In appeals where Infant Class Legislation applies, success will only be achieved in exceptional cases, or where there is an error in the award of places, unless you encounter a very sympathetic Panel which is prepared to ignore the regulations they are obliged to follow. Acceptable exceptional circumstances are very rare indeed, and in my opinion won't include transport difficulties or impossibilities, parental working patterns, most medical issues which affect parents or children(these should have been considered as part of the application procedure if acceptable), problems with other families, etc., so chances of winning on these grounds could almost be described as remote. However, it is not for me to rule on these matters, this is purely for the Independent Appeal Panel, within the laid down rules. I have taken into account in the figures below the large number of families in Kent and Medway who have withdrawn from their appeal, many or most upon seeing the paperwork that explains the hurdles they have to overcome to win an appeal. Some 30 children who had gone to appeal were offered places from the waiting lists in Kent, before the appeal, 25 in Medway as others holding places dropped out.
To put it into context, 263 of Kent's 421 primary schools were oversubscribed, with appeals being spread over 154 of them, most schools attracting just one appeal. Highest numbers of appeals where ICL applied were at: Herne CofE Infants (13); Thurnham CofE Infants (13); Priory Infants, Ramsgate (12); Swalecliffe Community Primary (12); Holy Trinity CofE VA, Gravesend (11); Slade Primary, Tonbridge (11); St Crispin's Community Infants, Westgate (10); Bishops Down, TW (9); Sandgate Primary School, Folkestone (9); St Nicholas at Wade CEP (9). Between them, there were no successful appeals. I do not have individual figures for Medway schools,
Although I have little direct evidence of this (I know of two), some of the successful appeals will have occurred where the school has made an error in allocating places, others where fraud is proven for other successful applications, so the true figure of success is even smaller.
Kent Primary School Appeal Outcomes 2013 | |||||
Number of
Appeals
|
Upheld
|
Rejected
|
Appeal
Withdrawn
|
Place offered
before Appeal
|
|
Appeals where Infant
Class Legislation Applies
|
546 | 18 | 364 | 132 | 30 |
No ICL | 86 | 22 | 48 | 12 | 4 |
Junior Schools | 33 | 10 | 20 | 2 | 1 |
Medway Primary School Appeal Outcomes 2013 | |||||
Number of
Appeals
|
Upheld | Rejected |
Appeal
Withdrawn
|
Place offered
before Appeal
|
|
Reception Class Appeals
|
157 | 6 | 98 | 28 | 25 |
Junior Schools | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Unsurprisingly, I support very few primary appeals; and only where I can see there is a chance of success.