Appeal next Monday - question for Etienne - please help

[Etienne]

By the way, I emailed the Education Authority who basically said they couldn't answer because they are no longer responsible for the school's appeals and that they had forwarded my email to the school (not very helpful giving the school the heads up on one of my questions)

I should have cautioned you not to mention appeals if contacting the LA ....... it ought to have been a straightforward request for information.
I'm surprised they weren't more helpful, though. After all, they would have carried out the net capacity assessment themselves, and almost certainly have a copy on file.

Hope it went all right on Monday.

[everything crossed]

Thanks Etienne, can't say it went badly although of course can't say it went well either, but they said letter should arrive today (although I'm not relying on Royal Mail)!

Panel seemed ok I think. The replaced education person said he didn't live in the area and his only interest in being on the panel was in ensuring that the process was completely fair and impartial which, bearing in mind our previous conversation, I can only hope was true.

I asked the Clerk to clarify the situation as we discussed, which was almost a disaster as he started to say that results on day did matter, but headmaster (representing school) stopped him as he misunderstood and thought that the Clerk was explaining how it had been decided that my son had failed the test, and then the Chair of the panel took over and explained to me that they were concerned with where my son is now, as several months had passed since the test anyway and what was more important was the evidence showing his current level. When introducing herself, she had said she was a JP so either she interprets the Code in a legal way, like me, or she realised that what the Clerk had been going to say would have potentially meant that I could have claimed the hearing wasn't conducted properly and so wanted to prevent that. The other education person didn't comment at this time, but the layperson on the panel did interject that he thought it was relevant too, so not sure I'll have got his vote. On the plus side, although they touched briefly on the circumstances at the time of the test, they didn't ask me for any evidence as such.

After the meeting, when the Clerk showed me out, he brought the subject up again and tried to "put me right" saying that though a lot of the old Code had been taken out he felt a lot of it was still relevant. TBH he didn't come across as being particularly educated and it did make me wonder whether you have to be of a particular standard of education to be Clerk or whether anyone can apply.

The School's case was, frankly, full of holes and half-truths which I was able to flesh out by asking some pertinent questions (the Chair thanked me at the end for asking the questions as it had increased their understanding of the situation) and at one point the headmaster even admitted that they fully expected some appeals to succeed and could cope with taking in appellants over and above the PAN (albeit subject to more expenditure on equipment), which I thought was a plus point. I also got him to agree that, with the majority of entrants passing the test with a B grade rather than an A grade, it was possible that some of the pupils already on the roll will be at a lower level than my son at the start of year 7, going some way to prove (I hope) that my son is of the required academic standard in addition to the evidence I provided.

I think it therefore hangs on whether they believe my reasons that my son should attend outweigh the reasons why he shouldn't. Guess the agony of waiting will soon be over, though my son wants to open the envelope so it's going to be a day of clock-watching if it does arrive in this morning's post whilst I wait for him to get home

[everything crossed]

Just thought I'd let you know it was a "no". Said prejudice to school of space and recent reduction in Academy funding outweighed prejudice to my son

[Etienne]

So sorry to hear that. You couldn't have done more.

It sounds as if the clerk was very defensive as you left!

If you'd like to copy the decision letter to the Appeals Box, I'd be happy to see if it looks watertight.