Appeal stage 1 hearing

[ForLemonNewt]

I'm currently in the very stressful process of appealing a secondary school place for my child and have now received my hearing date and schools case. I have found the information here incredibly helpful and understand there are a number of very knowledgeable posters.
I would be grateful of any guidance in relation to the stage 1 part of my appeal which is being held as a group hearing and especially suitable questions I could ask regarding the schools case to try and support that they could admit additional children as the schools case seems very strong. Thank you.

The school has a PAN of 145 but states it is exceeding the admission number this year due to demand, offering 180 places for Year 7. This equates to 30 per class. The school states they do not have the staffing, teaching space or resources to further increase place.

Class sizes of more than 30 are a challenge for us in terms of timetabling due to the number of very small classrooms we have in some parts of the school.

It will not be possible for us to teach groups of over 30. In the smaller classrooms currently there is no room for additional furniture. There are a number of general teaching rooms and science labs with floor space of less than 49m, the smallest being 39.79m.

The school is not equipped to cope with any more than 180 children in Year 7, and to admit any more would be detrimental to the other pupils and the staff.

I would be very grateful of any suggestions of appropriate questions I could ask in relation to the schools case at stage 1. Thank you

I can’t be of any help specifically but in the same situation with appeal so hanging around to see any advice. Good luck, it’s shit isn’t it?!?! Xx

What's the basis for your appeal? You'll need to be able to argue that the detriment to your child is greater than the detriment to the school/the other children of admitting an extra child.

That sounds strong. At stage 1 I think you would need to ask questions around capacity e.g. what are the numbers in other year groups? Do they ever teach classes of over 30 e.g. if they do sets, sometimes top sets will be slightly bigger to allow smaller bottom sets. Whilst some of their rooms are small, are others slightly larger so could accommodate an extra pupil? Basically if you can establish they sometimes manage a class of 31/32 for whatever reason, it weakens the case a bit.

Sorry to hear you are in the same boat, yes, it's such a challenging and uncertain time. Good luck to you too with the whole process, do you have a date for your appeal yet? x

Yes, appeal date through, end of May. Another round of waitlist allocations before then. I have submitted appeal and all the evidence, gone over it countless times. It’s the waiting I can’t stand. I like to feel I am doing something, but there is nothing I can do x

Thanks. I feel my individual case is as strong as it can be in terms of the prejudice to my child. Reading the information on this forum has been super helpful in preparing that bit which I do feel happy with.
Now I've got the schools case through, which seems strong, I wanted to think of possible questions which could show some capacity to take additional children.

Im not an expert..

• ask for sizes of all classrooms (now, not at appeal)
• what is the overall capacity of the school

Thank you, that's really helpful. I have the numbers for other year groups which are only over PAN by 3-4. Those are all less than 150 whch would suggest class sizes of 30 or less but i will certainly ask. I was thinking about asking regarding the decision to offer 35 places above PAN this year which seems a high number to increase by if facilities and resources are so stretched. Would this be worth exploring? Thanks so much for your advice

The extra 35 children is tricky, and not necessarily ideal for you. The school is presumably arguing they are pushed right to capacity now, whereas before if the PAN was 145, they were aiming for 5 classes of 29, but could cope with 30 per class, so could manage up to 5 from appeal. You could try to argue they voluntarily took more pupils, but I think their response would be 'yes now we are completely at capacity'.

From what you have posted, the school are making the point they can't go above 30 in a class. They don't seem to be making wider overcrowding points, although maybe they have too. The extra class would add to general overcrowding, but it's the extra 5 taking it to 30 per class that might be the bigger issue.

As a PP said, you might want to ask beforehand to get information. Do they always cap their classes at 30 everywhere in the school? If they sometimes have more than 30, did it cause any incidents? If their smallest room is 39m2 and they manage 30 in there, but other rooms are bigger is 31 really so unreasonable?

When should schools submit their case? I haven’t had that for my appeal yet. I have a date my evidence has to be in by - will the school have the same date for them to submit too?

I agree, the waiting is the worst! Glad you have your appeal date through and hope you get through on waiting list before then if further allocations. Feeling very nervous about appeal now I have date but feel I am doing the best I can for my child. I'm looking forward to some closure one way or another and being able to move on as the uncertainty is the worst bit x

The information I read for my authority says you should receive schools case 7 days before. For mine it was received sooner than that. I received it with the information on the appeal dates x

Thank you 😊 very helpful

Thank you so much, this is really helpful. Yes, the schools case is focused on classroom space specifically and class sizes of 30. There is no mention of crowding in corridors, canteens etc. The suggestion regarding exploring the smaller room accommodating 30 and if so the suggestion that larger rooms could potentially therefore accommodate 31 is something I hadn't thought of. I will contact the school beforehand as suggested by you and pp.Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice

DFE guidelines are roughly 2 square metres per child, though varies with age of children and if it is a speciality room.

Once the school has knowledge of the children's abilities, it is likely that higher ability children will be taught in larger groups and lower ability in smaller ones, so they will more than likely have classes over 30 even at PAN.

If the school has a large number of students with EHCP or SEND, there may be a need for extra adults in those classrooms to support their needs, particularly if they are supporting wheelchair users or those with hearing or visual impairment. It is more complex than a simple 30 per class arrangement.

Hey, I am in exactly the same boat, we are appealing to 3 schools! So I have 3 x stage 1's coming up!

To be honest, from what i know, I wouldn't fixate too much on the stage 1 - as all the parents appealing will be asking question collectively?
For our appeals; school 1 = 101 appeals being heard, school 2 = 46, school 3 = 31.

So lots of questions will be asked.

Our consultant raised a good point about finding gout average absence rate - its usually around 5%. So if Y7 has capacity for 180 kids, 9 will be off each day.

I guess my point is rather than focus on arguing school's case, I would focus on how your appeal meets criteria of the appeals code AND why the allocated school materially disadvantages your child.

Any points about PAN aren't unique to your child.

@OutofIdeas86 honestly, that comment from your consultant makes me question how useful they are.

I am an Appeals panel chair and quite frankly the absence rate is completely irrelevant. We would pay no attention to that whatsoever. The fact is the School has to manage to run, and assume it will be running, with a full set of attendees every day. The idea that because of absentees it's fine to go over is not one that would be taken into consideration at all.

If the school has previously had classes that are one or two over and there is no evidence of that having a significant impact on the quality of education for those year groups, that is a relevant point to make.

You are correct in that this is a general point about managing over PAN, and says nothing about the specific child. In the cases where there are many Appeals for one School, making the that the School can cope with one or two extra is almost minor to the specific case you need to make for your individual child to be one of those, against all the others appealing as well.

How do you know how many appeals are happening for each school? That’s really interesting x

Arguing against the allocated school is not relevant unless you are making a specific direct comparison ie Johnny is a competitive club swimmer and school x has a training squad, olympic sized pool with after school sessions and hosts galas whereas y does not offer curriculum lessons. Also the absence rate argument is not likely to fly as it is too variable. Hope your consultant is on a no win-no fee basis as not sure their advice is helping your case much.

I'm also in agreement with regards absence numbers not being any sort of argument to be of interest to the panel.
Remember you are appealing FOR the school you want and not against the one you have been allocated, if a parent starts that sort of track, I will stop them.
And as this thread is about stage 1, all questions must be general, about the admission process and the school. If your questions is about something which only affects your child and not other appellants, leave that until stage 2 please.

Bloody hell @OutofIdeas86 your consultant saw you coming didn’t they?!

The (independant) clerk should reach out to you to give you times of the stage 1, and then we were ask if we had a preference on timing across the days the stage 2 were being held on, for example - Monday from 1pm, all day tuesday, all day wednesday etc.

I asked the clerk directly and he told me total number of appeals being heard.

Strangely the same clerk is chairing all 3 of our appeals! Presuming the panel with be different for each one

We are really pleased, he's been a huge help. He has chaired over 1000 appeals. he knows his stuff.

Oh strange! I was just given a date and time and time this could not be changed, if I couldn’t attend it would go ahead without me with the evidence I submitted

A clerk is not the chair.