School appeals - help offered

atlantis187

Thank you sue for the reply.
If I could be a little cheeky and ask for further advise u may have seen my other post of my son being denied a place at our preferred school. We would like to appeal this and was wondering how to go about it. We are absolutely clueless as to what reasons to put down. We can't use the distance argument as The one offered is about same distance.

My son has got speech delay problems and is very shy. The school we want to send him has other family kids going there and he will settle a lot quicker with familiar faces around.

Please help

Savvy_Sue

atlantis187 wrote: »

Thank you sue for the reply.
If I could be a little cheeky and ask for further advise u may have seen my other post of my son being denied a place at our preferred school. We would like to appeal this and was wondering how to go about it. We are absolutely clueless as to what reasons to put down. We can't use the distance argument as The one offered is about same distance.

My son has got speech delay problems and is very shy. The school we want to send him has other family kids going there and he will settle a lot quicker with familiar faces around.

Look, on the other thread I suggested you read through this one. There's a book recommended on school appeals by Ben Rooney, mentioned early in the thread. Get it from the library. Have you got his name on the waiting list? Did you mention his speech delay problems on your application? If not, you may not be able to use them now.

But has it crossed your mind, if you did mention his speech delay, that the school allocated might be better equipped to meet his needs?

I can't give more help than that. I don't know the schools or their policies or whether they stuck to them. That's for you to establish.

I can say that "but we wanted him to go to this other school because it's more convenient" will get you nowhere.

Suz100_2

cottonhead wrote: »

Just a quick one to say I also work for school admissions ( obviously somewhere different to OP ) and some of the allocation rules / appeals proceedure we use are different to the ones being explianed on here.
My advice would be to telephone your own admissions team to get the correct info for where you live so as not to make any mistakes with applications / appeals. If something happens not in your favour and your defense is you didnt know or you were advised incorrectly that wont be a good enough reason to have it overturned.

If I pm you, are you able to offer any advice?

samandmillie

Hi, my daughter didn't get any of our preferences or catchment. I am going to appeal and know it will be near on impossible to win as it will come down to infant class size. I've ordered the Ben rooney book which will be delivered tomorrow. I just wondered, my letter just said "refused" next to each choice and on the back page said "if you have been refused a place at a x county council please contact the county council direct on xxxx who will be able to provide you with information on how places we're allocated according to the published admissions criteria.

I wondered if they are allowed to do this, I thought they had to give me a reason on the letter? For info, I live in the city, applied for county schools.

Many thanks

DebtFreeMummy

Hi, Im not sure if you can help or not the school we prefer has 24 on the waiting list I premuse that no matter what we come up with for appeal he will not get a place (they have 60 spaces 2 classes)
Its out of catchment, has a better ofsted than our allocated school, has a good onsite afsterschool club (so i can finally go back to work and take my college place) children perform better etc. My son is quite bright and as preschool have found if he isnt kept busy with things to do he gets bored and misbehaves which if that happens at his allocated school parents are saying that bad behaviour is rewarded or seemingly to the other children (ie they are taken out of the classroom to go play football etc) Lady over the road has just pulled her daughter out of our allocated school too so doesnt make me have much faith in the school!!
Would any of this make a difference or would they not be able to give him a place because it would take them over class size limits???
Thanks

susancs

DebtFreeMummy wrote: »

Hi, Im not sure if you can help or not the school we prefer has 24 on the waiting list I premuse that no matter what we come up with for appeal he will not get a place (they have 60 spaces 2 classes)
Its out of catchment, has a better ofsted than our allocated school, has a good onsite afsterschool club (so i can finally go back to work and take my college place) children perform better etc. My son is quite bright and as preschool have found if he isnt kept busy with things to do he gets bored and misbehaves which if that happens at his allocated school parents are saying that bad behaviour is rewarded or seemingly to the other children (ie they are taken out of the classroom to go play football etc) Lady over the road has just pulled her daughter out of our allocated school too so doesnt make me have much faith in the school!!

Would any of this make a difference or would they not be able to give him a place because it would take them over class size limits???
Thanks

From the reasons you have given, I would have to agree with you that you are unlikely to get a place on appeal as you are out the catchment area, don't mention any other criteria and cannot base an appeal on other people's perceptions of the school you have been offered. Also with 24 on the waiting list it is unlikely you will get a place for September.

I don't know if this will help, but from experience I have found that opinions on schools can vary and would recommend you send your son to his allocated school with an open mind. My children's schools (primary and Secondary) are both graded as outstanding with high results and are very oversubscribed, but you still get Parent's taking their child out of the schools because they are not happy with some aspect. Taking a disruptive young child out a classroom can also be a good behaviour managment strategy as it allows other children in the class to learn without this disruptive behaviour and may allow the child with behavioural problems to get rid of pent up aggression by kicking a ball (rather than classmates), then they can rejoin the class to settle down to do work. Also in regard to your child, a lot of learning in the reception class at school is still play based and similar to pre-school, so I am sure there will be plenty to keep him busy and keen to learn. Most reception classes value home/school links so you can send in his favourite books from home, pieces of art work, pencil work for example to share with the class and his teacher. The school if in the same area as the pre-school may also have good links with them (better than the school out of the area) and they will have information from them to help your child settle in.

simsimmy

Hi All,
I've already posted this elsewhere on mse but it was suggested i post here also.
We have rejected our allocated infant school and are planning on appealing for our first choice school. We know this is going to be really hard to do and win but we have to try. I just wanted to check if anyone knew anything about the qualifying measures argument. Our school of choice has 9 classes of 30 children but a qualified teacher ratio of 23:9. The department of Education states that they have 11.3 Qulaified full time equivalent teachers. Does that mean they have the capacity teaching wise to add another 7 children per class?

This whole situation is affecting us all so much as we only have the one little one and fel as though despite moving into catchments, sending him to the linked pre school and becoming commitee members we have managed to fail our little one somehow.:(


Since posting this original message and on the advice of other forum members i have contacted the admissions team to inform them that we would like to accept the place we refused last week. I;ll be following it up by way of confirmation in an email.

We are still intending on appealing but can the fact that they have a ratio of 23:9 mean that they have the teaching if not space capacity to admit another 7 per class?

Savvy_Sue

simsimmy wrote: »

We are still intending on appealing but can the fact that they have a ratio of 23:9 mean that they have the teaching if not space capacity to admit another 7 per class?

AFAIK that's not the case. My understanding is that they may not have more than 30 children in an infant class, end of. To do what you're suggesting would mean setting up an additional class for the 'spare' children.

Madmummy_3

Hi All

Just looking for some advice on "linked" schools and appeals. A quick outline, my child has been attending an out of catchment infant school from Yr R to Yr 2 had applied for the linked on site junoiur school and have been turned down. Have phoned and discussed with admissions some points and the highest intake was a sibling attending the linked school, however many months ago when worrying that my daughhter wouldnt get a place I emailed admissions and they told me that the schools were not linked just bacause they are on the same site. My confussion is why are they linked in some ways but not in others ? can a school be linked only if you have a sibling ?. As having only one child, and please no one take this the wrong but its so discriminating . I will be appealing to the juniours but unless like previously said I can find an error feel that my walfare issue will be useless, I wont give up though .

thanks all x

bunty109

Madmummy wrote: »

Hi All

Just looking for some advice on "linked" schools and appeals. A quick outline, my child has been attending an out of catchment infant school from Yr R to Yr 2 had applied for the linked on site junoiur school and have been turned down. Have phoned and discussed with admissions some points and the highest intake was a sibling attending the linked school, however many months ago when worrying that my daughhter wouldnt get a place I emailed admissions and they told me that the schools were not linked just bacause they are on the same site. My confussion is why are they linked in some ways but not in others ? can a school be linked only if you have a sibling ?. As having only one child, and please no one take this the wrong but its so discriminating . I will be appealing to the juniours but unless like previously said I can find an error feel that my walfare issue will be useless, I wont give up though .

thanks all x

I'm not sure what to advise other than say that class sizes can be bigger in Juniors so the school can go over the PAN for a class if you can show it wouldn't be to the detriment of the other pupils. My experience of linked schools is that it was a formality to move from infants to juniors. Do you have any idea of the numbers admitted to Year 3?