Mindthegap appeal

[PettswoodFiona]

In some areas waiting list positions move down (rather than the expected up) after offer day and late applicants and those who add the school to their list of preferences mean those previously on the list are further down on oversubscription criteria. It isn’t some secret strategy either it is mentioned in our borough’s secondary application booklet. Clearly it isn’t ideal to do this so late in the process but people do for a whole variety of reasons and people can quite legitimately apply to any school that they want and they go on the list in oversubscription criteria order that will change and change again as new people are added.

[capers123]

Also the panel were nice enough but didnt seem interested in anything we had to say. I wonder if they had already heard enough appeals that they knew they would have to support as ours was one of the last ones. Found the school representative to be very cold and unfriendly although appreciate its a difficult role to be in.

Hi,

I wasn't on the Ribston panel - I don't know who was - but the panels I sit on do tend to work as hard as possible not to loose interest as the days/weeks go by.

Some parents would counter that the ones heard on the last day stand a better chance as they are fresh in the panels memory. But remembering the appeals I heard this year, they successful ones were pretty well spread out over the days.

School reps vary in approach but each one will be consistent through the set of appeals - if they were not, the panel would become suspicious as to their motives!

Sorry to hear you were not successful. I think Ribston can be quite difficult to win as they have very little extra space to squeeze extra children into - I remember seeing that many years ago as a potential parent.

[capers123]

So this applicant didnt put the school down originally. And if it's a grammar you arent allowed to do that. 12 months ago when we said who we wanted to share our scores with we put every grammar school as we were specifically told you can only apply for schools that you had put down to share your scores with which makes sense as otherwise the rankings would be meaningless. Does this make sense? Not sure how it would be ok to totally bypass this rule?

If they make a late application (by asking to share the scores from the original test), are qualified and their ranking puts them at the top of the waiting list, then when a place becomes available, in they go. It's effectivly the same as moving into the area and taking a late test.