primary school admission -appeal

[Rah]

Has anyone refused the allocated school, appealed and won?

We have been allocated a school which was not our prefered 3 and really do not want dd to go there so we are going to appeal but not sure what to write
Any advice?

 

[mummyto4boys]

Hi, this is a little different but when we moved to this village there was no room in the school for my 2 older boys. We were told they would have to go to another school 7 miles away and a taxi would be supplied and would have to go there for a year.
We had good reasons to appeal and my younger of the 2 boys had a heart condition and if my husband was at work with the car I would need to get to my son very quickly. Even tho we had good reasons for appeal we were still turned down!
They said they could not make space in the class that was not there, we had to go to court for the appeal so was not a nice experience.
To make matters worse my worst nightmare came true, hubby was at work when I got the dreaded phone call saying the school had phoned an ambulance for my son and as I could not get to the school quick enough a teacher had to go with him Sorry going off subject but was really a horrible experience. Just be prepared for not getting the school you want. Fingers crossed for you x

 

[RachA]

I don't know of anyone who has appealed and won. When we were applying for places for our son we looked into the appeal process. There are books at the library that can help you. It is a difficult process to go through and they can't place you in a school if there are no spaces. They can put you on the waiting list though if they feel your reasons are good enough.
It also does depend on your reasons, simply saying I don't want my child to go to x school won't work. So you need to make sure you gave really good reasons to put on the form.

 

[isil]

Where I live you need to be able to prove that your child attending that school won't be detrimental to others. So think class sizes, decent ofsted reports.

Also factor in the reasons you want your child to attend. Like work, sense of community type thing.

Here, quite a lot of people get in on appeal.

 

[Mrsmitch80]

We're appealing too! Not looking forward to the appeals process xx

 

[baby D]

I have known people to appeal for juniors and win as they are not capped by numbers. However, with reception and infants, I have never known a successful appeal as their numbers are capped at 30 legally. So if they have say 60 places (2 classes of 30) and more than 60 applicants, then those that are turned down can't win as they literally have no place to offer them -- they can't withdraw an other to another child once made. All they can do is offer a place on their waiting list xx Again, unless someone leaves (unlikely if a particularly good school) then a place is not likely to become available until junior years when they can allocate extra places -- even then they try not to go to above 30. The most I have taught in juniors is 33.

 

[Rah]

I have spoken to the council they told me where I am on the waiting lists so I'm going to re-apply for 2 out of the 3 schools as we are quite far down she has told me what schools have either no wait or little wait and see what happens

 

[katnav]

I am a teacher and we have lots of parents appeal and lots win. I work in the infants and all classes in my year group are over limit on 31 each.

 

[humblebum]

We appealled last year and sadly didn't win. It was due to class size so he's done a year in one school and will be moving to our 1st choice from September (we were due to move just after he started school so that's why)
I'll keep everything crossed for you xx

 

[Kess]

You need to accept the school you don't want, even if appealling. Otherwise if you don't win on appeal, your daughter won't have any school - the local authority has done it's job in offering you somewhere, if you turn it down they don't have to offer anywhere else. Accepting the other school won't negatively affect your appeal for the school you want. Also make sure you're on the waiting list for any schools you would like. The other option is to plan to home educate if your appeal fails.

I'm going to PM you a link to a forum that has very knowledgeable people on it regarding appeals.

I have known people to appeal for juniors and win as they are not capped by numbers. However, with reception and infants, I have never known a successful appeal as their numbers are capped at 30 legally. So if they have say 60 places (2 classes of 30) and more than 60 applicants, then those that are turned down can't win as they literally have no place to offer them -- they can't withdraw an other to another child once made. All they can do is offer a place on their waiting list xx Again, unless someone leaves (unlikely if a particularly good school) then a place is not likely to become available until junior years when they can allocate extra places -- even then they try not to go to above 30. The most I have taught in juniors is 33.

It depends if it's an Infant Class Size appeal - KS1 is limited to 30 in a class by law, but you can still win on appeal if the LA made a mistake, e.g. you provided your correct address but they used the wrong one, or they lost your form, applied the admissions criteria incorrectly or something. That's why reception still does sometimes go over 30. If there's no mistake on the LA's part, then you're right they won't go over 30 except in very specific circumstances (twins, I think, and maybe statemented children and children in care).

I have spoken to the council they told me where I am on the waiting lists so I'm going to re-apply for 2 out of the 3 schools as we are quite far down she has told me what schools have either no wait or little wait and see what happens

What do you mean by re-apply?

Waiting lists aren't done in first-come-first-serve order, by the way. If you've been on the list for 6 months and someone moves into the area who is a higher priority in terms of the admissions criteria, they'd jump over you in the list.