School appeals - help offered

Mrs_Arcanum

Worth trying to find out if the school she is leaving is a feeder school for the one allocated. This will weaken any argument about friends immediately. You may need to check all the individual primary schools sites to see which school they feed in to.

Good luck

FBaby

Me again

I was told that to win an appeal, you have to focus on
1- your child specific needs
2- why those needs can only be met at the preferred school (rather than why the allocated is not suitable).

A friend of mine appeal on the ground that her preferred school offered chinese lessons, which her son had been doing (privately) for the previous 2 years and they wanted continuity, however, they still lost the appeal on the basis that as he was able to continue to study chinese outside of school, he could continue to do so.

helphelphelphelp

No, the school she is at is not the feeder school for the allocated school and is even further away from the chosen school. It is basically the school that is given when all chosen schools are filled (or in my words, the dumping ground although I will be careful not to use these words!).

It means she will either have to take at least one bus, two if she is going back to the childminders, or I will have to give up my university course. I know I could put her in childcare local to the school but she is so emotionally fragile that I just dont think she would cope.

CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) were not able to help her as it was bereavement counselling she needed which we managed to get through the hospice that helped with my son and also through a service that provides bereavement counselling solely for children. I am asking her counsellor for the latter to write a supporting letter as she is undergoing a year long programme with them at present so I am hoping this is something they will do as they know her and her issues quite well.

Hmm, so going back to the chinese lessons, does this mean that she could get support out of school or that I need to argue that she needs this on hand at school as she needs additional support and also needs her support network of friends? Think that is going to have to be my argument. Really need a bleeding heart on the panel to win this one I think,

FBaby

I think evidence that either she needs additional support in school (and why), or that the hospice will not be able to continue to provide bereavement counselling any longer but is still need require.

Saying that, you would need to be sure that the school can provide that type of counselling anyway as they also are unlikely to provide specific counselling, at least not separately to what CAMHS offer. If you are going to go that route and be prepared to counter-argue that point, maybe you could see how long the waiting time for local CAMHS services is and use the fact that an interruption of counselling (between hospice and CAHMS) because of waiting list would be significantly detrimental to your DD mental health. It's a lot of 'ifs' but you really need to be prepared to provide evidence for any statement you make at appeal as to why it is essential for DD's health to go to this school.

I would also drop the issue of friends, as it doesn't stand. Her stability would have been with her friends from her previous schools. The fact that she knows some kids (neighbours) going to that school (but who could very much not remain friendsas she hasn't known them for very long) is not a very strong point.

I would also definitely drop the matter of transport. Kids travel for more than 1/2 hour mornings and evenings to go to their preferred school, taking buses and trains every day in England, so that won't hold unless you can again provide evidence that this would be detrimental to her mental/physical health.

I personally think the counselling matter is your strongest argument.

Spendless

helphelphelphelp wrote: »

They are in the feeder schools and one lives next door, and the others are pretty much the same distance.

But have looked at admission criteria for other over subscribed schools in the area and none of them mention feeder schools. Just LAC (looked after children as the first one) then children in the catchment. Would this be worth mentioning or would it make me look argumentative? I was thinking of using it as a prejudicial argument, though it is more on a group basis rather than an individual one.

Thanks

Is it a school that sets its own admission criteria? My son's foundation secondary is able to do that and has recently changed theirs, moving feeder schools up the list and siblings down, though catchment remains its 1st main criteria (after children in public care). Church schools also set their own admission criteria. Not sure about Academies.

balletshoes

helphelphelphelp wrote: »

They are in the feeder schools and one lives next door, and the others are pretty much the same distance.

But have looked at admission criteria for other over subscribed schools in the area and none of them mention feeder schools. Just LAC (looked after children as the first one) then children in the catchment. Would this be worth mentioning or would it make me look argumentative?
I was thinking of using it as a prejudicial argument, though it is more on a group basis rather than an individual one.

Thanks

no, no point mentioning this or pursuing it - you have to concentrate on the existing criteria for your preferred school.

JC9297

I know this is no help to the OP but this case just shows the importance of putting more than one choice. Presumably if the OP's daughter had ended up at the same school as her primary school friends it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but because only the first choice school was put down she has been allocated the school that others don't want. I would say to anyone even if you live next door to the school and already have 3 kids there, never assume it is a foregone conclusion and always put 2nd, 3rd, etc choices.

susancs

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

The first thing I would be doing is asking to go on the waiting list for a place at the preferred school. If you are high on the list, then there's a really good chance you'll get a place before September - families move, change their minds, go private etc etc etc.

Then I would ask the school how many children were admitted other than from the feeder school, and their distances from the school.

I agree that you should make sure that you child is put on the continuing interest list to start with. Then I would ring ACE for free advice on what may be your grounds for appeal. There is good advice on the ACE online booklet, including letter template.
http://www.ace-ed.org.uk/Resources/ACE/Appealing-Feb2012.pdf

Both my daughter's were both lucky enough to get their first choice of secondary schools, but some of their friends were not so lucky and got their prefered places by going on the waiting lists of oversubscribed schools. A friend of mine went through the appeals process and had her child accepted at a very over subscribed faith secondary school, she was advised to enclosed a hand written letter from her child stating why the child felt the school would meet her needs, with the appeal letter. If your child's school is a voluntary aided one with a Governing boday it may be worth considering adding a letter from your child.

helphelphelphelp

We are now officially on the waiting list. Thanks to those who advised me to do that.

And thanks for the suggestion about getting my daughter to write a letter to go with the appeal, I like that idea. Will sit down with her and see what she wants to write and get something together. We only get one chance so need to try anything and everything.

Savvy_Sue

FBaby wrote: »

Most importantly, my son is challenged like he wasn't at his previous school (which i was delighted with).

This does sometimes happen, and certainly did with my boys: when we moved I chose the 'less popular' school and they were fantastic, could not have been happier. I feel if I'd gone to appeal for the oversubscribed school they'd have been allowed to coast.

helphelphelphelp wrote: »

I am asking her counsellor for the latter to write a supporting letter as she is undergoing a year long programme with them at present so I am hoping this is something they will do as they know her and her issues quite well.

Hmm, so going back to the chinese lessons, does this mean that she could get support out of school or that I need to argue that she needs this on hand at school as she needs additional support and also needs her support network of friends? Think that is going to have to be my argument. Really need a bleeding heart on the panel to win this one I think,

I do not think that bleeding hearts on the panel are that common, and you may find that you cannot submit evidence at this stage which you did not use with your application. Obviously I could be wrong about this, information from ACE will be useful to you, and you could usefully look at the thread busiscoming2 linked.

helphelphelphelp wrote: »

We are now officially on the waiting list. Thanks to those who advised me to do that.

Have you found out where on the waiting list you are? And asked for information about those who have been admitted, to check that they adhered to their published admissions policy?

helphelphelphelp wrote: »

And thanks for the suggestion about getting my daughter to write a letter to go with the appeal, I like that idea. Will sit down with her and see what she wants to write and get something together. We only get one chance so need to try anything and everything.

See above. Also there is a part of me wondering whether there's a possibility - and I really don't mean to be harsh here - that at least some of your DD's fragility is linked to your expectations of her fragility. I'm not suggesting that you are not allowing her to 'move on', but that this could be a really good time to encourage her to expect to be able to 'move on'.

I'm conscious of how crass that sounds, but I can't immediately think of a better way to put it. But put it this way: at the moment all her friends and all her classmates and all her teachers know, and need to know, that her brother and uncle (and your son and brother) died within a short space of time, so special allowances need to be made. When she's 16, hopefully she won't still need those special allowances, so there's a transition, which has to start somewhere. And obviously the bereavement counselling is helping with that (and I hope you're receiving some too).

I'm not at all comparing our own situation, but when we moved I was really worried about how DS1 would cope with a new school, new city, new house, new friends etc etc etc and was practically convinced he would fall apart and really struggle. He was absolutely fine, but DS3 took a very long time to get over it - his school wondered if he was depressed - which I would never have expected.

Please, concentrate hardest on any legal, technical issues for your appeal rather than the emotional side of it. The practical issues of getting your DD to the childminder, the fact that you're working anti-social hours, your suggestion that an 11 year old isn't safe out alone after dark - they're not legal or technical issues.