accept or refuse place

[Guest]

Does it affect your appeal if you accept a place at another school. Appeal panel members are human after all, won't they be swayed by the fact that you have accepted a school and don't need the one you are appealing for.

We are being put under tremendous pressure to accept a place at a school but are still waiting to appeal for another school.

It's strange how they say that if you don't accept you will not lose your place until you can show that you have adequate arrangements for your child, but then in reality if you don't accept they tell you that you will lose your place as they need to fill all places.

[Sally-Anne]

Hi Guest

The panel's judgement should not be affected by the fact that you have accepted a place at another school, particularly if you highlight to them that it is only your second or fallback option. Just explain the pressure - and if the pressure is being applied in writing, take the letter along with you and offer it up as evidence.

Meanwhile, write to Admissions to accept the place provisionally, explaining that it is dependent on the outcome of your Appeal. That should give you a bit of breathing space!

Without knowing more details on where you live and the type of Appeal it is difficult to advise more specifically, but that is my initial reaction.

Sally-Anne

[Guest]

Thanks Sally-Anne.

What would happen if I accepted it? Would my appeal be stopped?

[Guest]

The reason I ask is because the school virtually forced us to say yes on the phone saying that they had to fill the place or offer it elsewhere and were desperate to sort things out. We did say we had 14 days to decide but they pressed in hard and we said yes...we have not however accepted it on paper with the LA...

Can anyone tell us if appeal panels asked them about what they would do if they didn't win their appeal...

[capers123]

Can anyone tell us if appeal panels asked them about what they would do if they didn't win their appeal...

One member of my panel does ask this occasionally, mainly out of interest. It has never swayed our 'verdict' on an appeal, although I can remember one time that we felt very strongly the child would be better at the school offered.

The appeal was something like this: Child had done poorly in the exam. Parent wanted child to go to this school because: 1) said parent had been there, 2) they thought that a single sex school would be good for discipline, 3) excellent sports record of school, 4) many of the other children from their posh neighbourhood were going there. No reason the child had done badly on the day.

The reports from the current school described a child who was excellent at music, pretty good at drama and academically pretty average (SATS: 4, 4, 4).

The school the child had been offered was a mixed school with Performing Arts specialism.

The appeal failed.

We hoped the child ended up at their allocated school rather than being sent to another inappropriate school. Of course, we'll never know.

It would be great to know how & where the children affected by our decisions end up - some feedback after a few years, or even the following year.

Capers

[Guest]

I can understand why you thought a performing arts school would be good for a child with high music ability but if you had 2 children with equal academic ability and one was particularly good at music, would that child be disadvantaged for being good at music and lose out to the other child withour music ability for the grammar school place?
I just wonder because I think it works the other way round too. As soon as my son's school found out he had a place at grammar, he seemed to be left out of opportunites for sport and music for the rest of the year at primary (only 3 out of 30 boys got selected for grammar). Not that I was bitter. He now has amazing opportunities for sport and music at secondary. He was rather pigeon-holed though.

[capers123]

I can understand why you thought a performing arts school would be good for a child with high music ability but if you had 2 children with equal academic ability and one was particularly good at music, would that child be disadvantaged for being good at music and lose out to the other child withour music ability for the grammar school place?

The appeal I mentioned was turned down on 'no reason the child could have done better on the day'.

If we had two children, equally good academically, and there was only 1 physical space we could squeeze them into, we would have to find some way to choose. If one child showed an exeptional talent - be it music, sport, creative writing - whatever, I would be likely to choose that child.

I often make a note on my summary notes of any major talents the child may have just in case such a situation arose - but if it did, we'd be re-examining both sets of appeal papers, the clerks notes and our own, just to make sure we didn't miss anything.

Ater each appeal, I also tended to make a note of if I though the appeal should be allowed (Yes, Possible+, Possible, Possible-, No) - but we always go through all the appeals after we've heard the last one, and sometimes my views on a 'no-hoper' will change. One appeal was a 'Possible-' yet after a full & frank discussion, we allowed the appeal.

[Appeal Mum]

It's also worth noting that, just because there is a place available doesn't mean it will be allocated.

That appeal must still be worthy of a place, on the same foot the panel might find that both are worthy and allocate 2 places.

The final say is always down to the panel and what they advise must be adhered to by the local authority and school concerned.

I wish you all the luck in the world..

Am