If you have had an appeal in the last year or so, would you please consider posting a report here? All contributions welcome - even more so if you are in an area where not much local information gets posted. This could prove to be an invaluable resource for other parents in future.

Suggested format:
(Please copy the headings below, and paste in to your own post. Don't worry if the colour blue is lost in the process - the questions are now numbered, which should make things clearer. It's not necessary to answer every question, but the more information the better!)

• 1. Local Authority area in which the appeal took place:

• 2. What you were appealing against?
• a. non-qualification only?
• b. oversubscription only?
• c. both non-qualification and oversubscription?

• 3. Name of school you were appealing for:


• 4. Was this a school where the governors are the admission authority?
(e.g. academy, foundation or voluntary aided)

• 5. Approx. date of appeal hearing:

• 6. How many days in advance of the hearing, including weekends, did you receive the case papers?

• 7. Where was the appeal held?
(e.g. council offices)

• 8a. Did your individual hearing start more or less on time?

• 8b. If not, how late was it in starting?

• 9. Do you know what sort of independent appeal panel you had? For example:
• a. A panel appointed by the Local Authority? - because it's dealing with a community school for which the LA is the admission authority.
• b. A panel appointed by the school? - because it's an academy, foundation or VA school where the governors are the admission authority.
• c. A Local Authority appointed panel acting at the request of the school? - because it's an academy, foundation or VA school where the governors are the admission authority, and they 'hired' a panel from the LA.
• d. Some other panel acting at the request of the school? - because it's an academy, foundation or VA school where the governors are the admission authority, and they 'hired' a panel not from the LA but from a commercial organisation, charity, or some other body.

• 10. Who was on the panel?
(if you were told, e.g. a retired teacher, a businessman, and school governor - no names, please.)


• 11. Was there a group hearing?
(This is where stage 1 - the LA or school case - is presented to all the parents as a group)

• 12. Did the appeal follow the recommended order of business?
• a. the case for the admission authority;
• b. questioning by the appellants and panel
• c. the case for the appellants;
• d. questioning by the admission authority and panel;
• e. summing up by the admission authority; and
• f. summing up by the appellants.

• 13a. Had your case already been considered by a Review Panel?
(sometimes applies to non-qualification)

• 13b. If so, were you told that, because your case had already been reviewed, the only issue for the appeal panel was whether the review had been conducted properly?

• 14. What questions were you asked about your case?



• 15. What were the panel like?
(e.g. Were they friendly? polite? considerate?)

• 16. As far as you know, was the representative of the admission authority left alone with the panel at any point in time? (It's acceptable for the representative to be waiting outside the room, but he/she must not be already in the room with the panel when you arrive, or remain in the room with the panel when you leave.)

• 17. Were you asked at the end of the hearing whether you had had sufficient time to state your case (or words to that effect)?

• 18. Did you feel rushed?

• 19. How long did the hearing last?
(excluding the group hearing, if there was one)

• 20. Were you told you could telephone for the decision?
(most authorities do not allow this, although some do)

• 21. If you have the result, was your appeal successful?

• 22. How long did you have to wait for the decision, including weekends?

• 23. Success rates for appeals for this school (if applicable, and if known):
• a. on this occasion

• b. in previous years


• 24. Any other comments:





If your appeal has yet to take place, please would you consider posting a report at the appropriate time?

Thank you!

_________________
Etienne

Hi,

As promised, I will post my experience of my appeal for SG which was successful. I will try and include some of the suggestions that Etteine made so here goes.

DD appeal was for SG for non qualification. DD failed to qualify by 1 point with a score of 110. This consisted of NVR 114, Maths 114 and VR of 101.

My original submission was 4 pages in length. This was accompanied by documentary evidence. I produced further evidence on the day of the hearing. This evidence included a letter of support from our headteacher, this was not included in the original documentation, a very recent letter from DDs class teacher showing what DDs current reading age was. It is definitely worth asking your child's class teacher to do a recent test. If your child is more than a year ahead, get it in writing.

The appeal hearing took place on 03/03/09 and the appeal was held in a Methodist Church in Slough. I strongly advice anyone who has an appeal hearing in the evening in the dark to take a trial run to the venue beforehand to establish where the building is and where the parking is.

The panel was an independent panel accompanied by a rep from the school.

I was accompanied by my husband. We had already agreed that I was best suited to do the presentation as I had written the original appeal (which I knew like the back of my hand). We arrived 15 minutes early. As soon as we walked through the door into the waiting area we were told that the panel were ready for us. This threw me straight away as it was a filthy night outside, pouring with rain and very windy. This meant that we walked into the room looking windswept and no time to compose ourselves before the appeal.

The chairperson introduced everyone in the room to us. This included the 3 members of the panel, the school rep and the appeals clerk. After the introductions we were invited to put our case.

Our case wasn't very long. I split the case into 2 sections. Firstly why we wanted that particular school for DD and then the academic evidence followed by our mitigating circumstances (which were weak).

I chose to concentrate on why we wanted that particular school first as I felt that this was the strongest part of our case. I had already gone into some detail in the original submission on why we wanted SG in particular so I expanded on this without repeating too much of what I had written in the original appeal.

Next came the academic evidence. I had already provided evidence of DDs predicted sats results and her KS1 sats results. This showed consistency of being ahead academically. On the day I produced proof of reading age and very recent results of tests done in school which showed high L5s in two subjects. I had been advised by a friend that there was no point in taking pieces of school work in therefore I did not provide this kind of evidence. I believed that if the panel were lay people they would not be trained to know the difference in L4 and L5 piece of work. I was wrong, as one of the panel was an educational specialist. I was open and frank as to why I hadn't brought any work in and this was accepted. I would suggest anyone appealing at the moment to take good school work in. In addition if the child has already sat the mock sats and has done well, get it in writing and produce at the appeal. I did bring up the subject that DD was not privately tutored apart from test papers I had bought from WHSmiths. I used the experience that I had already gone through with a DS already in Tiffin school.

Next came the mitigating circumstances. These were quite weak as we didn't have strong mitigating circumstances. DD did miss two days of school a few days prior to the tests so I produced proof of this. I explained why DD was not taken to the doctors and why she sat the tests even though she was not fully recovered.

Finally I expanded on some of the points I had put in my original submission on DDs character and what she was contributing to her current school, e.g school council rep, librarian, peer mediator etc.. I gave a couple of strong examples of things DD had achieved.

I was not interrupted with questions during the presentation and I did not feel rushed. My speech took appropriately 5-7 minutes.

Following my speech we were asked a few questions, some of which my husband answered. The questions included:

1. Did we speak any other languages at home? This question was asked due to my emphasising that we wanted SG because of it's Language status.

2. Why was her VR score so low? We were honest about this one and said that we had no idea and emphasised what evidence we had provided to show that this was totally unpredicted.

3. Did we apply for any other Grammar schools? We answered no to this and explained why not. Within this answer we covered how DS would get to school given that we lived out of the area.

4. Why did DS sit the test if she had been unwell prior to the tests? Again we answered this as honestly as we could.

5. Two questions were asked about DSs achievements on the school council?

Finally the school rep put the schools case (which took about 10 seconds)

That was our appeal in a nutshell.

I would give the following advice to anyone about to go through the appeal process:

a) Don't go on your own.
b) Arrive at least 20 minutes early so you have time to compose yourself and may earn you some brownie points if you agree to go in early and not keep the panel waiting.
c) Write your presentation down - Until you are in front of the panel you don't realise how nerve wracking it's going to be.
d) Ensure your partner has a copy of your speech so can help/take over if you stumble.
e) Practice, Practice Practice your speech in advance.
f) If presenting any new written evidence on the day ensure you have a minimum of 5 copies. 1 each for the panel members, one for the school rep and one for the appeals clerk.
g) Try and anticipate questions in advance and have answers ready.
h) Ensure you make continuous eye contact with everyone.

We were told by the panel that we would have to wait until the end of March for the result due to the volume of appeals being heard. We asked if our appeal would be prejudiced by the fact that the school allocations had been issued on that same day. We were informed that if would make no difference. Indecently, we were not asked what would happen if DS was not offered a place, probably as the school allocations had come out the same day.

We didn't find the experience that traumatic, the panel were friendly and we found the atmosphere very informal.

Hope this helps and I hope you didn't find it too long winded.

Hi All,

Good luck to all of you who are thinking of going for an appeal. I hope my experience helps.

Many thanks to all on the forum for their help.

Regards

Nayna

-Berkshire authority
-My DS appeal was for non qualification. Failed by 1 mark
-Slough Grammar
-Hearing took place Feb09
-Rec'd case papers 7 days before hearing
-Appeal was held in St Andrews Methodist Church in Slough
-The hearing started on time
-The panel were VA school panel
-The panel introduced themselves and then the case for the school was heard which was over in 2 minutes
-Then it was my turn. I was on my own because my husband was away on business.
-I made copies of my presentation and gave them to the Clerk of Appeal
-The presentation I made is as follows

Presentation

Good evening my name *****and I am here on behalf of my son ******


Non-Eligibility

As per my letter my son had a shortfall of 1 mark, which made him ineligible to be considered for Slough Grammar. I am really surprised he failed

During the period that DS has been studying for these tests, he has managed to maintain his focus whilst having to deal with the stress of moving house. Throughout this time, he has remained committed to studying for these tests. Even though my husband travels a lot due to work commitments, and I am in full time work, DS has proved himself to be very self motivated. I feel that if, as parents we had been able to give him more of our support we are confident that his abilities would be fully reflected in his results.

DS Verbal Reasoning results lowered his overall score, which surprised us, as at home he was consistently passing practice papers with scores of 85% and above. One thing I do remember vividly was DS feedback on completing the test. He was thrown by the fact that he was not allowed to write on the exam paper which is not what he was accustomed to. Therefore he said it took a bit more time.

Another reason for our surprise is that we know that DS has a real love of reading and so although some of the language he came across through his VR practice was alien to him, as he would not have come across it either at home or at school, we felt confident that his interest in reading beyond his age (13) would carry him through. Examples of books read include Shakespeare, Michael Morpugo, Spiderwick Chronicles etc


In addition, we felt DS’s weaker subject was Maths and this is the area on which we concentrated.

Academic

-DS’s headmaster, Mr ***** believes he has the potential and ability to succeed at Grammar school, he is predicted to get Level 5’s in the core subjects, is a determined learner and is not afraid of challenging work. Although Mr ***** does not personally advocate Grammar Schools, he was happy to support DS in his endeavours.

-He is in the top sets in Maths and English

-I sent in copies of his Year 5/6 work, which illustrate DS’s positive attitude to learning as mentioned in his reports. For example, he has been given certificates for his effort and has been sent around the school to show all the teachers his work. He likes his work to be special and is often willing to give up his playtimes in order to make it so. (Appendix 3- Spider and the Fly). He is particularly proud to have had a poem published. As parents we noticed this to be a turning point in his attitude towards learning.

-DS has taken on board the feedback from his Year 5 teacher and has become more focused in Year 6. This has come through in the teacher’s comments on his work. (Appendix 3 has examples). In his Yr5 report it is mentioned that he is aware of the more complex historical events. A year on DS interest in history has meant that he no longer gets up early to watch football but the history channel. He is especially interested in World War II documentaries as well as Romans, Vikings, Genghis Khan etc. This is reflected in reading material and games (ie Michael Morpugo books). He is still an ordinary boy with interest in sports.


Why Slough Grammar?

As mentioned in my letter DS is interested in languages. He is working towards a GCSE in Hindi, and is doing well in French. Just recently he got 15 house points for conversational French. Both my husband and I work for international companies and know that languages are important. Slough Grammar offers a wider variety of languages than most schools.


Summary

DS has been studying for these tests through a lot of family upheaval, and regardless of the outcome, he has done himself and us proud. He is self-motivated and works hard because he enjoys it and now better understands the rewards that hard work can bring. Slough Grammar is an ideal environment for DS, he will thrive in a place where his peers will bring out his competitive spirit, and where his inquisitive nature will be nurtured. He is looking for a school that looks for high expectations from him and is supported through effective teaching.

Many thanks for your time and hope that this appeal has a positive outcome

Link to questions they asked me at appeal hearing

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/11plus/viewtopic.php?t=9164

Our appeal for our DS was held at the end of March for a Wirral GS. We were appealing against non-qualification (DS missed out by 4 marks). We were told the appeal panel were independent, not local authority. DS's headteacher had already referred his case to the IAB but this was unsuccessful.

After the LEA representative had made a statement of why DS was refused a place at GS we presented our case, which included all the relevant academic information we could find - predicted 5s in upcoming SATs, high reading & spelling ages, full list of consistently good results throughout primary school which was provided by the headteacher, plus details of other activities that he had been involved in at the school. We also presented mitigating circumstances that had impacted on his performance at the 11+.

The panel then asked us about DS interests outside of school, how he had seemed after the exams and whether he had finished each exam (he didn't). We were then given the chance to sum up our case and that was it - all over in about 25 minutes although it felt like just 5!

The panel were very kind and made the whole experience much less scary than we had expected. We were told that we would find out the result by letter within 10 days.

The letter arrived 9 days later and the appeal was upheld!

Dear Etienne, please find below some feedback for Wirral

Name of Local Authority:
Wirral

What you were appealing against:
c. both non-qualification and oversubscription? DD missed passmark by 2 marks (1 question)

Name of school you were appealing for:
Wirral Grammar School for Girls

Was this an own-admission authority school:
No

Approx. date of appeal hearing:
27 April 2009

How many days in advance of the hearing did you receive the case papers?
Did not receive case papers. Received statement 18 days prior to hearing if that's what you mean??

Where was the appeal held?
council offices

Did your hearing start more or less on time?
Yes

What sort of panel did you have?
a. A Local Authority panel

Who was on the panel?
Unknown

Was there a group hearing?
Yes

Did the appeal follow the recommended order of business?
No

Had your case already been considered by a Review Panel?
Case reviewed by Independent Assessment Board (no parental representation), not told only issue for appeal panel was whether the review had been conducted properly.

What questions were you asked about your case?
Asked if DD finished test
Asked about outside interests
Asked about DD's career choices after leaving school!
Asked about academic ability, suggested level 5 Sats not good enough
Lots of 'filler' questions.

What were the panel like?
friendly but uninterested

Was the representative of the admission authority left alone Yes

Were you asked at the end of the hearing whether you had had sufficient time to state your case (or words to that effect)?
No

Did you feel rushed?
In hindsight, we don't feel we were given enough opportunity to discuss our mitigating circumstances

How long did the hearing last?
15 minutes

Were you allowed to telephone for the decision?
Yes but was not informed of this. Telephoned after 7 days of waiting for a decision letter

If you have the result, was your appeal successful?
No

How long did you have to wait for the decision?
9 Days

Any other comments:
Very stressful experience

Not my child, but the child of a friend. Southend High School for Boys has a passmark of 303 and took children with 313 or above this year. Very few children are accepted on appeal, last year only 1 successful. Locally it is thought that unless a child has missed by one or two points then they have little chance no matter what the circumstances. I have just had a phone call from a friend to let me know that if the case is good enough then even a score as low as 272 (VR was very poor, English and maths very high) it is possible to get in on appeal. Home circumstances were dreadful at the time of the exam and the report submitted for appeal was long and detailed. I will edit with more detail, but this case does show that there is always hope. I know of several parents who did not appeal as they thought they would not be successful.

Our appeal was for oversubscription.....
Wilmington Grammar school Boys
over 100 appeals only 7 upheld.

Panel: 3 gentlemen (very smiley, made us feel less nervous)

our son has a medical condition, which doesn't affect him acadamically however he has regular appointments (2x month) at 4 different hospitals.
we had a letter's from consultants and G.P to support us. (we did not want base our appeal on his medical condition)???????????????

the panel introduced themselves and they explained the reason for our son not getting a place at WGSB.
the headteacher said she did not want to take any more boys on due to capacity 120 spaces filled (health and safety) strain on staff and that school resources were not sufficient for more students.
The panel then asked the Headteacer if they have had health and safety issues at the school due to overcrowding, she said "no not yet, all our boys are responsible". They also asked her the sizes of class rooms. (she gave exact measurements)
They told us that our appeal letters were very to the point and our appeal was easy to follow (all that hard work paid off!) but if we wanted to add anything we can......
we told them that: we wanted a single sex school for our son.
we asked why out of county children sat the Kent 11+ in one morning, but Kent children sat tests over two days. (no answer was given)
the school provides a private school bus service which picks and drops off boys from where we live, this i said would help son to get home safely in time for his next dose of medication.
we had supporting letter from my sister in law who lives 2mins from WGSB, to say if need (health issues)son could go to her house.
our son is 1 of triplets, 6 weeks premature and despite a chronic health condition he copes admirably and still attains a high level of educational achievement.
on gifted and talented register.
he is expected to have high 5's in his core subjects....in which they replied we don't want to hear of his ability as he has already passed his 11+ and supporting letter from headteacher (to that i replied he has not had tuition or been to prep school, he writes to overcome his condition.)
just for extra's i added he always wakes up witha smile and goes to bed with a smile (the panel smiled at us..........ahhhhhhhhhhh)
the head teacher of WGSB then asked us how sons condition will affect him at school and what exactly was wrong with him. isaid have you read all the medical notes in the appeal file (she sort of blushed), i then went on to explain health condition and operation my son will we having in great detail.....she looked sad for us.
she then asked how our son felt about not getting a grammar school, we said he feels upset, let down and punished!
i tried to stay calm and spoke clearly. we finished off by saying we liked the atmosphere the school on open day, we felt that our son would be happy there.
we made a list of our sons interests sports, books etc
i made a point of saying how he shows consideration to children and adults with any disabilities as he feels that he can understand and relate to them.
it all lasted 45mins
the chairman summed up the case and we were given a chance to add anthing if we wanted to. (we didn't)
they explained it would take 1 week for the outcome of our appeal. we shook hands and thanked the appeal panel for their time.
i have to stress as soon as we sat down they made it clear they did not want to hear of our sons ability (of which we were reminded 3 times throughout the appeal!)
hope this helps......

I appealed a place at Dame Alice Owen School for my child, and was unsuccessful but thought I'd share the experience with everyone.

The clerk was friendly and caring, the panel were friendly and professional.

The school sent a representative and a witness, the representative stated the case for the school, and all the questions the panel asked were answered by the witness. There was a question to the school about the number of children at each score level on the music aptitude test, the witness did not have the information, a panel member suggested what it might be and the witness agreed. The school were asked what measures were in place to allow children to sit the test later if circumstances were challenging, the witness explained there was an opportunity. Part of my appeal was that my child had attended a funeral of a close relative the day before the exams started, the witness for the school said sitting the exam later might be considered in the case of a parent or sibling's death.

I read my statement and gave a copy to the clerk.
I was quizzed as to whether I had visited the school my child has been offered, the question was repeated. It's hard to be believe that the panel would think I had not visited every school on the CAF.
I was asked where my other child went to school and surprise was expressed when I told the panel and that it was not a good experience.
I was asked how my child had been after the tests - I explained that my child had been quiet.
I submitted support from my child's current headteacher, music teacher and foreign language teacher because I was appealing for the school on the grounds that the school is a specialist language and music college and my child has an obvious aptitude in these areas.

I was very anxious during the whole process and cried all the way home.
I am glad I tried but it is an unhappy result. My only advice to any parent contemplating an appeal is: don't be left forever thinking would I have succeeded if I had tried having not done it.

Rover

Name of Local Authority:
Buckinghamshire

What you were appealing against
b. oversubscription only

Name of school you were appealing for:
Royal Latin School

Was this an own-admission authority school:
No

Approx. date of appeal hearing:
May/June 2009

How many days in advance of the hearing did you receive the case papers?
About 10 working days

Where was the appeal held?
Council headquarters

Did your hearing start more or less on time?
Yes, only about 10 minutes late for both stages

If not, how late was it in starting?

What sort of panel did you have?
a. A Local Authority panel?

Who was on the panel?
(Chartered accountant, retired teacher, school governor.)

Was there a group hearing?
Yes

Did the appeal follow the recommended order of business?
a. the case for the admission authority;
b. questioning by the appellants and panel
c. the case for the appellants;
d. questioning by the admission authority and panel;
e. summing up by the admission authority; and
f. summing up by the appellants.
Yes

Had your case already been considered by a Review Panel?
No

If so, were you told that, because your case had already been reviewed, the only issue for the appeal panel was whether the review had been conducted properly?

What questions were you asked about your case?
How many siblings are there and what are their ages?
What kind of after-school activities are they involved in?
Do you both work?
How did the child concerned feel when she was refused a place?
How did her older sister feel?

What were the panel like?
Polite, friendly and sympathetic.

Was the representative of the admission authority left alone with the panel at any point in time?
No – in fact we were called back into the room at the end of stage 2 because he was still gathering his papers as we were leaving the room!

Were you asked at the end of the hearing whether you had had sufficient time to state your case (or words to that effect)?
Yes

Did you feel rushed?
No

How long did the hearing last?
About 35 minutes

Were you allowed to telephone for the decision?
No

If you have the result, was your appeal successful?
Yes!

How long did you have to wait for the decision?
5 days

Success rates for appeals at this school (if known):
5 successful oversubscription appeals last year, don’t know how many others this year but unlikely to be as many since the PAN has been increased by 6 since last year.

Any other comments:
Our case was rather complex since our younger child was refused a place on the basis that she was not considered to be a sibling following a change in the oversubscription rules the year after her older sister had started at the school. The older daughter is about to enter the 6th form in Sep. 2009 and therefore did not confer sibling status when places were allocated. However, we had evidence suggesting that the change in this particular rule had been incorrectly handled and were prepared to take our case to the LGO and/or schools adjudicator should the appeal have failed. Now that the euphoria of winning the appeal has subsided (although we are still absolutely delighted about it) I still can’t help feeling angry that we were put through five years of uncertainty over this issue. Our elder daughter’s entire time at the school so far has been overshadowed by the knowledge that we would probably have to go to appeal for her sister to be admitted. Thankfully the Independent Appeal Panel saw the sense in our arguments and appeared to pick up on the illogicality and inconsistency of the LA’s arrangements relating to 6th form siblings, and they allowed our appeal after we put forward what we felt to be a strong case outlining why the school was the best one for our younger daughter. We focused on three main areas: the fact that we considered our daughter to be her sister’s sibling even if the LA didn’t, her aptitude for the school’s specialist subject coupled with her academic ability which would be well catered for by the school, and the difficulties I would face after school hours in transporting several children to their various activities from a number of different schools. I was completely honest in stating that mornings would not present any problem, just afternoons.
We are glad that it is all over now, though, and just want to put it behind us.

_________________
Marylou

As requested, I've completed a feedback for you. Not sure if you wanted it on this board though!

Name of Local Authority:
Lincolshire Education Authority

What you were appealing against:
non-qualification only

Name of school you were appealing for:
Boston Grammar Federation

Was this an own-admission authority school:
No

Approx. date of appeal hearing:
June 25 2009

How many days in advance of the hearing did you receive the case papers?
11 days

Where was the appeal held?
Boston Conference Centre (part of Boston College)

Did your hearing start more or less on time?

If not, how late was it in starting?

What sort of panel did you have?
A Local Authority panel?

Who was on the panel?
Head of panel was described as 'lay' and the other two were from the education sector

Was there a group hearing?
No

Did the appeal follow the recommended order of business?
Yes

Had your case already been considered by a Review Panel?
No

What questions were you asked about your case?
We were asked a lot! Questions that I remember were 'Tell us something about your son that none of this paperwork can tell us', ' What does your son read?', 'Which school does your son want to go to and why?'

What were the panel like?
Friendly, interested in what we had to say, professional, openly critical of school representative at one point.

Was the representative of the admission authority left alone with the panel at any point in time?
No

Were you asked at the end of the hearing whether you had had sufficient time to state your case (or words to that effect)?
Yes

Did you feel rushed?
No

How long did the hearing last?
About 30-40 mins

Were you allowed to telephone for the decision?
No

If you have the result, was your appeal successful?
Yes

How long did you have to wait for the decision?
9 days

Success rates for appeals at this school (if known):
Not sure. I know they had 37 appeals this year

Any other comments:
Whilst the appeal was a battle of paperwork and a felt a bit like David vs Goliath, I am truly pleased we persevered and would encourage all parents to fight their child's corner. However, be prepared for an emotional roller coaster! Very Happy