school appeal

hood777

Hi , not sure if this is the right place for this post. We are appealing as our son did not get into his first choice school(year 7). On the day the result came out the school where he wanted to informed us the local Lea said there where no rejections. Yet our son was. Hours letter they told us the Lea had made a mistake, there where rejections.
We have yet to revive a letter informing us why he did not get in, the school think it is distance, we are 10.78 miles away.Its a great school.

i just wanted some advice, do they have to inform us buy letter why he did not get in, have they broke any law? our son only has cousins at the school he wanted, who live further away from the school then us.

Any tips on appealing.?

Thanks people, any tips any help i would love

Flugelhorn

All schools have admission policies and oversubscription criteria. It depends how these applied to you.

Might be worth posting on https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk forum (even if he didn't take the 11 plus as they may be able to give an answer

pineapple123

A letter could be in progress as to why your son didnt get in, it will probably say because the school is over subscribed and you are not in the catchment area, esp for a good school.
The cousins probably got in for reasons such as sibling attending or faith or some other specified reason distance may be a key factor for you but not for them.

When DD got a rejection letter we appealed to the school and she had to go for an interview she was in Yr 9 she was still rejected because 2 others that appealed lived closer. DD school was poor in comparision to the one we applied to go to however nothing could be done , the head teacher and governers were sympathetic and would have taken her if they had extra places.
Surfice to say DD stayed at her poor school worked hard to get her grades.
Next year she's taking her masters .

Getting your child into a good school is great however its not so terrible if they cant get in.
By all means appeal and really push your case without being rude. Good luck.

susancs

Usually to win a place on appeal you have to show how the schools admissions critera was not correctly applied in relation to your child. If the cousins applied this year and live further away then this could be an appeal point, however if it was a previous year then this would not be a valid point as there might have been less children applying nearer the school. To give you an example of criteria not being applied correctly a school near us did not recognise a known cut through footpath when measuring distances and places were won on appeal as the distance criteria was not applied correctly.

Often the best way forward unless you have very good grounds for an appeal is to accept the place offered and to to go on the continuing interest list for a place at the prefered school and regularly ring up to check how high up the list your child is. Things can change during the coming months with people moving houses etc. I have known several children who have been offered places at the prefered school a few days after they have started at the offered school (it did mean the expense of a new uniform when the other was only worn for a couple of days). You can of course do an appeal and also go on the continuing interest list.

susancs

This thread may be useful.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/391020

hood777

he did not, but will give it a go.many thanks.

susancs

hood777 wrote: »

he did not, but will give it a go.many thanks.

Another thought, which I did not address was that if your child has any specific needs that can only be met by attending a specific school and other schools cannot eaisly meet this need then this, backed up by evidence can form the basis for a good appeal. For example a parent I know who won a place had a physical therapists report stating that her child had to walk a lot throughout the day regularly due to a health issue he had. The other school she had been offered was a smaller school, with classrooms near each other. The parent successfully argued that the child would benefit from the first choice school as it had modular unit type classrooms in the grounds that he would have to walk between for lessons to keep his health condition from detriorating and it was the only school locally that could offer this.

Nationally only a third of secondary school appeals are successful so to stand any real chance you need to do your research in advance on the system and have a good reason for the appeal backed up by evidence if possible.