How to Win School Appeals - Part 3

I have to tell you, a part of me wishes I had never started writing this series of posts – as the growing gaps between instalments perhaps suggests.

Firstly, it’s really hard to condense everything I took from our experience into nuggets of wisdom without rambling on and on. This is actually the third time I have completely rewritten this piece now in an attempt to make it shorter.

I was thinking about just letting myself go to town and turning this into an eBook. For those of you not familiar with the term, that is a scam in online marketing whereby you hand over your contact details in exchange for a PDF which chucks together a load of stuff you could have found on the internet for yourself.

Secondly, there is the rather more serious point that I don’t really know how to win school appeals.

As I mentioned earlier in the series, we still don’t actually know on what grounds we won. And so any/all of the recommendations I make may be complete balls.

So, with that disclaimer still ringing in your ears, let’s finish this damn thing off so I can get back to writing about the mad shit thatcomes into my head when I’m driving to work without the pressure of real-world-responsibility to disturb me.

Is it legal?

Everything you will get from the council will seem very scary and legalistic. They will tell you that you can only possibly win if there has been some kind of maladministration or cock-up in the process.

So all your arguments about why little Timmy should go to this school rather than that school don’t count. It’s all about the correct application of the Admissions Policy.

I have no doubt that a fair proportion of people are put off from appealing just by the sight of the height of this bar.

Then there is the prospect of the appeal tribunal itself. Oooh – scary. You have to go and represent yourself in front of a panel whose decisions are legally binding, going up against someone (from the admissions authority) who presumably does this for a living.

Well, let me tell you that in our experience, you should not be put off by any of this.

The appeals panels are made up of members of the local “great and good” – not legally trained people and not education experts. As such, while the letter of the law says that they can only grant appeals on the basis of misapplication of the criteria, I am absolutely convinced that you can get them on your side by coming across as (i) intelligent, (ii) educated and (iii) genuinely concerned about your child’s welfare – all of which will put you at an advantage over the council’s rep.

Far from being experts, we found the person from the council to be poorly briefed and basically going in with the same argument for everyone.

Please note, that is NOT the case for faith schools and other places that do their own admissions – where you find yourself (excruciatingly) accusing of misadministration the very headmaster whose school you are trying to get into.

I do not doubt for a moment that the good impression Elvira and I produced in the panel (she cried! I read out long notes!) helped.

And remember, there’s the admissions authority can’t appeal against the panel’s decision – so you need to do whatever it takes, whether it’s admissible or not!

Listen to gossip

We found out – from local gossip – that someone who got a place via the waiting list lied about their address. We kicked up a huge stink about it before the hearing and in it. The council, naturally, had done nothing beforehand and this did not impress the panel.

If you had believed that this was a purely legal proceeding, it wouldn’t matter what went on in other people’s cases as to whether your own was justified or not, would it? Well, see above.

Get your ear to the ground and pester the council about everything you hear. By law, they have to have answered all your questions 48 hours before the hearing. Chances are they will be too disorganised to do that, and you have your way in.

Oddly, we only heard from the council about the complaint after the appeal decision had been published. It’s almost as if they wanted to make it go away...

Do your homework

Tedious I know, but you need to get totally familiar with the admissions policies you are dealing with. You need to get the official word on, for example, the distance of your home to your preferred school – and check it yourself. Friends of ours successfully challenged an incorrect measurement and got a place before even going to appeal.

You have a right to know where on the waiting list you are, but the council will try to pretend that you don’t. Their rationale for that is that some people can’t appreciate that their position can change in relation to developments in others’ cases. Bollocks to that. Don’t let them get away with it.

Get everything written down and give it in as late as possible. The panel will read it, chances are the council won’t and will make themselves look stupid and lazy at the hearing.

That’s it. I wish you all the best of luck if you’re appealing. It has opened my eyes to how local bureaucracy really works and how people can overcome its dead hand with a bit of reading, writing and ruthlessness.