Church Primary School Admissions

[teacup23]

Hope it is okay to ask about primary admissions here? I am enquiring for a friend who has been unsuccessful in gaining a reception class place for her son. We both live near to our local church primary school (in Herts)and attend the local church. We both got the vicar to sign our 'reference' forms at the same time and my daughter was successful and got her place in reception but my friend's son was not. It seemed strange when families who lived much further away were successful?

Today my friend found out that it was because on the church reference form when asked how long they had been attending church they had ticked 1-2 years and they needed to have been attending 2years+. They have actually been attending for more than two years and they did not tick this box it was the vicar who did this and they didn't notice. As they can prove they have been attending for longer than two years it is worth appealing? Or will the panel just say it was an error on their form which they should have noticed? Should/Can they get the form changed now to move them higher up the continuing interest list? They don't actually have a copy of this form can they ask the school to provide one so that they can check the school is correct?

They are quite despondant and unsure about appealing and I just wondered if it worth their while?

Any advice appreciated.

[Etienne]

Hope it is okay to ask about primary admissions here?

No problem at all.

With KS1 classes, it's critical to know what the class size is, because Infant Class Size legislation may severely limit the grounds on which an appeal can be made.

For starters we need to know what the admission number is.

The continuing interest list is a completely separate process, and it's well worth providing the evidence that would put them higher up in the admissions criteria, in case any vacancies become available. I wouldn't have thought they'd need the original form to do this - a letter explaining that a mistake was made, and evidence of length of church attendance, probably ought to suffice.

[teacup23]

I think it is bad news as the class size is 30.

[Etienne]

I'm afraid so. The only grounds for an appeal would really be if the admission authority had acted perversely, or if the admission authority itself had made a mistake with the allocations, thereby depriving the child of a place which he would otherwise have been given.

I will mention that, nationally, some appeal panels take decisions that do not strictly conform with the legislation (either in ignorance, or because they sympathise so much with the parental case), and occasionally infant class size appeals succeed when they shouldn't! Your friend might wish to consider putting in an appeal - just to see what happens, but I would be less than honest if I didn't say that realistically the chances of success at appeal are probably between 0-5% (and closer to the first figure than to the second).

[teacup23]

Thanks for the advice Etienne. I don't think they will pursue an appeal as they weren't keen to and with those odds (the mum is pregnant and not all that well either) I think they will leave it.

I will encourage them to try and get the information corrected so that they might be moved up the CI list. It just goes to show how careful you have to be to double check forms and check admission criteria - I knew that the 2year+ tickbox was crucial and double checked our form a hundred times! They had their form right in front of me on the same day - if only I had noticed!

Thanks again for all the advice, I have been a 'lurker' on the forum for some time and it was invaluable in helping to home tutor DS through the 11+ (successfully hurray!).