School appeals - help offered

balletshoes

tiny_courageous wrote: »

would they not come under this one?

* Children who themselves or their parents regularly attend the church - 1 accepted

Which, assuming the list of criteria is in order of priority, would put them above

* Children living closet to the school - 16 accepted ( furthest away was 1.65 miles)

If that is the case it does look like the evidence of church attendance has been disregarded for some reason

yes sorry, i misread that list of criteria - OP were you asked in the original application to submit any evidence that your child or you attend church?

Daisymoocow

yes it is in order of priority :-(


We were asked on the application form why we were applying and had a choice of 'sibling attendance', proximity to school, religion or other. We obviously chose religion and on submission, we had a message saying that 'If clarification of any application criteria was required, we would be contacted at a later date'. Needless to say we didn't have any further contact until the decision letter.

pleasedelete

Did you fill in 2 application forms? 1 for the LA and the other directly for the school with more details bout church attendance? For most faith schools you have to do 2.

warehouse

I wonder how many places does the school allocate to the Church goers? Perhaps it's just 1 and it's the closest living one?

squashy

Yes it does seem as if she should have qualified under the religion part. Did you provide a copy of her baptismal certificate? Or perhaps they required documentary evidence of attendance at church.

Daisymoocow

They didn't ask for any further information - there was a small box that we ticked for religion and then a type of comments box in which we put we were regular church goers, both of our children were baptised at this church and my daughter attended sunday school and the pre-school. We then had the message on submission that stated if further clarification was required, we would be contacted.We only had one application form as the school in question is VA and the board decided that the LEA should deal with all applications.

FBaby

Did it mention to specify which church it is? If not, clearly a step was missing somewhere as they differentiate which church it is in their application.

This would lead to think that you were expected to contact the school with the information rather than just specify you attend a church in the LA application.

Daisymoocow

Yes it did mention the specific church - I have just omitted that info for this forum

susancs

Daisymoocow wrote: »

Thank you all, included with the rejection letter was indeed a list of the criteria they used, as well as details of how many children were accepted under each criteria - there were 60 places available and it went like this:
*Children with siblings at the school - 21 accepted
*Children who attend the church ( or their parents) AND live within 0.75 miles - 2 accepted
*Children who live within 0.75 miles - 19 accepted
* Children who themselves or their parents regularly attend the church - 1 accepted
*Children who themselves or their parents regularly attend any other Church - 1 accepted
* Children of staff at the school - 0 accepted
* Children living closet to the school - 16 accepted ( furthest away was 1.65 miles)


In my opinion, my daughter should have been accepted under the criteria 'attendance at the church' - we have confirmation from the vicar who is also helping our appeal. This means that 17 children have been accepted who were further down the list of criteria than my daughter :-(

It does seem that the admissions criteria was not applied correctly in regard to your child's application, if what you have posted is the full admissions critera in order, so you should have a good chance of winning the appeal. I would however check the whole admissions policy carefully, as I am surprised that children in public care/looked after is not the first criteria (although it seems none were admitted) which makes me doubt that this is the full criteria. Some schools for example may have additional restrictions such as x places for children attending the local parish church or give top priority to a child with special needs (backed up by evidence from a professional) that can be met best by this particular school or the over subscription criteria may add extra priority in certain criteria. I am surprised that the school did not have a separate form that you had to have signed by your vicar to support your application.

Daisymoocow

Yes it is in order - the first two criteria were 'looked after children and 'those with a SEN'. no children were admitted under these criteria so I omitted them - apologies if that has confused anyone