Help with primary in-year admission school appeal

Eleven Plus (11+) in Gloucestershire (Glos)

Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators

Post Reply
11 Plus Platform - Online Practice Makes Perfect - Try Now
Marl
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:23 pm

Help with primary in-year admission school appeal

Post by Marl »

Hi, I'm wondering if any of you can offer any input on in-year primary school appeals please?

We are returning to Gloucestershire after a few years away, DS1 has a secondary place and we are therefore moving our Reception DS2 to a new school. Our nearest school is .2 of a mile from our house i.e. ideal! It currently has a set number of 27 students per class, so is not over infant class size numbers but is restricted on that basis. They have other year groups with 29 and 30 in a class but the school have said that the local authority reassessed and changed their pupil numbers last year - the implication from the school is that they would be happy to accept our son, but it has to go through appeal and the school don't have a choice to be able to accept at this point - it's the LA and appeal panel. At the moment I have written our appeal on a variety of reasons which seem to me wholly reasonable from a family point of view, but might be minor and irritating to an appeal panel. Do any of you have experience of this? There are no special needs issues etc, so I'm merely talking about distance (no other schools within less than two miles walking distance with places available...though it seems the LA admissions team draw a straight line which is less than helpful and would leave us with 2 schools that I'd prefer DS2 not to go to!), settling in the community and having local friends, DS3 will go to his catchment school once he reaches 5 so we would continue to wait for a place for DS2 who would then have attended 3 primary schools - not ideal. The class size limitation seems odd to me since there is lots of space compared to our current primary school which takes numbers above 27.

I'd really appreciate any help anyone might have.
Sally-Anne
Posts: 9235
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: Help with primary in-year admission school appeal

Post by Sally-Anne »

Do any of you have experience of this?
Yes, and oddly enough it was for a Glos primary with the same admission number. I almost wonder if it is the same school?!
Our nearest school is .2 of a mile from our house i.e. ideal! It currently has a set number of 27 students per class, so is not over infant class size numbers but is restricted on that basis.
Unless the school has demolished buildings or lost the use of some buildings, what has happened is that their "Net Capacity Assessment" has been reviewed. If you look at these threads by Etienne you will find some interesting points about Net Capacity, in particular in regard to older schools being assessed as if they were modern buildings. There are rather a lot of them - sorry about that, but you will feel better informed at the end of reading them! :lol: : http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... mit=Search" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There are plenty of arguments against a PAN (Planned Admission Number) of 27 - such things as school books coming in packs of 10, for example. However, in broad terms it is for the panel to raise those issues rather than you as the parent. Probably the only point for you to make is "If the school coped with 29 or 30 pupils in the past, what has changed other than that someone has sat down with a calculator and decided on a different number?" The panel may well do that job for you anyway.

It sounds to me as though the school is not going to fight the case against admitting your DS2 very strongly, and as yours is an in-year appeal, and likely to be the only one, you could well win at Stage One without having to go to Stage 2. Extra bums on seats mean more cash for the school, plain and simple.

Full details of the two-stage process and arguments you might use at Stage Two are in the Appeals Q&As (Section B) http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/appeal ... bed-school" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Being 0.2 miles from the school, the distance to the offered school, logistics with getting the children to school, needing to make local friends are all useful arguments.

On the one hand I should warn you that Primary oversubscription appeals are known to be very difficult indeed to win, but they are much easier to win when there is an unusual PAN like this and previous evidence of the school having coped with additional children.

There is a forum member who also has direct experience of an appeal like this - I will give her a nudge and ask her to send you a PM.
Marl
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:23 pm

Re: Help with primary in-year admission school appeal

Post by Marl »

Thank you so much. I will get down to reading through the threads and links you've posted. It's a minefield! But I'm anxious not to (ultimately) end up with two children at two different primaries or DS2 having attended 3 primaries just so that DS1 can get a good secondary education...
Redlocks17
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2012 2:18 pm

Re: Help with primary in-year admission school appeal

Post by Redlocks17 »

I have been through this and pm'd you.
Post Reply
11 Plus Mocks - Practise the real exam experience - Book Now