Just won schools admission appeal.

James_N

Walking on air at the moment with a week's hard work, research and writing and telephoning behind us - and success at our son's secondary school appeal today.

All the (free) advice we gathered was great - given an hour or so I'll gather the resources together into a single post but just exhausted right now. Would anyone be instrested in pointers and links? Maybe too late for most now?

Basically, the advice was "concentrate on the child" - which we did well, but we won at an earlier hurdle! Although the authority proved they had carried out procedures properly, we totally blew their arguments about numbers away. We had LOTS of stats for previous years, had read the inspection reports and knew what current class sizes in comparison schools were. When it came to claims about what the inspectors had said about pressures of numbers - which were NOT in the report, but they admitted were an oral remark - unprovable - I had an idea we might have made an impression on the panel. So we never got to the boy himself - the authority's numbers were not accepted by the panel and he was admitted just on that.

So if you are going through this - take faith, build a case, be prepared - have the details. Be polite but don't back off or be apologetic either, you are expected to "fight" for your child so have no fear.

I had better leave my personal location and detail out of this - so don't ask!

morganb

Well done you!

tilly's_mum

Well done! I am appealing for a school place too - any advice would be appreciated.

churchrat

congratulations:beer:
we won an appeal for our 3rd child who was offered a place in a school where you wouldn't send a rat. I think the only 2 bits of advice have to give is to (a)make sure you read all the info you are sent very carefully, I have known some appeals fail because the "grounds were not met" when a re-wording of the appeal would have been sufficient. And (b), don't panic. Easier said than done I know but you can make yourself look silly if you are anything like me and I just keep talking when I should just keep quiet!!
good luck

Gracielongdrink

Very well done to you, what an achievement.

I would be very interested in any pointers / links you can give if and when you have time.

I'm just waiting to receive the appeal forms from the council for my son (not senior school by the way) we have recently moved and the local school is full.

mspig

we've got our appeal on the 4th July, just hope it goes aswell as we were turned down for all three schools and they sent a letter out stating a few schools that still had places left, which were mainly girls schools, one on the other side of the city and one which is local but has just been put into special measures and on the ofsted report got a grade 4 for everthing(which is the worst grade), they don't even have a head teacher at the mo as one killed himself, then they brought in one of hugh hefners bodyguards(playboy) who has been sacked for fiddling the books along with the deputy head so my son certainly will not be going there.

churchrat

hi mspig
have you got reasonable grounds for appeal?? Why did you not get any of the 3 you applied for, and will you be trying to get into one of these? You will be allocated a space somewhere, and from what you have said it sounds like it will be the one that is local to you. This is a very stressful process, so don't forget to look after yourself.
goodluck

mspig

Hoping that i have reasonable grounds for appeal, such as school bus is local and that people further away than us go to the school, the local school is accross a duel carriage way and quickest way through a shopping centre.

plus a few other points.

sealady

I when through the appeals process a year ago. Congratulations I know how you feel! At the end of mine when it went my way I actually had a phone call from the deputy head saying that out of all the appeals he had been involved over a number of years this was a particular one that he was happy to have lost! As it has turned out our daughter has had nothing but glowing reports from all her teachers. How smug are we!!

sealady

mspig wrote: »

Hoping that i have reasonable grounds for appeal, such as school bus is local and that people further away than us go to the school, the local school is accross a duel carriage way and quickest way through a shopping centre.

plus a few other points.

Going on past experience and from what other people have said that distance unfortunatly does not carry much weight.

Make the appeal more about what the school can offer your child compared to other schools. Is the school your child currently goes to have links with the school your want them to go to! Something along the lines of does not make friends easily - (if secondary) going to secondary a different transition having friends and things familiar will make settling in easier. Find out the exact reasons why your child was not accepted. In my case I fitted all the religious critea but was out of catchment (where we lived) but the school they went to was local to the secondary school. If that makes sense. I only touched on that during my appeal . Give real reasons why you don't want them going to the school they have been offered. Good Luck

bestpud

Congratulations OP!! :T :T :T

Lots of smiles in your house tonight no doubt! It must be such a relief for you all.