Lots of angry parents as a result & some excellent pointed questions asked - I'm glad I went along. It was interesting to say the least, but I didn't ask a question that maybe I should have, though maybe that can go in my favour now it's daunting to say the least
Basically, thanks to a local news article slating our complicated local allocation pool system & our LA because a significant number of DCs who listed only the 2 schools in their catchment area which I didn't even realise you could do, as it's not clear in the booklet & I was given bad advice didn't get an offer of a catchment area school, which I now know putting only those 2 schools, guarantees a catchment area school - that number of children have now been split & both schools forced to take half each
This means that all the extra spaces in our chosen school, that would usually become available by other families turning down offers of places & going elsewhere - have now been absorbed by these children - given priority on catchment area only & not really allocated as part of the usual much bigger allocation pool
So it turns out that whilst all us appellants are frantically building our cases & gathering evidence together - the LA have given away the spaces we were most likely to have a chance of getting & as the panel were grilled by a several of parents! including a school governor from other school - he was good
- nothing in their information booklet or website says this is something they can do, so I suspect lots of complaints will be had, as it's soul destroying to sit there & suddenly realise that all number of appeals won in the past - is just not going to happen this year - even though when pinned down the chair of appeal said it would make no difference - but boy did he not want to answer that question - so I doubt anyone else believes it either :( & from the number of over PAN places the HT agreed he would comfortably take - the number of appeals won is going to be very low this year :(
No-one asked if they acted illegally by giving priority to catchment area DCs only - we have catchment area & strong medical grounds, with a ton of good supportive evidence - though the only medical grounds allowed in at admissions stage - were statemented DCs - everything else was ignored
I'm wondering if this could be considered as disability discrimination ? - I thought of asking the question, but wasn't feeling good myself & sort of hoped if no one else was asking it, maybe we are the only ones with strong medical grounds too, so have a better chance of what looks likely to be only 4 appeals won [hopeful]
Hope that makes some sense - long day & I didn't sleep well last night - this is a huge deal for us, as DD just can't travel to the other schools :-/