Appeals meetings .

[ruth6692]

Hi im looking for advice - im currently living in Eire but am moving back to uk Bolton in June . I have applied to a local school for my 2 sons which is 2 mins walk from the house we are moving into but as expected have been told the school is full and have been given an appeals form. I was just wondering what the procedure is when i send in the letter and what happens at an appeals meetings. Coming from Eire i have no idea how these things work and so any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

If your sons have not been given a place at this school, then that means the places have already been filled by children who, according to the admissions office, have a better claim to a place according to the criteria of that particular Education Authority. Either that, or admissions have made a mistake.

They cannot now kick out any of the children that have been given places. So in order to get your son a place you have to either prove that they made a mistake according to their own criteria, or that there are special reasons why the detriment to your son from not going to this school is so much greater than it would be for any other children who are also not getting places at this school that this outweighs the detriment to the rest of the children in this school from over-filling the school.

The 2 minutes walk might be neither here nor there, as distance is not necessarily a criterion for deciding who gets in: our LEA has catchment areas instead and the way that the boundaries have been drawn means that some children who are next door to the school are out of catchment, whilst others who live a fair way away are within catchment.

So your first port of call is to get hold of the admissions criteria for this particular LEA. Distance is unlikely to be a top criterion the way it goes in our LEA is:

1. children in care
2. children with special social or medical needs
3. children within the catchment area (ie.e. living there at the time of application) with siblings already at the school
4. children within catchment according to distance
5. children outside of catchment with siblings at school

etc

So the distance rule only starts applying when all the children in groups 1-3 have been given a place.

Some LEAs also have coming from a feeder school as a criterion.

If you cannot show that the LEA has made a mistake, you may still be able to get in if you can show that there are special social or medical reasons why your sons need to get in. E.g. if there are medical reasons why they cannot travel across town on public transport or walk a mile or two (though the LEA would probably prefer providing transport to overfilling a school). It is perfectly normal for teenagers to make their own travel arrangements, so unless they had very specialised needs, noone would see a 2 minute walk as a reason why they had to have a place; it's a luxury most teens don't get tbh.

If you are going to adduce special reasons (whether social, medical or emotional) you need to provide some kind of expert evidence that your sons do have needs which are different from those of their peers.

We did get dd into our preferred secondary because we were able to show that she needed wheelchair access, closeness to the doctor's surgery and the emotional support of her friends (letter from mental health services to substantiate her emotional needs).

The appeals meeting was in several parts: first the school had to demonstrate to the appeals committee that they really were full according to set criteria, then the LEA had to show that no mistake had been made, and then we had to argue that dd's needs were still so important that the LEA should make an exception in her case. It took days to prepare, was extremely stressful (35 families appealed for this particular school, don't know if anyone else got in, most didn't), but in our case was well worth it.

I would only put myself through this if I felt it was crucial for my dcs' wellbeing and education. But then I would really, really go for it.

The LA has to arrange the appeal within 30 school days of receiving your form. You may want to hold back doing so until you can give the LA the proof the require of your new address.

You will receive confirmation of the date at least 10 school days before the appeal. At least 7 working days before the hearing you will receive a documentation pack containing the LA's case for refusing admission. In my experience Lancashire usually send the confirmation of date and the information pack together.

You should receive notification of the names of the panel members and clerk at least 3 working days before the hearing, although Lancashire routinely ignores this requirement in my experience. They should also tell you if any witnesses have been invited to give evidence. Again, in my experience Lancashire don't do this.

The clerk will have a word with you before the hearing and explain how the process works. When you go into the hearing the chair of the panel will introduce the members of the panel, the clerk and the LA's representative. The chair will also explain the process.

The hearing itself is in two parts. First the LA's representative puts their case for refusing admission. They will talk about the school being full up and the problems they claim will be caused if your child is admitted. When they have finished the panel should ask some questions and you can ask any questions you want. If a mistake has been made (unlikely in this case) you want to at least start to draw that out at this stage. If there is any way you can undermine the LA's case you should bring that up at this stage, e.g. if the school isn't full even though the year group is.

Following this you will present your arguments for admitting your child. This should concentrate on why your child needs to go to this school rather than any other. Don't bring up Ofsted reports, school league tables or anything of that nature - panels can't use this as a basis for admitting your child. Concentrate on facilities the school has which meet your child's needs, e.g. after school clubs. When you have finished presenting your case the panel and the LA's representative will ask you some questions.

After this the LA's representative will make a brief statement summarising the LA's case. You will then be asked to make a brief statement summarising your case.

If they are hearing several appeals for the same school on the same day they may deal with it as a grouped appeal. In that case all the parents will be present for the first part of the appeal. If that happens you must bring up anything which undermines the LA's case in the first part of the appeal. You won't be allowed to bring it up in the second part. However, in your case I suspect it won't be a grouped appeal in which case the panel will be more flexible.

You will not be given an immediate decision at the appeal hearing. You should hear the panel's decision within a few days of the hearing.

As well as pursuing the appeal you should be checking out the position with other schools in the area to see if any of them have places. If you can't find any schools with places you should contact the LA. They are required to have a Fair Access Protocol which, amongst other things, ensures that the LA will find places for children moving into the area even when no places are available. This doesn't mean the places will be at your preferred school but at least you will have places somewhere.

Oops - Bolton isn't in Lancashire! I should have checked - sorry. Ignore the references to Lancashire in my last post. Everything else is correct.

Thanx prh47bridge thanks for your help its given me some idea of what happens - and as far as im concerned we still in lancs !!!!!!!:0

Ruth,
If the school is popular then there will probably be appeals for entry into reception year and the LA (Bolton) will normally try and get the panel who are hearing these appeals to hear your appeals as well. Whether that will be with the reception appeals or folowing them depends on the LA.

A great deal depends on which year groups we are talking about here. It could well be that you have a child in reception or year 1 or 2 when the child is an infant and the school may have meet the infant class size regulations. That is essentially that there cannot be more than 30 pupils in a class with one school teacher. If this is the case then I am afraid your chance of winning at appeal are very very slim. If however the children ar at junir level (years 3 to 6)then your chances of success are improved.

I think I will have a lie down! The fact that you posted on the secondary part of the site might have given me clue that it could be appeals for a secondary school! It could be that your appeals will be with those for year 7 in the school.