School appeals - help offered

Savvy_Sue

gs1967 wrote: »

It's going to cost nothing but my time and if I don't at least try, I'll regret it.

I'm sure I'd do the same as you, but you need to spend your time concentrating on the grounds for appeal, not your preferences.

Also worth phoning to get yourself on the waiting list for the preferred school, and asking where you are on the list. If you're well up, you're in with a good chance, whereas if you're at 115 or so then the appeal's your only chance.

milliebear00001

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Find out what the earliest is that each child can be left at the school, and plan to do that. An increasing number of schools have breakfast clubs. Make arrangements with other parents to share the getting to school routine. Move the older child to the same school as the younger child.

No breakfast club at either school, both open at 9.00am with no facility for leaving them before then. Making arrangements with other parents isn't practical in the longer term and would be a pretty big ask of any acquaintance. Moving the older child would be disruptive to that child and so (surely) contrary to the over-riding aims of the school admissions process which is to act in the best interests of children?

I just don't see how having them at schools half an hour apart is physically possible without having to pay for extra childcare. This will make things extremely difficult financially for the family.

melissa'smoney

hi, i have just found this thread. I am currently trying to put together a letter for my sister who's youngest has not got into her preferred school, she is 4. Her older sister (5) already attends there and there would be many difficulties.
Her letter does not give a specific reason for not granting, only standing "you are not eligable for any of your chosen schools and are on the waiting list"
Could anyone offer any help or advice please. I have read by law they have to state the reason why she was unsucsessful?
thank you x

mightyDOB

Hi all,

Like many of you we found out that our son did not get into his first choice school. We only live 0.2mile away from the school so were shocked when he did not get in. It turns out there is a disabled child who was one of triplets, 20 siblings, so only there were only 7 places available for local children without siblings, and we missed out by 0.03 miles!

The authority does not have catchment areas which means that a large number of the families with siblings now live miles away from the school. Whilst I understand that parents want their children to go to the same school, our authorities policy seems to be largely detrimental to local families getting into the school. This year has a lot of families first generation of children have been excluded, which by the looks of it will also exclude their younger brother and sisters in the future By reading this thread it seems other authorities have different more logical policies where only siblings in the catchment area take preference which to me seems fairer.

We want to appeal but are wondering on what ground we can do so, the school we have been given is 2+ miles from our house and in completly the wrong direction from both mine and my wife's work, and we walk our son to school and use public transport.

Any advice would be appreciated

Schwany

mightyDOB we are in exactly the same position. Having spoken to the school we have found out that our daughter was 76th on the original list, out of 60 places there were 44 siblings and the final child (#60) was 200yards closer to the school than we are. that means in that 200yards there are 15 children closer which I find astounding.

The school we have been offered is a 50 minute walk. we have walked the route and have rejected the offer as a result; what is dissapointing is that there is another school closer than the offered one!?

In terms of advice, our appeal is basically on the basis of being excluded from the community with our daughters friends (who are our neighbours and who are geographically further from the school) and most of our estate attending the school and; that our daughter having to walk past that school is an irrational result of the admissions criteria.

I was also considering taking photographs of the roads surrounding the school as they are normally packed with parents picking up their children which seems to show that a large majority of the children dont even live in the area anymore!?

Whether our appeal is good enough will soon be seen, but any further advice or even questions for the appeal would be helpful and appreciated.

thebaileys

Hi,

I just wondered if anyone had attended there appeal yet, or had any progress.

I am still no further forward than the last time I posted.

The day I found out my little boy didn't have a place at any of the 3 schools I listed, I was told there was 2 spaces at another Catholic school 4 miles away.

It would be a bit of a treck for us-8 buses a day, or 4 if my partner can take us. As soon as I got off the phone I emailed to see if I could take a place there, and still appeal.

I have now been told there are 5 children after the 2 spaces, and it will now been down to admissions policy, and as we live 4 miles away I cannot see us being successful.

I received a letter from the Head and Governers of our first choice school, saying there were dismissing the appeal, as taking more children than the 30 would be detrimental to the effcient education and efficent use of reasources.

It also states that there are a number of alternatives within walking distance or bus journeys in the case of catholic schools.

Well there are no spaces at any catholic school in the county, and we are no where near the border of another county.

I really do not want my son to go to a non catholic school, as we want him to continue to follow this faith.

The current staffing of the school is a headteacher, 12 full time staff-one based in the nursery and 2 part time teachers on a job share. There are also 2 nursery nurses one in the nursery and one shared between the 2 current reception classes.

The current set up is 2 reception classes, with 24 in one class, and 18 in the other.
From september they are having 1 reception class with 30 children.

In 2011/2012 there will be a new school, and the head states this is the reason for lowering the intake from 45 to 30.

From september there will be 11 classes, so that means there is a spare teacher, as there are no redundancies.

I am going to base my appeal on the fact that they have the staff, and the space at the moment to take extra children, but I am not hopefully.:(

alm721

dob and schwany, by far the most sucessful appeals are those that can show that there is a possiblilty that distance to school has either been calculated incorrectly or there is a shorter route. You need to know exactly on what basis distance to school is measured. Is it as the crow files? along the shortest safe route (lit and along paths) or some other method? This is really important as if you can show that you are within distance they have to gove you a place. I've just got my neice into her school before we even got to appeal by challenging the distance measurment. We were told she was about 0.2 miles out of the distance which was measured using the nearest safe route.
Using google earth I was able to show that she was within distance following a slightly different route, on this basis they had to offer her a place. They actually said she was within the area by 0.007 miles!
You actually don't have to prove they are in the area just that the margin of error in the lea's measurment is greater then the distance you are outside the area if that makes sense.
I would definiatly check this out before you put a full appeal together as you are both very close to the area. You also want to know how they have measured the distance, most leas use a pretty acurate mapping tool (which you cant get access to unless you buy the software :cool:) but some still use pretty basic methods which have quite large errors.
Hope this helps a bit

shaki02

Hello All,

Thanks for reading my post

I have just found this forum. I'm preparing to submit my appeal for primary school admission and i would welcome your suggestion on grounds of my appeal.

Here are the facts
1. Its a Foundation school
2. Sets its own admin criteria
3. They have preference to children attending their nursery.
4. We know this because my next door flat neighbour child goes to their nursery and they have got a place and no sibling attends that school. So only criteria is that the child attends the same nursery.
5. Our application is rejected because my child does not go to the same nursery.
6. It’s a 1/2 day session nursery which we can't use as we both work and we need a full day care so we use private site company provided child care centre. School does not provide a full day care center
7. Why my child should be dis-advantage just because my child does not go to the attached nursery.
8. We have also found out that children living further away from our house, but going to the same nursery have also got a place in the school
8. This i this is unfair on us and discriminatory and school admission code states that preference should not be given to nursery attending children over other children in the community.

Please advice any help appreciated.

Thanks

Savvy_Sue

If you can 'prove' that they have not applied their own admission criteria correctly, you have a stronger case. However, you do need to be sure that this is the case, if it's all on distance and siblings and you can show that families further away with no siblings have got places and you haven't, that's the basis for your appeal.

But if there are other criteria, it might be harder to show whether or not they have been applied.

Welcome btw.

shaki02

hi

thanks for the replay, Sorry I may have not convey the info correctly.
my argument was preferece given to a child who attends school nursery does not confirm to the school admission code. the admission code states that "Published admission arrangements must make clear to parents that their child’s attendance at the nursery class does not guarantee admission to the school for primary education"

and


Admission authorities that propose to give priority to children who attend the nursery or the co-located children’s centre for nursery provision

should ensure that families that live nearer the school, those who choose

to take up other nursery options or the free entitlement at an alternative local provider, or those who have recently moved to the area,
are not unfairly disadvantaged compared to other families.

so my argument was that school has done nothing to address thouse families who choose not to send their children to attached nursary.

Can i make an appeal to say that this is unfair that child next door gets into school becouse they attend the nursery and we have been discriminated becouse we don't send our child to the same nursary.

regards