Here's an interesting thing. Spotted in the Gloucestershire forum.

The appeals for Ribston finished on Friday of last week, with results coming to parents this week. The school made a very strong case for not admitting any more pupils due to overcrowding of corridors, small classrooms, no extra teaching spaces and the last time they took an extra class the school made a huge loss by the time the cohort had gone through to year 11.

On Monday of this week the new head of the school and the governors, announced that they were consulting on increasing their PAN to 150 from 120. The schools' Presenting Officer at the appeals would have known about this but said at the Grouped Stage 1 that there were no plans to increase the PAN.

I wonder if it counts as the 'significant new information' which would allow parents to request a second appeal (assuming that not all 39 appeals were allowed)?

No expert but how can such a change from - "no plans to increase PAN - no space for more" , to " yes let's have another 25% more students - we'all find space' not be significant.

And of course begs the question, did the presenting officer withhold information or are the school that much of a shambles that they didn't tell the officer..

Although there's a difference between increasing a class from 30 to 35 children and adding an extra class of 30.

Although that makes no difference in the corridors.

Could it be there is a plan to add new classrooms between now and next year?

What position in the school did the Presenting Officer hold?

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

Finance and Facilities Manager, I think. Part of the Senior Leadership Team. At the Group Stage 1 she was asked (I think it was by one of the panel) if there were any plans to increase PAN. She replied that there wasn't, and that they liked to keep the school small to give more care for the girls.

So if a representative of the school lied/accidentally forgot a key fact at the appeal, thereby misleading the panel, either deliberately or inadvertently, where would that leave the appellants?

It might have been that in the three weeks between the Grouped Stage 1 and the last appeal, the governors sub-committee investigated and decided to put forward a proposal to their full governors meeting, which was then agreed on the day of the last appeal and published on the following Monday?

More chance of winning the lottery... so who is putting the FOI request??