Admissions

School Admissions is a topic never far from the minds of local authorities, schools, parents and the press. As parents, what can you do to maximise the chance of securing a place at your preferred school for your son or daughter? There are some basic steps which, if taken at the right time, can make a considerable difference to the outcome:

Read your local authority's School Admissions publications - Each year, your local authority publishes information about applying for primary and for secondary school places. Their booklet will tell you about the application process and about all the individual schools in their area. It will also tell you how places will be allocated if a particular school is oversubscribed. It is very important to read the booklet, even if you know already which school you would like your child to attend.
Completing the Application Form - Give as much information as is needed. How will the local authority know if there are circumstances relevant to your child if you don't provide them with that information?
Meet the deadlines - The local authority's School Admissions publications will tell you what to do and when. If you miss the closing date, your application will not generally be considered until places have been allocated to all of those who submitted the application on time. If you move house or your circumstances change, tell your local authority. If you have moved, the local authority will want proof of your new address and when your child started living there. Make sure you send the required documents as soon as they are available.
Be realistic - You may have only one school in mind for your child, but you should consider what you will do if that school is heavily oversubscribed and your application is unsuccessful. This applies even if your choice of school has not been oversubscribed in the past as there are no guarantees that it may not be this time around. Research other schools and specify other choices on your application. If you don't get your child into your preferred school and haven't named any other schools in your application, the local authority will allocate your child a place at the nearest available school with places available.
And if the worst happens? If you do not secure a place for your son or daughter at your preferred school, you can appeal. Many places are allocated each year following successful appeals

The School Admissions Code and School Admissions Appeal Code are large documents that can be quite daunting for parents. There is a plethora of information to absorb and as a result, parents find the entire experience emotionally challenging. We can assist parents with appeals to Admissions Appeal Panels for all types of schools. We can attend and / or arrange representation at the hearing as well as preparing the Grounds of Appeal and ensuring that all your public law rights are protected.

We realise that it is important to budget for the costs involved; consequently we undertake work for admission appeals on a fixed fee basis (VAT at the standard rate will be added):

Assessing your papers and providing written advice on the arguments you should raise on appeal and the prospects of success - £250
Drafting your appeal documents - £500 or £375 if we have previously assessed your papers
Representation at one hearing within one hour's travel time (provided we have also drafted your appeal documents) - £600
NB Travel costs are not included.
We can also provide representation further afield or in cases where we have not previously advised on your case and will provide an estimate for this on request.

In the event of an unsuccessful appeal, a parent can consider complaining to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) for any maladministration (promptly and in any event within 12 months from the date of the decision letter) or to the High Court on procedural grounds (promptly and in any event within 3 months from the date of the decision letter).

Primary School Admissions

If you are unsuccessful in securing a primary school place at your preferred school you have a right to appeal to an Admissions Appeal Panel. You do not lose this right even if your child's name is on the school's waiting list, or you have been offered a place at the second school of your choice. Parents also have the right to appeal if an offer of a place is made and later withdrawn.

You should receive a letter from the admissions authority explaining the full reasons why your application for a school place was unsuccessful. You should note any time limits for informing the admission authority of your decision to appeal and ensure that any appeal is made within that timeframe. Once your appeal has been registered, you should think about the documents you might want to send to the appeal panel; this might include things like medical certificates or calculations of distances from home to school.

You should base your appeal on one or both of the following grounds:

that the school's published admission arrangements were applied incorrectly. For example, the admission authority may have overlooked the fact that your child had a sibling already at the school, where criteria such as sibling links would have given your child greater priority under the school's published admission arrangements. You will only succeed on this ground if you can show that if the criteria had been properly applied, your child would have been offered a place. So if all the places had been allocated by the time your application was considered, you will not succeed.
that the admission authority's decision was unreasonable. A good example would be where your child was refused a place on the ground that all places had been allocated, but another pupil was subsequently given a place.

Since September 2001, infant school class sizes should not normally exceed 30 when pupils turn five, six or seven during the course of a school year. There are a few exceptions which allow the restriction to be lifted; these include the admission of pupils with statements of special educational needs where the school is named in the statement; and pupils whose parents have successfully appealed to an admission appeal panel. Appeals based on infant class sizes are notoriously difficult to win as the admission panel can only offer the child a place if (a) the child would have been offered a place if the admission arrangements had been properly implemented; (b) the child would have been offered a place if the arrangements had not been contrary to mandatory provisions in the School Admissions Code and the School Standards and Frameworks Act 1998 or (c) the decision to refuse admission was not one which a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case.

At an appeal panel, the admission authority will present its case first, after which you may ask questions. Next, you will be invited to put your case. When you have finished speaking the admission authority may ask you some questions. Parents are entitled to be accompanied by a friend or a legal representative. The panel's decision will be sent to you in writing within seven days of the date of the panel's decision.

Secondary School Admissions

Parents are entitled to express a preference for a particular school, but this does not guarantee their child a place at the preferred school. There are four circumstances when parents will not be offered a place at the school of their choice:

1) When the school is already full

2) The school selects children on ability, e.g. a grammar school, and the child fails the aptitude test

3) The child has already been permanently excluded from two schools within the last two years

4) Where there are co-ordinated admission arrangements in place within the county

When you receive the decision letter advising you have not got a school place, you should write to the Admissions Authority. The decision letter should inform you of the last date for sending off your notice of appeal and you must ensure that any appeal is lodged before this date.

In your appeal you need to show that the admission criteria were wrongly applied and, had they been correctly applied, your child would have been offered a place. For example, the distance from home-to-school could have been miscalculated, or the fact there is a sibling in the school overlooked. It is not enough for the school to say that it is full. It will have to show that admitting your child would cause prejudice to other pupils. You should look at class sizes in the previous years to compare the numbers. If there have been higher numbers of pupils in previous years this is a good indication that the school could cope with an additional pupil in the next academic year.

The admissions panel should approach matters in two stages:

(a) First Stage: establishing the facts, at which the panel considers whether the school's published admission arrangements (i) comply with the mandatory requirements of the School Admissions Code and Part 3 of the School Standards and Frameworks Act 1998 and (ii) were correctly applied in the individual's case, and decides whether "prejudice" would arise were the child to be admitted. If this is proved, the panel moves on to the second stage.

(b) Second Stage: balancing the arguments, at which the panel exercises its discretion, balancing the degree of prejudice to the school against the appellant's case for the child being admitted to the preferred school, before arriving at a decision.

You are allowed to present your appeal any way you want although we would strongly recommend that you turn up in person to speak at the appeal. Parents are allowed to be represented by a lawyer, or to be accompanied by a friend.

Please call us on 01252 617119 to find out how we can assist you.