Experience in getting child into SS out of county?

[regsgirl]

In a not shell, I have found an amazing SS which would be great for dd.
She is currently in MS but I dont think it'll be too difficult to get her out of there and change statement to SS, however, the snag is its out of county.

So I am told that I will get allocated to our nearer in county SS (over my dead body will she ever go there, I was shocked when I vistited it), to which I then have to appeal.
So not impossible but I need to build a good case and get the right help to do it.

Has anyone else been in this situation? What were the main winning points of getting out of county choice in your situation?

dd3 goes out of area, for us it meant proving that none of the in area schools could meet her needs, rather than the school we wanted was better. They don't have to provide the best school, just an adequate one so you'd be best off finding reasons why the in area school would be unsuitable and can't meet the needs set out in the statement.

Ds goes to out of county independent specialist school our main argument would be there is no equivalent provision in county so "easier" in that respect as didn't have to prove that an in county provision would meet need.

dd1 goes to out of county (private) SS. it is her second placement at an out of county school (first one was fine, but then shut), in two different counties.

we had a two-pronged approach. first of all, dd1 was out of school - we kept her back at preschool (SN preschool, who were happy to keep her and were approved to Yr1; LA agreed to her staying here too). this took her 'out of year' and meant she missed the allocation rounds for the local SS.

we also gathered evidence as to why the local SS was unsuitable.

then, when we told LA we no longer thought the pre-school placement was appropriate, they had no place for her. so out of county/independent funding got agreed quite quickly in principle - leaving us to just argue over which out of county placement we wanted dd1 to go to.

it was a long fight, and the LA conceded just before Tribunal. but it was worth it - dd1 has thrived ever since.