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

Thank you Lougle, this is really helpful to know even though it feels like a bigger hill to climb now. Please could I ask would I request the Net Capacity document from the school directly or from the LA beforehand? I have been unable to find online. Would this include the sizes of all classrooms which would be useful as suggested by pp. Would the document also include the overall school capacity number? Thank you

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

Sorry, I can see you've already covered this bit. Thanks

Where do we find this magical document?!?!

You ask the school. They are required to answer any reasonable questions you ask to help you prepare for your appeal.

Thank you

There is nationally published information here https://content.explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/api/releases/960750dd-6ed7-4e32-a9df-3cc9132bb1a4/files?fromPage=ReleaseDownloads

That will tell you how many places the school had capacity for and the number of pupils on roll. It won't give you accurate data for this point in time though.

In addition to reviewing the NCA report, check the capacity in the Funding Agreement. You could also ask if the school has offered over PAN for 26-27 at the request of the local authority, or has done so of its own volition (probably won’t help your case much as if the LA is ambivalent it may mean surpluses in nearby schools while the school you are targeting has gone over PAN).

Have you also checked the admissions policy and PAN for the next AY (27-28) in case the PAN has been permanently increased. You could ask for a copy of their most recent Census return, but they might not be willing to share. You can also look at the number sitting GCSEs in 2025, by looking at the schools performance tables, which could indicate if the school previously had a larger PAN.

Worth looking at anything the LA has published on school place planning, as that could indicate plans for permanent expansions or ways to manage down surplus places.

On what grounds are you appealing?

As a parent I think it’s also useful to know how many children the school has had in the previous say, 5 years, in the year groups at a specific point (October census day or summer etc) . This information is rarely presented by the school and panels don’t think so ask because it’s something that would take some time to gather. Worth asking the schools or doing an FOI to find out. It’s helpful to show what sort of numbers the school has previously managed with.

I have requested the schools net capacity assessment as suggested. This was a week ago (and would have been received the next working day after schools case papers were received) but have not received a response. I will send a further email to follow up. If I don't get a response before the appeal, would you suggest this is something I bring up at the stage 1 hearing? Thank you for any further advice on this.

Yes. Tell the panel that you have been hampered in your preparations for the hearing by the school failing to answer your questions as required by the Appeals Code. That won't win your appeal for you, but it should mean the panel will be more inclined to give you the benefit of any doubt.

Thank you

Sorry, just to confirm, should I raise this at stage 1 group hearing when it is my opportunity to ask questions of the PO or in my individual hearing? Thank you

Raise this in your individual hearing. The stage 1 hearing is about whether the school has complied with the law and followed its published admission arrangements, and how difficult it will be for the school to cope with additional pupils. The fact they haven't answered your questions isn't relevant to that and doesn't affect the other appellants, so your individual stage 2 hearing is the right place to raise it. If it were me, I would raise it right at the start of presenting my case in stage 2.

Thank you, I will do this.

"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."

How does the consultant think this will help? Would you happy for your child to be in a different class each day depending on which one has someone off sick?
An average of nine missing each day is unlikely to mean a space in the same class every day; numbers will fluctuate, and be higher at some times of year than others.

The only circumstance in which I can see this making any difference is if the school is nominally taking a number of traveller children who it is expected will never actually turn up (certainly used to be the case for one school I know).

Based on your “advice” to op, he hasn’t a bloody clue.

We’ve got our appeal hearing tomorrow, the school in question has never been oversubscribed before, it has a PAN of 142 which multiplied by the 5 years is 710 although only 675 on the roll with a net capacity of 858.
The outgoing Year 11 has 146 in the year, so come September they will automatically be down 4 places than they currently are.
are these good points for Stage 1 and if they feel there is no prejudice and so no need for Stage 2 that’s due to take place straight afterwards, would I be informed on the day that a place is allocated?

Unlikely, places in year 11 don't create year 7 places

@Janet25 I think it can help to roughly split the "can this school possibly fit more students?" question that stage 1 of appeals is asking into two conditions that both need to be present for students to be admitted at appeal.
a) The school as a whole has spare capacity. This is often measured based on things like corridor size/traffic, lunch room seating, support staff and of course total classroom space.
b) The existing forms in the year being applied for can fit more students. So for year 7 appeals this looks at year 7 class ratios, how many can actually fit in individual classrooms, lab space for sciences, etc.

If the school's argument against taking more students focuses on condition b then arguments about condition a (the school overall has capacity) don't tend to be of much help. Being able to fit an extra desk or four into the year 11 classrooms doesn't help a year 7 applicant if the year 7 classes are full to bursting. Of course if the school makes arguments about overall capacity being at its maximum then you could and should very reasonably point to the numbers you mentioned, but it's less common for a school to build their case only on overall capacity than it is for them to focus on the specific year or a combination of both.

There are of course cases where a school has enough overall capacity to enable them to add a whole form to one year (creating a bulge year), but the decision to do this typically happens well in advance in consultation with the LA before budgets are set and staffing for the year starts, not at appeals stage. Admissions appeals panels can't change school budgets and aren't ordering the restructuring of the running of the school by adding forms, changing lunch or lesson timetables, changing staffing, etc.

@Janet25 One more thought.
The idea of the school overall being under net capacity and the departing year 11 being 4 over PAN "freeing up four extra spaces" is unlikely to be helpful in terms of arguing that that's four more places for extra year 7s.

But the fact that the outgoing Y11 number 146 some evidence that the school has been able to cope with at least one year being a few students over PAN before and that's something to ask about. Was that year group over PAN from year 7 onwards? How many of the years since have been over PAN at least at some point in their school journey? What's the largest year 7 roll the school has had in the last 5 years? If extra year 7 students have been managed before, why can the school not go up to at least that number this coming year?

Thanks, the school is only fairly small but does have a net capacity of 858 but only 675 on the roll.
A couple of the school years are already over PAN but others are significantly under.
This is the first time they’ve ever been oversubscribed however, but the Headteacher has openly said in his recent newsletter that he expects to go over PAN this year after the appeal process, so openly saying they have capacity.

A couple of the school years are already over PAN but others are significantly under.
This is the first time they’ve ever been oversubscribed however, but the Headteacher has openly said in his recent newsletter that he expects to go over PAN this year after the appeal process, so openly saying they have capacity.

The fact that some years are over PAN and the headteacher has said they expect to do so this year through appeals is encouraging. Those pieces - evidence that the school can indeed handle a year 7 that's above PAN - are likely to be a lot more helpful than the fact that some other years are smaller and the school as a whole isn't close to net capacity. Being under net capacity isn't a negative, but it's usually not the main sticking point that needs to be overcome in appeals.

I know it seems a bit counterintuitive to say "the fact that some years are already overenrolled means there's space to add more students to the school" but it often works that way.

Thank you 🙏
Yes the current year 9 is 150 in that year group, but what I don’t know is if they were from year 7, the head has said it’s not been oversubscribed before in his tenure.
However the information received suggests that year had a PAN of 150 although the information from the school that I asked for said every year is a PAN of 142.
In fact the numbers differ between those from the LA and those directly from the school as to how many children are currently on the roll.

We won!!! At Stage 1 as well so totally wasn’t expecting that, but couldn’t be happier 😀

Well done! I remember the relief we felt when we won ours :-)! Hope you will celebrate tonight!