Help: panel received appeal statement for the wrong school
Posted: Fri May 20, 2011 12:15 am
Hello,
I am appealing to two schools and the first appeal is next week. On behalf of the appeal clerk, I have just been sent the documents for the appeal, which have also been sent to all panel members. The problem is that they’ve damn well included the statement for the other school in the pack, instead of the correct one. I called the county appeals team as soon as I noticed - they were mortified and have promised to investigate. They will also contact the panel and ask them to disregard the statement and await the correct one. The appeals team did their best to downplay the possible negative impact of their error.
However… I am pretty angry and extremely concerned this will have greatly prejudiced our case. Although I would probably be happy with either of the two schools under appeal, the arguments used for each are very different. The whole point seems to be arguing that ONLY the school under appeal is suited to your child’s needs – if the panel have seen a detailed conflicting argument for another school, surely the appeal is hugely undermined.
Is this something that the ombudsman might consider maladministration or is it just a blow we’ll have to live with?
Good luck to everyone else - hope you're doing better than me!
I am appealing to two schools and the first appeal is next week. On behalf of the appeal clerk, I have just been sent the documents for the appeal, which have also been sent to all panel members. The problem is that they’ve damn well included the statement for the other school in the pack, instead of the correct one. I called the county appeals team as soon as I noticed - they were mortified and have promised to investigate. They will also contact the panel and ask them to disregard the statement and await the correct one. The appeals team did their best to downplay the possible negative impact of their error.
However… I am pretty angry and extremely concerned this will have greatly prejudiced our case. Although I would probably be happy with either of the two schools under appeal, the arguments used for each are very different. The whole point seems to be arguing that ONLY the school under appeal is suited to your child’s needs – if the panel have seen a detailed conflicting argument for another school, surely the appeal is hugely undermined.
Is this something that the ombudsman might consider maladministration or is it just a blow we’ll have to live with?
Good luck to everyone else - hope you're doing better than me!