School appeals - help offered

travellingwithoutmoving

sal-ad_daze wrote: »

Please be careful if you look to 'proffessional' help, just because people have a legal background they're actually of no help in an Admissions appeal!
I have sat on a number of appeals where parents had employed a so called expert solicitor who actually did more harm than good!
There are also people who worked in the education sector who will say they are experts but you need to look into their background, if they come from an area where the system is different they won't be of much help.
For example if I decided to resign from the Appeals Panels and set myself up as an advisor, I would be pretty useless down in Brighton with the 'lottery' system or Kent because I don't know anything about the 'Kent Test' - do you see what I mean?
I can offer you general advice here but if you come from an area who's system I don't know, for example, Lyn's 'fair share' system I can't in all honesty offer any advice as I may be doing more harm than good.
Just please be careful!

Yes - I completely agree about needing to be careful about so-called 'professionals'. We trawled through loads of websites. We do feel very comfortable with this woman though - she has not promised to win us the appeal but just to help us put forward our case as strongly as possible - mainly she's helping with writing the appeal statement. She has specific experience in Hertfordshire so that helps us. She will not be representing us in front of the panel, she didn't think it would help us.
Thanks for your concern - you are absolutely right. I guess time will tell...

ADiva1

yus786 wrote: »

We are preparing our appeal and I've been recommended 2 books by friends.

1. Your School Your Choice by John Chard
2. How To Win Your School Appeal by Ben Rooney

Brilliant read and very informative. I have prepared our case using these books and am very hopeful.

Thanks for letting us know the above books are useful. I'm impatiently awaiting the one by Ben Rooney.

Just what I wanted to hear today...:rolleyes:
One of my friends called me to say that her twins were accepted into the school of their first choice, after being rejected in the intial letter sent out last week.

We applied for the same school but got one that wasnt even on or list:mad:

I'm only down the road, but would have to still fight my corner for my son through the appeal process! Positively though, there are 2 less on the appeals' list now that my friend wont appeal for her twins!

How do you word these appeal things???!

yus786

ADiva1 wrote: »

Thanks for letting us know the above books are useful. I'm impatiently awaiting the one by Ben Rooney.

Just what I wanted to hear today...:rolleyes:
One of my friends called me to say that her twins were accepted into the school of their first choice, after being rejected in the intial letter sent out last week.

We applied for the same school but got one that wasnt even on or list:mad:

I'm only down the road, but would have to still fight my corner for my son through the appeal process! Positively though, there are 2 less on the appeals' list now that my friend wont appeal for her twins!

How do you word these appeal things???!

I've got a really good document from the ACE site that helps you 'word the appeal'. PM me your email address and i'll email it to you later.

The 2 books above also has some templates you could use.

nursemum

Hi,
my Son missed out on a place at his nearest school by a distance of 3.44meters, but there is a safer route which is paved and lit that is 700 meters shorter, and crosses 4 less roads. I have submitted the route to the admissions and transport team. What are my chances of the safer shorter route being agreed with and if they do agree do they have to offer my son a place? I have been told they will send someone out to look at my route as they have not been challenged about this route before because last year there was an intake to another school nearby but no intake this year as it is closing.
Here's hoping, nursemum.

chiying

Hello,

Found out recently my son has not been accepted to continue onto reception in his current school. Have just sent off the form, its a class size appeal so harder to win.
Would love some help here as I'm sure some parents that have been accepted live about the same distance if not further then where we live (measured in straight line).
Does anyone know if the panel would investigate this for us or is it up to us to find out where each parent lives so I can measure the distance of each address? If so how would I go about finding this information out? It would be a bit strange asking each parent for their address as understandingly they may want to keep this private and half of them are in the pm class (my sons in the am class). HELP!!

Electric_Blue

Hi guys - great thread. I am having to go to an appeal meeting next Monday to try and get my daughter into a very good Middle school. We were given none of our 3 choices, but knew we would end up with the school closest to us. Its an okay school stats wise, but not behaviour wise, and is typical of many schools in that concentrates on getting all the kids up to a certain level and ignores the higher achievers - which my daughter is. Were very concerned she will get distracted and learning levels drop. Im sure the school we are appealing to will have to go over its PAN , as it did last year by 6 kids, and there seems to be plenty of loopholes in their excuses not too. The downside is there are 15 other families appealing. Im just looking for some advice on how strong I should push the following points :1 - My daughter has already had to move schools once as the Council closed her first Primary School. It was a blessing in disguise as we moved her to a better school, rather than the merged one. However, I want to use this as a point that she shouldnt go back to a school where some of the children from her original school will be as they have behaviour issues, as does a child from her current school. Im also looking for a sympathy vote that the Council has already made her move once to a school not of our choice. 2 - She is a very talented child, (which we can prove ) but I get the feeling that this actually wont make any difference. Is it a winnable reason - as I feel a lot of my case I have written so far is based on this. I have highlighted the bad points of the chosen school from their Offsted, and picked a few pluses up from the school we want. 3 - Three pupils who were in catchment (we arent) failed first time due to their stupidity - they failed to get their form in on time. Are they nailed on to get in this time ?I have read the Rooney book, but felt it dissapointing there werent better / more examples of actual statements people used in their appeal. The 4 page one at the end looks ok, though his comments arent that positive about it. Has anybody seen a site that does show some example appeal letters / speeches?Cheers in advance for any help.

Hugh_Shortfall

Hello,
Couple of specific questions if anyone can help.

My son wasn't allocated any of our three preferred local schools due to oversubscription/ distance from schools, the nearest of which was 1.9 miles (only eight minutes on a bus !). We didn't put down our nearest school ,0.9 miles away (same journey time) due to the fact it has a poor results,poor OFSTED and poor 'value added' and poor reputation for discipline.

We are now about to appeal for all three of the schools we didn't get and ironically the one we didn't want and didn't include as one of our three.

Q1.
The allocated school is 4.5 miles away, is a two bus journey and would involve my son crossing four major trunk roads, only two of which have a conveneint crossing) on his own (no other child from our area has been allocated this school) and often in the dark in winter. The question is will the panel see this issue as admissable compared to our preffered school which is 8 minutes by bus , crossing one major road (crossing provided) and accompanied by other children. The reason I ask is that local "admissions" advise that transport as an appeal criteria will not carry any weight and is inadmissible.

Q.2
Local admissions also state that my son's aptitude for Maths (consistantly top of his class) will not be relevant either, and that aptitude should not be a reason to appeal for a school. (our preffered school is a "Specialist Maths and Computing College"). True or not ?

Any advice gratefully recieved.

Thanks

bunty109

I'm not sure if it will help Hugh, but rather than go down the route of your son having an ability in Maths and the school being a specialist Maths college, you could look at proving how detrimental to your son it would be for him not to attend this school, as I believe this is an argument you can use (see the Ben Rooney book).

I believe that if you can prove that it would be detrimental to him educationally/socially etc not to attend this school and this outweighs the detriment to the school in having him there as an extra pupil in that year group, then you may have a case to argue.

I don't think you'll get anywhere on the transport argument as in theory there was a school close to your home you could have chosen to send him to and it was your choice not to (understandably, but that's not how admissions seem to work!).

Hugh_Shortfall

bunty109 wrote: »

I don't think you'll get anywhere on the transport argument as in theory there was a school close to your home you could have chosen to send him to and it was your choice not to

Thanks for the response. Thinking about it we did choose three schools all within two miles, much closer than the one we were allocated so in principle we've not contradicted ourselves by claiming the allocated school is just too far away . I'm not in disagreemant that the system of allocation doesn't work because it plainly does if over 80% get their first choice but some families geographically just fall through the gaps in it as we have done and ended up with non of our choices. From the year group my son is in all but a few (who's parents prayed their way into church schools ) were allocated the same 'nearest' school with a very poor OFSTED. Makes a mockery of the whole system, parading round local schools to see which you prefer when all along none of the kids ever had a choice.

bunty109

Hugh_Shortfall wrote: »

Thanks for the response. Thinking about it we did choose three schools all within two miles, much closer than the one we were allocated so in principle we've not contradicted ourselves by claiming the allocated school is just too far away . I'm not in disagreemant that the system of allocation doesn't work because it plainly does if over 80% get their first choice but some families geographically just fall through the gaps in it as we have done and ended up with non of our choices. From the year group my son is in all but a few (who's parents prayed their way into church schools ) were allocated the same 'nearest' school with a very poor OFSTED. Makes a mockery of the whole system, parading round local schools to see which you prefer when all along none of the kids ever had a choice.

Totally agree Hugh. I went through this last year and it was the most stressful thing I have ever done. I do hope you succeed.