Hi All, I'm hoping someone here can help advise about pupil premium as my daughter applied for Rugby High School and would only qualify with the pupil premium criteria applied (15 points below AQS). We qualified for free school meals in 2012 after a family illness. Warwickshire County Council dealt with the claim but now have no record of it as their records only go back to 2014 due to a new system. The council told me that they don't deal with pupil premium themselves and can't tell me who does have records. So far I have sent them the following evidence:

Evidence of my application for free school meals back in 2012.
Evidence of my income support letter at the time.
A letter from my elder daughters school stating that she gets pupil premium currently (not my youngest daughters school as they haven't responded).

I emailed warwickshire back in November to check if they needed proof of free school meals. They replied saying that they had their system to check but would make a note on my daughters file.

I need to contact whoever deals with pupil premium but I think it is the central government. Does anyone else have any ideas? It takes ages to get a response from warwickshire and on the phone nobody can advise how I obtain proof or what I need to provide.

The admission document for the school we applied to just says that pupil premium children are those who have qualified for free school meals at some point in the last 6 years. I had hoped proof of that would be sufficient. We may need to go to appeal.

When you say that 'so far, I have sent...', do you mean that you submitted these documents at the time of application, or only since your DD not being allocated a place at the school? If the latter - and you have missed a crucial instruction re the timing of submission of evidence - then the admissions procedure will not have been incorrectly applied, as applicants are ranked on the available information at application (or as at a defined later date, e.g. applicants being counted as IC so long as they have a confirmed move into the area by January 2nd, or whatever - just picking an example local to us). Normally, I think, schools accept confirmation of PP status from the applicant's current primary school and it would have to relate to the child in question.

However, the response to your query last November, that the LEA had its own checking mechanism, would seem to indicate that you personally were not responsible for submitting evidence? In which case, if either the LEA didn't carry out the requisite checks or it did receive confirmation that your DD was eligible for consideration under the 'PP' criterion, but for some reason wasn't actually ranked correctly, then obviously an error has occurred and assuming that 'PP' is a higher criterion than the one where this year's cut-off occurred, your DD should have been offered a place.

Have you asked the LEA under which criterion your DD was ranked, and why?

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

Hi toadmum and thank you for replying. I didn't submit proof of pupil premium until after 1st March when I saw that my DD should have got a place based on the AQS. It took me over a week to find out that the problem was they hadn't applied pupil premium status. I'm annoyed as the school states in it's admission document that proof is needed so I asked WCC what proof to send last November but they said they had their own system to check and didn't need proof . For some reason my DD wasn't on their system but my DDs school has evidence which WCC have now accepted. She's number two on the waiting list.
I'm trying to get WCC to accept that she should have had a first round offer but they are ignoring me. I'm thinking of going to appeal as I can prove the error.
As DD is second on the waiting list I think there must be another pupil premium child above her who also had an error. I did find it odd that no pupil premium children were admitted this year.

In that case, definitely submit an appeal (even if in the hope that you won't actually need to go to a hearing). Did you make these enquiries by email, or at least keep a note of the name of the person you spoke to about submitting evidence?

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

Everything is by email so I have evidence. At appeal do I just need to prove the error or do I also have to show why my DD will benefit from being at that particular school.

Peggy, as you are in Warks, I suggest that you enlist the support of your County Councillor*. He or she should be able to exert pressure on the Admissions Team to progress the matter for you. As it appears to be a clear administrative error, it should even be possible to resolve it without the need for an appeal.

* Not a universal panacea, but most of them are very good!

It should be enough to demonstrate (as it appears that you ought to be able to) that an error occurred and that error deprived your DD of a place that she would otherwise have been allocated. Although it is always a good idea to be prepared to need Plan B. However, he this really is 'just' an administrative error, as Sally-Anne says, one hopes that it can be sorted out without costing everyone the time and effort (and the admissions authority's case, money as welwell) involved in going through a formal appeal.

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

Such good advice, thank you Sally Anne. I have the local councillor helping me to try to find out what went wrong. Unfortunately the admissions team contacted me today to say that I didn't tick the box for pupil premium eligibility on the 11+ test application form back in June last year. I don't actually remember if I did or not and it was online so I have no proof. I did email them right back today with proof that I let them know on 16th October that DD was eligible for pupil premium and so it was on her file, well before they would have started analysing anyones applications. But now it looks like it may be my fault for not ticking the correct box which doesn't look so good at appeal. It's really frustrating. I already submitted the appeal as the deadline was the 29th. She's still no. 2 on the waiting list anyway.

Oh dear

The system will have the proof re whether or not you ticked the box on the online form, though, as it will have coded the response (or absence of it) to that prompt. Possibly the school will include a printout of your registration form in their appeal documents, to prove that you didn't indicate eligibility, if your case is based on your DD having met the conditions for the PP criterion.

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

DD was offered a place today. Not sure if it was due to the local councillor, an email I sent or just the usual waiting list offers but we are so pleased. Thank you for all the help and advice Toadmum and Sally Anne. It saved my sanity.