Errors made by the admission authority

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mjb77
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:30 am

Errors made by the admission authority

Post by mjb77 »

Sorry if I am posting in the wrong place or even on the wrong forum. My appeal does not relate to an 11+ plus result, although having read all through your faqs this evening I wish I had appealed as a back up plan when my child missed the pass by 3 marks : (

I hope you can help. I'm going round in circles despite searching the net until the early hrs every spare minute of the past two weeks :cry:

We applied for a place for our daughter under the medical/social needs criteria with support from our GP
The LA in it's co-ordinating role lost our supporting paperwork so the application was judged incorrectly under distance and we were too far away to be offered a place
When I pointed out the mistake and referred to 2.7 of the appeal code the LA said that these rules did not apply as the mistake had been made by them and not the school which was the admission authority.
I made the school aware of the mistake on several occasions but at no point did either they or the LA discuss or refer to the supporting evidence (I had kept a stamped dated copy which I scanned to them) and tell me that it wouldn't have supported an application under their rules.
The school have been anything but forthcoming with providing the information I have asked for to help prepare our case (the appeal date is on June 30th) and in a recent email advised me that they didn't have to provide any information and it was up to us to find supporting data independantly. They did respond to a couple of queries but their answers were vague and not what I asked for.

In the information it provided were notes of a meeting that was supposedly held 2 months previously to assess the medical/social needs aspect of our application. They stated that the school panel had ruled against the application on those grounds.

The thing is we were never told about this meeting and this is the first we have seen of the report. Also it hasn't been included in the schools case which I would imagine it should have been?

Finally we feel the information presented to the panel was not accurate and therefore we consider their decision to be flawed. I hope i'm making sense. If not is it ok to send full details to the appeal box (I think that's what it was called).

I do hope you can help. I've looked everywhere for an answer to my questions and have even got to the point where we have considered paying for specialist advice but I don't even think we have time for that! I imagined that I would ask the Admission authority for the info I needed to prepare our case but I didn't anticipate them being so difficult!

Thank you for your time x
Etienne
Posts: 8978
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:26 pm

Re: Errors made by the admission authority

Post by Etienne »

Welcome, mjb77. You're in the right place - we try and help with all school admission appeals here.
When I pointed out the mistake and referred to 2.7 of the appeal code the LA said that these rules did not apply as the mistake had been made by them and not the school which was the admission authority.
Para. 2.7 refers to an error made in applying the admission arrangements. What is clear is that it's the school (as the admission authority) that has to deal with the resulting problem. The issue for them is "Would a place have been offered if the mistake had not been made?" I'm afraid it's far from easy to get a place under the 'exceptional medical/social needs' criterion (a) because the need has to be exceptional, and (b) because the school you want has to be more or less the only school that can cope with the problem.
I had kept a stamped dated copy
Well done! If only everyone was as careful!
The school have been anything but forthcoming with providing the information I have asked for to help prepare our case (the appeal date is on June 30th) and in a recent email advised me that they didn't have to provide any information and it was up to us to find supporting data independantly.
As far as I can see, the school do have to respond to questions about how they handled the application, but supporting data (if that means your child's medical needs) is certainly a matter for you.
this is the first we have seen of the report. Also it hasn't been included in the schools case which I would imagine it should have been?
Yes, I would have thought so.
Finally we feel the information presented to the panel was not accurate and therefore we consider their decision to be flawed.
This is something you can explain to the appeal panel.

The appeal panel will look at two issues:
(1) whether there was an error in the handling of the application, and your child would have got a place had the error not been made. (There seems to be no problem with the first part (establishing that an error was made), but the second part (that your child would have been offered a place) won't be easy for the reasons I gave above - (a) the need has to be exceptional, and (b) the school has to be more or less the only school that can cope with the problem.)
(2) whether your child's need for a place at the school outweighs any prejudice to the school if they have to exceed their admission number. (This is actually an easier test than the 'exceptional medical/social criterion'.) Don't worry about 'prejudice' (the school's case) - just focus on why a place at the school would mean so much to you and your daughter.
Etienne
Snowdrops
Posts: 4667
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:20 pm

Re: Errors made by the admission authority

Post by Snowdrops »

mjb77 wrote: My appeal does not relate to an 11+ plus result, although having read all through your faqs this evening I wish I had appealed as a back up plan when my child missed the pass by 3 marks : (

Sorry to butt in Etienne (excellent advice from Etienne as always) but I think the non-qualification also needs to be addressed?
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mjb77
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:30 am

Re: Errors made by the admission authority

Post by mjb77 »

Etienne wrote:Welcome, mjb77. You're in the right place - we try and help with all school admission appeals here. You don't know what a relief it is to read those words! Thank you :)
When I pointed out the mistake and referred to 2.7 of the appeal code the LA said that these rules did not apply as the mistake had been made by them and not the school which was the admission authority.
Para. 2.7 refers to an error made in applying the admission arrangements. What is clear is that it's the school (as the admission authority) that has to deal with the resulting problem. The issue for them is "Would a place have been offered if the mistake had not been made?" I'm afraid it's far from easy to get a place under the 'exceptional medical/social needs' criterion (a) because the need has to be exceptional, and (b) because the school you want has to be more or less the only school that can cope with the problem. It is the only school that can meet the families needs - would it be at all possible to send you details of the medical social need privately for your opinion?
I had kept a stamped dated copy
Well done! If only everyone was as careful!
The school have been anything but forthcoming with providing the information I have asked for to help prepare our case (the appeal date is on June 30th) and in a recent email advised me that they didn't have to provide any information and it was up to us to find supporting data independantly.
As far as I can see, the school do have to respond to questions about how they handled the application, but supporting data (if that means your child's medical needs) is certainly a matter for you. It wasn't supporting data - it was things such as no's on the roll, teachers and their status, etc etc. Should I have been looking somewhere else for this kind of info?
this is the first we have seen of the report. Also it hasn't been included in the schools case which I would imagine it should have been?
Yes, I would have thought so. Just to check, on June 2nd I received details of the appeal hearing and included with it was info from the school. It referred to the predudice but wasn't particulaly thorough at all. Is this the schools case or will they send something else nearer the appeal date? I didn't think they were allowed to produce new info at the hearing but can they bring other personal notes to enable them to support this verbally?

Finally we feel the information presented to the panel was not accurate and therefore we consider their decision to be flawed.
This is something you can explain to the appeal panel. Should we point it out in the written case or just wait until the hearing to raise it? If it isn't in their case and we obviously want to refer to it in the hearing should we submit a copy of their report with our evidence?

The appeal panel will look at two issues:
(1) whether there was an error in the handling of the application, and your child would have got a place had the error not been made. (There seems to be no problem with the first part (establishing that an error was made), but the second part (that your child would have been offered a place) won't be easy for the reasons I gave above - (a) the need has to be exceptional, and (b) the school has to be more or less the only school that can cope with the problem.)
(2) whether your child's need for a place at the school outweighs any prejudice to the school if they have to exceed their admission number. (This is actually an easier test than the 'exceptional medical/social criterion'.) Don't worry about 'prejudice' (the school's case) - just focus on why a place at the school would mean so much to you and your daughter.
So we shouldn't bother with trying to prove that the school can cope with numbers above the Pan without effecting results, based on previous years statistics?

Thanks so much mjb
Etienne
Posts: 8978
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:26 pm

Re: Errors made by the admission authority

Post by Etienne »

I'm grateful to Snowdrops for raising the point above.

I did wonder about it, but in the end thought - perhaps wrongly - it referred to another child.

Could you confirm, mjb77, whether this is a secondary school (a comprehensive perhaps?) where the only issue is oversubscription?
Etienne
mjb77
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:30 am

Re: Errors made by the admission authority

Post by mjb77 »

Hi Etienne - i'm not sure what you mean by the only issue being over subscription? Please can you explain. The school uses banding to allocate places to DD had to take a test which she did.
Etienne wrote:I'm grateful to Snowdrops for raising the point above.

I did wonder about it, but in the end thought - perhaps wrongly - it referred to another child.

Could you confirm, mjb77, whether this is a secondary school (a comprehensive perhaps?) where the only issue is oversubscription?
Etienne
Posts: 8978
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:26 pm

Re: Errors made by the admission authority

Post by Etienne »

We're just checking that the only issue is that there were more applications for the school than places, so the admission rules (admission criteria) had to be used to decide which applications were successful. (If this was a grammar school, for example, there'd also be the issue of whether your daughter had passed the 11+ selection test.)

I'll be moving on to your other questions, but you're welcome to email the confidential information to the Appeals Box.
Etienne
mjb77
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:30 am

Re: Errors made by the admission authority

Post by mjb77 »

Thanks Etienne - yes they were over subscribed 8 to 1 so the admission criteria was applied.
I have sent the confidential info to the appeals box. :)
Etienne wrote:We're just checking that the only issue is that there were more applications for the school than places, so the admission rules (admission criteria) had to be used to decide which applications were successful. (If this was a grammar school, for example, there'd also be the issue of whether your daughter had passed the 11+ selection test.)

I'll be moving on to your other questions, but you're welcome to email the confidential information to the Appeals Box.
mjb77
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:30 am

Re: Errors made by the admission authority

Post by mjb77 »

A question I just thought of Etienne - with appeals such as ours is it of benefit to have a supporting letter from the childs class teacher pointing out while the school would suit the child (just missed 11+ school very high achieving, allocated school on a par with local comp) or would this detract from the medical/social grounds which are obviously the main focus of our case?
Snowdrops
Posts: 4667
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:20 pm

Re: Errors made by the admission authority

Post by Snowdrops »

mjb, I'm very confused - I think I may be reading your posts wrong, can you clarify for me please:

Are you saying you are appealing for a grammar school or a comprehensive/secondary school?

If you are appealing for a grammar school place has your dd passed the 11+?
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