If you're a school governor on an admissions committee, considering exceptional circumstances cases ...

[oatsandgrains]

... how would you respond to an application requesting exceptional circumstances on mental health grounds (supported by gp letter) when a child is unhappy at their current school and all their friends are at the application school? Do you get many applications like this?

Are you asking about a private school admissions committee? Or an appeal panel for an academy or other type of state school that acts as its own admissions authority?

Why was the student not admitted under the normal admissions process?

Exceptional circumstances panel (not appeal panel) for a state school.

As someone who’s life was quite literally saved by moving schools in this circumstance, I’d give it serious consideration

I’ve only recently become a governor so not got experience with this. My understanding is that being unhappy at school and not being with friends is quite unlikely to result in a successful appeal - it’s different if there is bullying, evidence of significant mental health issues and so on. I don’t think it’s common for admissions appeals to be successful. Wish you all the best.

Firstly - you need to be 100% sure the school
has this criteria. And remember that it doesn't give you a place - it just puts you somewhere towards the top of the waiting list.

if it does then it should be clear in its admissions policy how this is decided and what documentation is needed. Honestly, it's a very very high bar; it has to prove that this school and only this school can meet the need. In this case I would expect evidence showing how you have engaged with the current school to solve the problem: what year group is your child?

Also, it's not necessarily just the Governors who decide; at my school it's a separate panel of a mix of LMT and one Governor.

I am a governor sitting on our admissions committee and have both agreed and rejected applications. We can be very sympathetic to a situation but still reject. It would depend in part on the wording of our policy, does it say that it has to be the only school that can meet need? And does the GP's letter say that in their opinion this is the case if so?

"Unhappy" wouldn't cut it with us not least because "all his friends go to one school and he's the only one going to another one" is not an exceptional situation. We are concerned about consistency in our decisions and where you would draw the line. So we would need to see an exceptional case in terms of the effect on the child and that other steps had been tried and failed. The assumption would usually be that a child can make friends at school (if there is a bullying problem at one school, that moving to a new school for a fresh start would work, it doesn't have to be this one) and can stay in touch with old friends even if they go to another school. Many children every year for example find that because of where they live they don't get a place at the same school as their nursery/primary school peers, and the parents are worried (perhaps even try to appeal on this basis unsuccessfully) and the child may cry or be unhappy iniitially, and then it is all fine... so your application would really need to explain why that's not the case here and the effect on his mental health is so extreme and this is the solution.