Secondary school appeal hearing after 6th July - any idea on legalities please

[fuzzyfazclan]

Hi all,

I am currently going through the appeal process for secondary school for my daughter. We were advised about a month ago that the school was having problems trying to obtain an appeal panel due to sickness. At that point I was aware that all appeals should be heard by 6th July (or first working day after if falls on weekend)!

Today I have received a letter stating that the appeals are intended to take place between the 9th and 13th July!!!

As far as I understand I have done everything by the book and therefore our appeal should legally have been heard by the 6th, I am searching the net and books and can only see that legally appeals must be actioned by this date, however there is no information as to what could happen if not heard by the deadline!!!

Any comments in relation to this would be greatly welcomed as wondering if there is anyway I can turn this around to help our case when we do eventually appeal!

Many thanks

Unless you can show that you have been disadvantaged by the appeal being late (i.e. the lateness of the appeal means it is less likely to be successful) I'm afraid there is nothing you can do about it.

I tend to agree with PRH, there is little that will affect your appeal that a few days would make a difference on. Raising it would simply deflect from what could be more fertile ground for a successful appeal.

What i would be very suspicious about is why the school could not get a panel together. This suggests that they are a foundation school and are using the same people every year. The first principal of the admission appeal system is that it is independant. How independant is the panel if say they have been doing appeals for this school for the last 4 years?

Asking the panel to confirm whether they have regularly every year carried out this taks may be interesting. But I would do this before the appeal date rather than cause chaos on the day. The other thing to be sure about is how independat are they - it is not unknown for foundation schools to mistakenly put a governor or ex governor on the panel. Again not appropriate.

Many thanks for that - sounds interesting, will take the above comments into consideration when I receive the paperwork!