Parmiter's Appeal

sallyj · Post by **sallyj** » Sat May 16, 2009 10:28 pm

This must be a hateful situation,but please don't give up. Think of it as a second chance to add in any of the little things you may have forgotten at the first appeal.
I agree with capers & Etienne about appeal panels being mainly retired. Our panel for our 1st appeal consisted of three elderly gentlemen. All were lovely,polite & well spoken.However,the first thing the Chair of the panel did was ask us to speak up as he'd forgotten one of his hearing aids,& another-sporting a very fetching bow tie,nearly leapt off his chair when his mobile phone rang loudly in his pocket halfway through !!!!
Needless to say-we failed

It hasn't put us off preparing for appeals 2 & 3 !!
Keep smiling-albeit through gritted teeth-& good luck
Sallyj xx

capers123 · Post by **capers123** » Sun May 17, 2009 10:34 am

AppealingApple wrote: I now find myself in a postion where I am thinking of dropping the appeal because of this.

Don't do that. Think of the first one as an unexpected practice - you know the ropes now, and make sure you do the next appeal well - you know what the other side will say, and you can tweak your arguments around that!

If you give up now, you'll always be wondering 'what if...'.

Post by **Etienne** » Sun May 17, 2009 11:02 am

I agree - next time you will know exactly what to expect.

AppealingApple · Post by **AppealingApple** » Sun May 17, 2009 2:12 pm

Dear All

Thank you for your words of wisdom I know they make sense. We will make a decision this weekend. My son has been offered a place at a school where a number of his friends are attending and having discussed the situation with him he is happy to go there. I do feel the odds are stacked against us for P's as they have already had to accept another child taking them over the admissions number (there had been a mess up over distance). I fail to see how they will take any others unless there were extreme mitigating circumstances. Last year out of 88 appeals only 1 made it through.

Will keep you posted.
Appealing Apple

capers123 · Post by **capers123** » Sun May 17, 2009 10:46 pm

AppealingApple wrote: I fail to see how they will take any others unless there were extreme mitigating circumstances. Last year out of 88 appeals only 1 made it through.

Different panels come to different decisions, which is why it's recommended that we don't serve too long on the same panel.

Now if the original panel had been doing it for some years, yet the new one makes a different assessment of the capacity, who knows what might happen. And as they say - the panels decision is binding on both parties.

Now if your child may well be happy with the offered school, what have you to loose apart from sleep & nervous energy (and thus weight!)?

Whatever you decide, sounds like all may end up OK.

sp · Post by sp » Mon May 18, 2009 1:41 pm

I agree with Sallyj; we've probably all come out of an appeal wishing we'd said one thing or another or, maybe more importantly, wishing we HADN'T !! Well now you have the chance to put it right. You've had a trial run and you have nothing to lose. You already have a good school inplace so if this appeal fails you can rest assured that you did evrything you could. I'm sure you'd hate to wonder in the months to come, "what if we'd carried on".
Whatever you decide well done for having got this far.

tense · Post by **tense** » Mon May 18, 2009 3:46 pm

Yes, do go for it. And at least the appeals seem to be early this year. I remember last year people didn't find out the results until late June / early July - imagine being told then that you had to go through it all again....

AppealingApple · Post by **AppealingApple** » Mon May 18, 2009 5:01 pm

Thank you Tense/SP
I will discuss again with the family. Although my son has now made up his mind that the alternative school will be ok, I dont want to keep messing him about too. Tense is right we did wish we had put over more strongly an item in our appeal which went slightly astray on the day.

PS Capers123 your not wrong about the weight !

Happy appealing !

tense · Post by **tense** » Mon May 18, 2009 6:23 pm

You don't need to tell your DS you're appealing. If you are unsuccessful, he need never know. But if you are successful, you will have a choice of two great schools (you don't have to accept a place you win on appeal).

But you'd have to be better at keeping secrets than I am!

sp · Post by sp » Mon May 18, 2009 7:14 pm

We told our daughter we were appealing for 2 schools and that we would do our best to get her in to one of them. What we didn't tell her was when the appeals were so that she didn't get stressed about it (SATs were enough for her!). We have heard from one (unsuccessful) but are awaiting the other. She is under no false illusions about the outcomes and we plan to tell her when we know about both. It has been hard not to let slip what has been going on for the last couple of months but she is only 11 and doesn't need added angst in her life. Meanwhile we are being ultra positive about the indie she has a place at.