason why the disadvantage to the school of going over numbers would be outweighed by the disadvantage to your DC of not going there. Things like specific MFL offered that they have been studying at KS3 (and not available at the LA-offered school) that they planned to do at GCSE, or other subjects like DT or music GCSE. Or sometimes a strong commitment to a sport offered at the appeal school. That kind of thing.

Unfortunately distance to the appealed for school is not usually considered by the appeal panel (unless there were, for example, mobility issues which mean a 5-min walk was optimal).

Hope you get a place!

Have you been offered a place anywhere?

The kids need a school place - but it doesn't need to ge a 5 min walk away.

See what you get offered, then work out why you need the local school - subjects? Extra curricular?

Not the convenience of being round the corner.

The 2 other nearest secondary schools are 20 minutes away and neither are on a bus route as its rural.

We've not applied for a place yet - I just know they're full and I'm worrying!

20 mins drive (presumably)?

Is there a school bus at all? if not how do children get to school? Some DC must live further than walking distance away from their school if it is very rural. I grew up in a very sparsely populated area and there were designated school buses.

You can’t appeal until you have applied and been denied a place

What grounds would you appeal on ?

Is commuting to their current school an option ?

20 mins in the car or by bus or walking?

They are building new houses near to us and so there are families that have moved mid year. Primary doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue as secondaries but secondaries have more feeder schools as there is less of them.

The 2 Secondaries near us are always
over-subscribed, and I know from speaking to other parents that most of them have waiting lists, with priority being given to military families moving to the area and children with siblings there (that maybe went to another school first and it hasn’t worked out), children in care or who have been in care and those with an EHCP. Sadly moving into the area isn’t one of them unless it’s part of a managed move/ witness protection/ social services involvement situation.

Sadly estate agents want to sell houses and tell buyers what they want to hear “oh there’s availability” etc etc

My sister is clerk to the governors at a junior and a secondary and says juniors are more
inclined to squeeze and extra one in but secondaries are stricter and don’t like to exceed 30 per form.

I think that I would phone up the school tomorrow and speak to them about it and see what they say and establish what the current situation is for each year group you need a space for, ask what their waiting list situation is and whether they expect any movement.

It is worth noting that unless there’s a real need most people let their kids complete an entire academic year and if a space (or 2
in your case) were to become available,
its more likely these would become available for September rather than before.

I hope things work out for you.

What I meant to add is that if there is any more than 6-7 kids on the waiting list you are unlikely to to get a place even in September unless 2 sets of triplets in each of the year groups you need a space in all decide
to move which is preety low probability!

Not quite clear from your post whether the 20 mins is driving, bus or walking:

• 3 miles is normally the maximum walking distance acceptable for secondary aged children.
• Secondary aged children are generally assumed to be able to get themselves to school and so for a school to be counted as near enough either the children have to be able to walk, or use a school bus, or use public transport. (i.e. not be driven)

If the school is a 20 minute DRIVE away, that's likely at least 5 miles, maybe more like 10 if it's on quick roads, so the LA would need to find a place in a nearer school or provide free transport.

• The LA has the power to use the Fair Access Protocol (FAP) to get a school to accept your children as extra pupils (even if the school is full on paper) if: doing so would not bring significant harm to the safety or education of other children and there is not another space available for your child to use.

If the school is a 20 minute WALK away, that's shorter than for many secondary aged kids, and there is no problem, just make your kids walk!

As others have said, you can't appeal until you have applied and been denied a place. When you apply, your children will be offered places somewhere. If those places are more than 3 miles away by the shortest safe walking route, the LA must provide free transport for your children to get to and from school. The fact there is no bus route simply means the LA can't fulfil its obligations by giving your children bus passes. They will have to come up with some other mechanism.

An appeal on the basis that you want the nearest school because of the logistical problems getting them to school elsewhere is unlikely to succeed. If you do appeal, you need to identify ways in which your children will be disadvantaged if they are not admitted to the appeal school. Logistical issues are viewed as a problem for you, not your children, which is why they don't generally win appeals. You would need to find specific things the local school offers that the allocated school does not and that are particularly relevant to your child. The goal is to convince the appeal panel that the disadvantage to your child from not being admitted outweighs any problems the school will face from having to cope with an additional pupil.