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

Your consultant sounds dreadful. A panel can't take into consideration that 'some kids might not turn up so it will be ok...'

Contrary to your advice, Stage 1 is vital. It is vital because stage 1 is the part of the process where the panel decides whether there was a mistake that cost an appellant a place, or if the admission of additional children would not prejudice the provision of efficient education or or efficient resources.

In other words, if you can make a really good case in part 1, then part 2 becomes who gets admitted. If you don't make a good case in part 1, there may be no part 2.

The caveat to that is that you must remember that part 1 is a group effort - you might have the killer argument that makes it clear that the school can take 2 more children, but it won't follow that it is your child that gets in, even if you made the superb argument that allowed 2 children in.

It's also worth noting that panels cannot tell schools how to operate. So, for example, if a parent says 'If year 7 were given classroom A and year 8 were given classroom B, and you used the school hall as an overflow for year 9, it would be fine.', the panel can't say 'Great idea, do that and take 5 more children.' Similarly, if the school argues that the hall gets overcrowded at lunch time, and someone says 'It would be fine if years 7-9 had lunch time at 12.30 and years 10 & 11 had lunch at 1pm instead of everyone having lunch at the same time.', that can't be supported by the panel.

If only one could use multiple reactions on MN!

This is super helpful, thank you.

What if you have a killer argument (of how the school can accommodate more) but want to save if for your appeal? I have some good arguments (non specific to my child) but was going to keep it for my appeal, is this wrong? X

The clerk is not chairing anything. They are the independent advisor to the panel, and provide all administrative support. Their role is vital because they are responsible for recording the decision making process of the panel. In the event of referral to the LGO, or the DfE in the case of academy appeals, it is the notes of the clerk and the appeal decision letter that the clerk wrote, that will initially be scrutinised for evidence that a fair process was followed in accordance with the Appeals Code.

@OutofIdeas86it’s not strange at all that the clerk is sitting on more than one of your appeals. Also, don’t assume the panel will be different. In our county many panel members sit on different school panels. I’m doing 5 different schools this year. It would not be unusual for me to see the same family 3 times.

You can't. Anything you raised in part 2 that could materially be applied to other appellants about the case of the school that they are full, or a mistake that may have been made must be raised in part 1.

If you raise it in part 2, and the panel feels that it is relevant to other appellants, they will have to adjourn so that they can inform all the other appellants.

Remember, if a mistake was made and it affects, say, 25 children, the panel still can't compel the school to accommodate all of the affected children. It will still need to decide how many children the school could reasonably take, then compare the strength of the individual cases to decide who should get the limited spaces.

If a mistake was made that might change the order of admission, etc., then the panel may decide that the LA needs to rerun the entire allocation process again to see if your child would have got a space if things had been done correctly. It isn't the existence of a mistake that is important. It's whether the mistake cost the child a place that they would otherwise have been allocated.

He knows his stuff - and yet is 'helping' you by suggesting that a way to go is pointing out that if attendance is x%, that means that on average, y pupils will be out of class on any given day, so that means it's perfectly fine to add an extra one (his client's DC, of course).

Yes, well, um...

If nothing else, pupil absence actually creates work for the school - the safeguarding aspect of making sure that pupils who haven't turned up and whose parent hasn't informed the school first thing re the reason for the absence is actually just safely tucked up on the sofa with a box of tissues / investigating frequent or long term absences and working with parents to ensure that the pupil's education isn't disrupted any more than necessary/ involving outside agencies if needs be etc. Not to mention the teaching staff having to cope with pupils with gaps in their learning.

Schools are under pressure to keep pupil absence to an absolute minimum; they can't just heave a sigh of relief that today there are only 9 out of 10 of the little blighters on the premises making the place look untidy.

But yes, of course it means that the school has a weak case for not going over PAN - on the days when everyone inconveniently turns up, the pupils can just hot desk, obviously.

Bit of an eye-opener, this; when a parent asks the presenting officer the 'absence' question, I've always assumed that they've thought of it off their own bat (it doesn't sound an unreasonable question, after all - until you've heard the full response a few times, which panel members will have done). It has never occurred to me that the suggestion that they ask has come from someone who has taken their money for the privilege...

The schools case should have given you a reason for why they’re gone significantly over PAN this year- this will likely have a bearing on prejudice; from the perspective of the fact that if this is the new PAN going forward; they are going to have cope with overall school overcrowding for the next 5 years as the year group moves through the school, along with the additional students at every y7 intake- suggesting the school does have overall capacity to cope with additional numbers. If however this is a specific bulge year group, it is less likely that they will have the resources/space/capacity. If the case doesn’t state it already this will be the first thing I’d be asking about.

Appeal panels are gently very good at asking the schools for the information they need; so at this point I wouldn’t worry too much about asking questions unless you have good insider info or you have some doubt about the case the school are presenting.

A PAN of 145 actually suggests they have classes of 29 and have already stretched to get to 30.

When something similar happened in my DC's school it was managed by the teachers crossing their fingers that someone would be off in every lesson. If they weren't the final child had to sit at the teacher's desk. It also meant they couldn't be consistent in terms of where children sat.

By all means ask, but don't assume they can easily squeeze in another child (particularly as they've already made the point that they can't).

Thank you, that's really helpful. The schools case just states
'The Governing Body has agreed to exceed the admission number this year due to demand, offering 180 places for Year 7 entry'.
The PAN remains at 145. I felt it was a significant increase above PAN in the context of the concerns the school raises in relation to teaching spaces if they have voluntarily done this.
Thanks for the reassurance that the panel are likely to question these points.

In my experience, either the chair or clerk will stop you if you try to do that.

arguments about the general ability of the School being able to take more pupils must be made in stage one. If you try to re-address them in your specific appeal, you will be told that the opportunity to do that has passed.

And as already stated by Lougle, the panel cannot direct the school to rearrange itself in any specific way. So if your killer argument is concerning how the school should rearrange rooms, or timetables, or staff, it can't be taken into consideration.

Makes perfect sense. It isn’t an error or anything. More some good counter arguments I have found if they say the school facilities will be over loaded/classroom space etc. I was going to keep those in my arsenal for my appeal when they say “the school say they are full why should they accept your child etc”.
Is this not the right decision? X

That’s so helpful thank you.

Perhaps I over sold my ‘killer argument’! It’s more some research that shows there are spaces available in other year groups, so toilets, lunch hall, corridors won’t be crowded. Also that core subjects are taught in ability sets and when we toured were told these class sizes vary hugely (so not full). Also, we were told that last year they took an additional 30 pupils and were expecting to do that again this year, they haven’t done that. So they have shown they took 30 extra previously, but not this year as planned. I was going to say these in my individual appeal, is this not the right decision? X

@OutofIdeas86 Your repeated postings (under different names but always identifiable) really do worry me that you're not a genuine poster but somehow trying to give parents poor advice. I cannot understand your interaction in any other way.

No- all of these points, as they are applicable to the school as a whole, should be raised at stage one.

The point of streaming classes will be pushed back on by the school, because the whole point of those is that some of them will be small, but also some of them may be very big. The fact they stream or set doesn't mean anything in terms of space.

The fact they took 30 extra last year, also it doesn't really help - in fact it lends weight to do the School argument that it is already overcrowded. It shows that they can cope somehow if they have to take an entire class, which is obviously what they did, but it doesn't show that an individual class can cope with more than 30.
.

Anything that centres on 'The school isn't as full as they say it is' or 'Even if the school is a bit full, they can squeeze some more in' will be a stage 1 argument. It's the part that determines prejudice. If there is no prejudice and the number of appellants is fewer than the number that would create prejudice, then the appellants win. No stage 2. If there is no prejudice and the number of appellants is greater than the number that would create prejudice --> stage 2.

Stage 2 is for anything that centres on 'Yeah, ok, so they're quite full, but even if they are, they should squeeze my child in because it's so very important that they attend this school.'

I think you're going to have a bit of a battle if they've got an extra 30 children in last year's group.

Have you seen the Net Capacity document? It will tell you the number on roll which will give an idea of how full they are. Regardless, though, that won't help if they are saying that some of their classrooms are too small to accommodate extra pupils.

The clerk does not chair the appeals. Their role in the hearing is to keep a record of proceedings and provide advice on procedure and admissions law. The hearing will be chaired by one of the panel.

And I'm afraid I agree with others about your consultant. Every time you've mentioned advice he has given you, it has been wrong. For someone who you say claims to have chaired over 1,000 appeal panels, he knows surprisingly little about how appeals actually work. An argument around absence levels will fail. The appeal panel will not be interested.

X1000, don’t you know? Could be the same cowboy on all of them!

If it’s the top hit on google, he has not chaired 1000 appeals. He was a clerk and apparently legal advisor to schools.

(Testimonials are very patchy too.)

To be fair, on several panels I've been on, one of the panel members will get in first with this as a 'Devil's Advocate' thing, so we don't actually know whether a parent would have asked (thus possibly depriving one of the gotcha! moment they were assured would make someone's fees all worth it, it would seem. Truly, every day is a schoolday, as rhe saying goes).

I think we're missing a trick here. "You've got no chance of winning but you could ask this question and I will sit in the room while you do. That will be £1200 please!!

I see what you are saying, I didn’t think of it that way. That’s a bit rubbish 😔 but glad it was pointed out now. They had expansion works a few years ago which enabled them to take additional pupils at every intake (the 30 last year was in addition to that, apparently something the LA insisted they did). These additional yearly intake hasn’t filtered through every year yet as only started a couple of years ago. I know from the LA stats there are spaces in other year groups so the school as a whole is not full. But totally see your point that taking another class of 30 is actually different to one more child. Glad this has been explained now, before my appeal, but can’t lie, has knocked me back a bit as felt it was a good counter argument. This whole process is so hard 😢 x

I'm sorry, it is hard. The other thing you have to take into account is that we imagine nice rectangular classrooms that have lots of space but the reality is that some classrooms are triangular, or L-shaped. They may have counters along one side which reduces the useful space, then doors and radiators, etc. Then there may be a whiteboard or Promethean Screen at one end which means that anyone sitting in the bottom end of the 'L' can't see the board.... This all reduces the useful capacity of a classroom.

The Net Capacity document takes all of this into account to give the capacity for each classroom and the school as a whole.