School appeals - help offered

Dustykitten

Do you know if there is already a wait list for the year you wish to get your son into jonny_p?

BeautyQueenFromMars

I am glad to have stumbled across this, and really hope someone can help.

Ok, if my friends little boy a few doors down got in to our first choice school and mine didnt, do you think maybe it was a toss up between the two of them? They are both the eldest sibling and we are both an equal distance from the school.
This is what it says on the Councils admissions policy for my school:
"If all children within any of the above rules cannot be offered a place, the highest priority will be given to children
living nearest to the school within that rule. To determine who lives nearest, distance will be measured on a
straight line crow fly basis, using Ordnance Survey data. The address will be measured from the post office
... address point on the property. If following the application of admission rules and distance two applicants cannot
be separated for a final place at a school the authority will use random allocation to determine the priority for the
remaining place"

Is it likely my son just missed out on a place, and would be fairly high up on the schools waiting list, or am I clutching at straws?

TeamLowe

BeautyQueen unless the child falls into a higher category (adoption? highly exceptional social and medical needs?) then i'd say your assumption is most probably right - the line has to be drawn somewhere and i've seen it a lot of times in appeals where they say 'this child lives 0.66 miles away, the last place was given to a child who lives 0.59 miles away'.

doesn't necessarily mean that your child will be close to the top of the waiting list- if the last place was give at say 0.554 miles away from the school and you live 0.556 miles away, there could be 8 children who live 0.555 miles away but in other directions.

how likely that scenario is depends on the popularity of the school

sjlou

Sorry to hear you didn't get your first choice. The only way to find out is to ask the school where you are on the list.

Is your neighbours child statemented? This is generally the first priority at all schools. As a small number of nursery children (compared to later in their education) are statemented then this doesn't effect many places.

If it is a faith school this will be the next priority,followed by elder siblings at school and distance (simplistically). Although it can get complicated!

My mum works at a catholic school and there are 9 levels of priority. This year there are a number of children in priority level 7 or 8 that didn't get in (these were non catholic, with siblings but not in the catchment distance).

When I went to infant school, I was one of only 4 children who didnt have elder siblings in school. However I was christened and attended the attached church. That year was an exceptional year.

It could be just that there are a large number of children with elder siblings, and as you say just missed out on distance to your neighbour.

pinkladyof66

I am currently waiting to hear about our sons school (we hopefully will hear friday) however does anyone know for definite whether the adopted child gets priority I know they were hoping to introduce this this year but have yet to hear. We legally adopted our son May 2012 and he will be starting school this September. Thanks

Spendless

Hi, I've just looked up my area's criteria as a looked after child is first here, then comes catchment, siblings, feeder schools (not applicable for reception places) and distance. The above can vary if a school is able to set it's own admission criteria, and this was the wording I've just copied and pasted

**Looked After or Previously Looked After
A Looked After Child is determined in accordance with Section 22 of the Children Act 1989.
Previously looked after children who were looked after, but ceased to be so because they were
adopted (Section 46 of the Adoption and Children’s Act 1989) or became subject to a residency
order (Section 8 of the Act) or special guardianship order (Section 14a of the Act).

Didn't it say on the admission booklet/form what the order is? I've just got it from my areas website.

BeautyQueenFromMars

Thanks for your replies.

The school has told us that we are top of their availability list. Does anyone know if we would be offered a place as soon as one becomes available? Or do they have to wait until any appeals have been finished?

SAVVYMUMMY_2

Hi there BeautyQueen, as far as I am aware once a place becomes available before the appeals begin then the person at the top of the list, will get the place. once the appeals begin then that may be a different matter, but depends on whereabouts you are.

TeamLowe

BeautyQueenFromMars wrote: »

Thanks for your replies.

The school has told us that we are top of their availability list. Does anyone know if we would be offered a place as soon as one becomes available? Or do they have to wait until any appeals have been finished?

The appeals process and the waiting lists are completely seperate so as soon as the number drops below the Published Admission Number, you'll get a place.
the only way in which appeals affects that is if there are successful appeals which takes the school above its PAN, you'd have to wait for it to drop back down below the PAN

so say it's an intake of 30, and the appeal panel put in 3 kids. you'd have to wait for 4 children to leave to get the number down below 30

hopefully you'll have your place very soon though and not have to worry about that!

TeamLowe

SAVVYMUMMY wrote: »

Hi there BeautyQueen, as far as I am aware once a place becomes available before the appeals begin then the person at the top of the list, will get the place. once the appeals begin then that may be a different matter, but depends on whereabouts you are.

it's actually happened in my area before that someone has been given a place off the waiting list the day of their appeal so the waiting list carries on as if appeals aren't happening