School appeals - help offered

russco_pico

hi, recently found out my son has not been successful in getting into our preferred choice, hence we want to appeal and these are our points of why we are appealing!

1) my son is cared for by my parents who live 5min walk to the school and in the catchment area for the school in question, my parents have no access to transport and walk him to and from pre- school which is part of the school and would have to walk 4 miles to the school they have allocated us which yes is closer to my house but not my sons carers.Myself and wife work full time so my son regularly stays the night and i would say lives there for 70% of the week.

2)My house is currently on the market to sell and then we will be moving into the catchment area as this would make it easier for dropping my son off before we go to work which is often before 07.00am.

pls can anyone tell me if i have any chance!!!

Curlywurli

russco_pico wrote: »

hi, recently found out my son has not been successful in getting into our preferred choice, hence we want to appeal and these are our points of why we are appealing!

1) my son is cared for by my parents who live 5min walk to the school and in the catchment area for the school in question, my parents have no access to transport and walk him to and from pre- school which is part of the school and would have to walk 4 miles to the school they have allocated us which yes is closer to my house but not my sons carers.Myself and wife work full time so my son regularly stays the night and i would say lives there for 70% of the week.

2)My house is currently on the market to sell and then we will be moving into the catchment area as this would make it easier for dropping my son off before we go to work which is often before 07.00am.

pls can anyone tell me if i have any chance!!!

If you look at previous posts, most people from experience say that childcare bears no relation to getting children into schools. With regards to your 2nd point- I can't see that it would have any influence on an appeal- you haven't yet sold your house, you haven't yet bought one in the catchment area. It could take ages to sell and buy a house in the area you want. Are there not any specific educational reasons why you want your boy to attend the school?

kaya

i have a question, did your borough (like watford ) make the mother of all male chickens when you worked out the distance from the applicants door to the school gates?, did you get some lazy pilchard sitting behind a desk to use a programme like autoroute to calculate the distances? did they take into account that the software they were using to calculate the distances uses a main road route and makes no allowances for one way streets, alleyways which parents are likely to walk down etc.etc.? My brother recently challenged his local education authority over the methods that they use to calculate distances for school admissions, the route he would use to walk his daughter to school was actually 1.8miles shorter than the distance that the software they used calculated it to be, he won his appeal and got his daughter into the school they SHOULD have given her in the first place.
So if you're a parent reading this you would do well to check the distances quoted by the education authority, you may just find it is way off and get your appeal granted and your child into the school they should be going to.

bonty44

dawnteabag wrote: »

I think this is generally how it works (although there will of couse be exceptions_
What this means in practice is that you can sit patiently on the waiting list for years but if someone with a higher priority joins the list they will jump over you and go to the head of the queue.

yes, that happened to us, DS2 was in initially in 4th position on list as per the school criteria, moved to first position then got bumped down to third position when two newbies with higher criteria moved into the area

squashy

kaya wrote: »

i have a question, did your borough (like watford ) make the mother of all male chickens when you worked out the distance from the applicants door to the school gates?, did you get some lazy pilchard sitting behind a desk to use a programme like autoroute to calculate the distances? did they take into account that the software they were using to calculate the distances uses a main road route and makes no allowances for one way streets, alleyways which parents are likely to walk down etc.etc.? My brother recently challenged his local education authority over the methods that they use to calculate distances for school admissions, the route he would use to walk his daughter to school was actually 1.8miles shorter than the distance that the software they used calculated it to be, he won his appeal and got his daughter into the school they SHOULD have given her in the first place.
So if you're a parent reading this you would do well to check the distances quoted by the education authority, you may just find it is way off and get your appeal granted and your child into the school they should be going to.

Good point. At our school (VA) we do use software but manually map out the route using our local knowledge of footpaths etc, for example there is a foopath at the back of the school which by road is nearly a mile away from the front gate!

squashy

Hi everyone :j

I administrate nursery and reception admissions in a Catholic school in Manchester, and I'm happy to share any pointers if people have specific queries.

Savvy_Sue

russco_pico wrote: »

hi, recently found out my son has not been successful in getting into our preferred choice, hence we want to appeal and these are our points of why we are appealing!

1) my son is cared for by my parents who live 5min walk to the school and in the catchment area for the school in question, my parents have no access to transport and walk him to and from pre- school which is part of the school and would have to walk 4 miles to the school they have allocated us which yes is closer to my house but not my sons carers.Myself and wife work full time so my son regularly stays the night and i would say lives there for 70% of the week.

2)My house is currently on the market to sell and then we will be moving into the catchment area as this would make it easier for dropping my son off before we go to work which is often before 07.00am.

pls can anyone tell me if i have any chance!!!

Curlywurli wrote: »

If you look at previous posts, most people from experience say that childcare bears no relation to getting children into schools. With regards to your 2nd point- I can't see that it would have any influence on an appeal- you haven't yet sold your house, you haven't yet bought one in the catchment area. It could take ages to sell and buy a house in the area you want. Are there not any specific educational reasons why you want your boy to attend the school?

I agree with you, I think if the child lives 70% of his time with his grandparents, and it was so important to get into that school, then his grandparents address would have been the one to use. Which I think would have been OK if the child really is there more than with his parents.

By all means ask for your son to be added to the waiting list of the school of your choice, but your childcare arrangements are, to put it bluntly, your business and quite rightly play no part in the school admissions process.

milliebear00001

Hi there

I have a friend whose dd has not received an offer at their first choice school. Unfortunately this child has an older sibling already attending the school and so it is going to be extremely difficult to gte the girls to school on time (at different schools!)

What sort of criteria will an appeal panel consider? Entry criteria is 1. Looked after children, 2. catchment, 3. siblings. She is outside catchment and fourth on the waiting list.

What exactly are parents to do about getting their children to school on time, given that she will only be able to get DD2 to school approximately fifteen mins late each day? I make that 47 hours lost over the school year.

squashy

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I agree with you, I think if the child lives 70% of his time with his grandparents, and it was so important to get into that school, then his grandparents address would have been the one to use. Which I think would have been OK if the child really is there more than with his parents.

By all means ask for your son to be added to the waiting list of the school of your choice, but your childcare arrangements are, to put it bluntly, your business and quite rightly play no part in the school admissions process.

Not sure how ethical that is though:o Also it could cause problems as some schools ask for proof of address, plus it could affect Free School Meal entitlements as it links into council tax benefit and again proof of address and entitlement is needed.

Savvy_Sue

squashy wrote: »

Not sure how ethical that is though:o Also it could cause problems as some schools ask for proof of address, plus it could affect Free School Meal entitlements as it links into council tax benefit and again proof of address and entitlement is needed.

Well, I'm not 100% sure either, BUT if the child is more often at one address than at another, then it makes sense to use the address they're at rather than the one they're not at.

It might be that the grandparents would have to make the application. It would be complicated. But then it sounds as if it's complicated anyway.