I am receiving a number of enquiries about oversubscription appeals.These are where the school (it may be non-selective or grammar) is full. I am advising some parents to put in a holding appeal (simply writing "I am appealing for a place for my child (name) at (name) school. A more detailed letter will follow" on the form, which means you do not need to submit full details by deadline day). You can then leave submitting a detailed letter until after 4th April when the first round of reallocations takes place in Kent (Medway 21st March). I am happy to delay taking on clients until that time, when you will know whether an appeal will be necessary. Also the pressure on myself is less, and so I am able to turn around an appeal letter more quickly. Please feel free to contact me if you wish clarification on this.

Headline News: 83% of Kent children have been offered their first choice secondary school; it is 87%. Just 413 Kent children have been allocated to a school not on their list, a steep drop from the 620 of last year. In Medway it is just 55. Good news for those who have been successful, but that's no comfort for those left out in the cold.A total of 513 out of Kent applicants have been offered places, mainly the West Kent high score schools, the Tunbridge Wells church schools, and the North West Kent grammar schools.

Numbers of Sussex children being offered places at West Kent Grammar schools have fallen considerably as I forecast back in November, so the pressures have eased. However, I am still hearing of girls in Pembury and boys in North Sevenoaks, grammar school qualified, who have not been offered grammar school places. As the Knole Academy is full, many of these children are being offered places at Skinners Kent Academy. Also as I forecast then, the pass mark for out of Dartford boys applying to Dartford Grammar School has shot up from 394 to at least 408.

Summary; better news than last year for most, but still some very sad outcomes.

There was a glitch with the online decision notification from both Kent and Medway. I gather this was not down to either Authority. With 87% of Kent applicants on line, this was very frustrating  but all has apparently been sorted (unless you know different!).

You may have caught me on BBC SE last evening, commenting on major issues and again on Radio Kent this morning.

I will add to this as I have time, but as you will appreciate, my first priority is to potential clients.

I shall be on Radio Kent between 8 and 9 in the morning of Wednesday March 2nd, and possibly later on, answering questions and talking about transfer patterns and issues.

Decisions arrive by email for those who have applied electronically after 4 p.m. on March 1st. With some 80% of the 20,000 children involved in Kent and Medway having completed online applications, this can still be a lengthy process, with some families waiting several hours for their decision. All applicants will have a letter posted on that day aimed to arrive by post on March 2nd setting out the school allocated and the procedure if you wish to appeal for a school you have not been offered.

Please note, if you now wish to apply for a new school in Kent that you have not previously listed, there is a new system forcing you to go through the bureaucratically cumbersome In Year Admission process, details here, or from KCC.  For Medway it appears much quicker, a complete turn around from two years ago when you couldn't even apply for new schools at this stage.

I am already arranging consultations for clients, so please contact me as soon as you know the school to which you have been allocated. Remember, the minimum you need to do to appeal is to write on the form provided:  "I am appealing for a place for my child (name) at (name) school. A more detailed letter will follow". This enables you to take your time over putting your appeal together without needing to rush to meet deadlines.

Several firms of Kent solicitors are now offering appeal services at fees which appear to be some £160 per hour or more. Please remember that preparing school appeals are not primarily legal matters. I believe my own experience of over 600 successful school appeals over the past eight years, together with my extensive knowledge of admission and appeals matters across Kent and Medway is a strong recommendation in itself.

Kent 2009 Admissions

The full letter for Kent relating to 2009 admisssions and appeals can be found here.The relevant paragraphs are:

Of the 29 local settlements, 25 were education complaints. The largest group of local settlements, 21, concerned applications and appeals for admission to schools where the Council is the admissions authority. The faults included wrong or insufficient information being presented to appeal panels, inappropriate questioning by panellists and poor record keeping. In 14 cases the Council agreed to settle the complaint by the offer of a fresh appeal hearing. In five cases the Council offered a place at the preferred school. I found fault in four other admission cases but used my discretion not to pursue these as I was not satisfied that any injustice had been caused. During the year, four of my staff met officers from the Council’s corporate complaints section and its education department. They discussed identified problems in the way the Council arranges appeals (both for its own schools and in the appeal service that it provides for voluntary aided and foundation schools). They also discussed some delays in responding to our enquiries and resistance to settling complaints. The meeting was useful. As a result, two of my staff took part in three training sessions the Council organised for panellists, presenting officers and appeal clerks for all types of schools.

I settled four other education complaints. Two concerned a failure by the Council to provide education while a child was out of school. The Council paid a total of £1,450 compensation. The second concerned the Council’s failure to state that it would not pay for transport to a school named in a statement of special educational needs. The Council agreed to provide transport following my involvement. The last concerned a number of faults in the way the Council dealt with a child’s special educational needs. As a result he lost half a year’s education which had an impact on him and his mother, who was unable to work while she cared for him at home. The Council paid £5,000 compensation.

Kent 2008 Entry

I decided 58 complaints about applications and appeals for admission to Community and Voluntary Controlled schools, where the Council is the admissions authority. One complaint was outside my jurisdiction. In 23 complaints, there was no, or insufficient, evidence of maladministration and, in 20 others, I used my discretion not to pursue an investigation. I agreed to settle 14 complaints. In a number of appeals, the written cases presented on the Council’s behalf contained mistakes and, in others, the Panels took account of irrelevant factors in reaching their conclusions. In eight cases, a place at a preferred school was offered to a pupil, by various means including a successful appeal. The Council offered a rehearing, with a completely different Appeal Panel and a different Clerk, in respect of the appeals of six other pupils. Nevertheless, the Council was reluctant to accept our recommendations that some appeals should be reheard, and more resistant to our suggestion that, in a very exceptional case where the Council and the Appeal Panel had been at fault, the Council should exercise its discretion to admit the pupil without requiring a further appeal. The Council has agreed to review a range of procedures and published material relating to applications and appeals for school places.
The average time taken by the Council to reply to our written enquiries about complaints was 38.1 days. This represents a significant deterioration, compared with the time taken last year (29.4 days) to respond to our enquiries. Delayed responses were not confined to any particular departments. I hope that the Council will make every effort to achieve the target (28 days) which we set for responding to our first written enquiries.
The Council’s responses to our enquiries as well as being slow do not always provide full answers to the questions raised. This can lead to the need to make further enquiries. While some responses have been thin, others have contained an excess of detail. On occasion the Council is reluctant to offer to settle complaints. Some of the Council’s responses on admission appeal cases have been incomplete, with pages missing from Clerks’ manuscript notes of Admissions Appeal Panels. Our concern about the quality of responses applies not only to complaints about appeals where the Council is the admissions authority for the school in question, but also where the Council provides an appellate and clerking service on behalf of the Governors of Voluntary Aided and Foundation schools who are their own admissions authorities

Medway 2009 Letter

For Medway, the full letter can be found here. The relevant sections read:

Two complaints concerned education. In one the Council failed to update a statement of special educational needs, to reflect a child’s move from a residential school to the 6th form of a mainstream school. The move subsequently broke down. The Council paid £1,000 compensation. I asked the Council to review its procedures to ensure that statements are updated. The Council told me that it was satisfied that its procedures are sufficiently robust. This is a matter I will review in the light of any similar complaints. In the second the Council agreed to offer a re-hearing of an education admission appeal, in the light of some concerns about the way an application to a grammar school had been dealt with. In the event the complainants were successful in obtaining a place at another school and so did not pursue the fresh appeal.

There were no School Admission Ombudsman complaints.

Medway 2008 Letter

I decided 22 complaints about educational issues. I found no maladministration on four school admissions complaints and I used my discretion not to pursue investigations into two others as well as two complaints about general educational issues.
I agreed to settle 13 education complaints. Ten of these related to failures in the arrangements for school admissions. The complaints were settled either by school places being offered to the children or by re-hearings for the parents. One of my Investigators subsequently visited the Council to discuss its school admissions arrangements and a number of changes have now been made which should help to avoid similar problems from occurring in future years.
The average time taken by the Council to reply to our written enquiries was 40.2 days, which is significantly higher than the time target we set and continues the upward trend of the past few years. It also compares unfavourably with the performance of other unitary authorities, only 9% of which have an average response time of 36 days or longer. As in previous years there were some very significant delays on a small number of complaints.
Of the 34 complaints on which we made enquiries, only seven of the responses were within the target time.
One of my Investigators visited the Council in August 2008 to discuss the Council’s procedures for complaint handling.The Council has subsequently confirmed that on-line reporting and case management control systems have been refined to give greater focus to response times and to identify delays at an earlier point within the process. It does not appear that this has yet resulted in any significant improvement. The high level of local settlements (46.4% of those within my jurisdiction) suggests that the Council’s own procedures for dealing with complaints may not be as robust as they could be, and that it may be reluctant to accept fault or not be prepared to offer an appropriate remedy until pressed to do so.

last updated 4 May 2011

I am receiving a number of enquiries about oversubscription appeals.These are where the school (it may be non-selective or grammar) is full. I am advising some parents to put in a holding appeal (simply writing "I am appealing for a place for my child (name) at (name) school. A more detailed letter will follow" on the form, which means you do not need to submit full details by deadline day). You can then leave submitting a detailed letter until after 4th April when the first round of reallocations takes place in Kent (Medway 21st March). I am happy to delay taking on clients until that time, when you will know whether an appeal will be necessary. Also the pressure on myself is less, and so I am able to turn around an appeal letter more quickly. Please feel free to contact me if you wish clarification on this.

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If you are interested in using my professional services, please email me with a brief outline of your situation (including test marks if a grammar school appeal), and a contact phone number, and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Currently, due to pressure of work, I am only accepting clients who live in Kent or Medway Local Authority areas and are appealing for schools in those local authorities.

To make an appeal for a Kent school you should download an appeal form here.

• You will find the most recent appeal statistics for both Kent and Medway here.
• There is a new Code of Practice for School Appeals, issued by government, taking effect from March 2009. Some key issues are set out at Code.
• If your child is not allocated their first preference school in March, you may be able to secure a place at a school higher in your list through appeal.
• First piece of advice is – don’t panic. You will not get an earlier appeal or a better hearing by sending in your case early. If you are not ready, make sure you record your appeal by the closing date, using such words as “I am appealing for….... I will send in my detailed case when it is ready”. This enables you to take advice or plan your appeal without additional pressure (it is already stressful enough!). If yours is one of the few Foundation schools that organises early appeals, you can still send in your case when you are notified of the date, without penalty.
• Appeals are always possible for non selective schools when the number of pupils applying for a school is larger than the approved number of admissions.
• Kent admission rules allow parents to apply to any school not on their original list after April 4th using the In Year Admission process. Use this to the full, as at the least you are placed on a waiting list and then have rights of appeal. Some children who did not originally apply for a school and who now apply after April 4th will be offered places ahead of others on the waiting list.
• You will be asked to submit a case and appear personally at the Panel hearing. The best grounds for appeal are where families can show that the admission of another pupil will not damage the education of those already admitted, where another child has been wrongly selected ahead of their own, or that the admission policy has been interpreted wrongly. Some Foundation & VA schools are keen to admit additional pupils, and in such cases the appeal is much easier, if you have a reasonable case, or your child appears to ‘fit’ the school ethos.
• Each oversubscribed school has its own character and approach to appeals for additional pupils.
• Grammar school oversubscription appeals can be very complex, as appellants may have children who have passed the eleven plus, others will not have, and the appeal panel has to balance competing claims.
• I advise on the expected appeal pattern for each school, and the best strategy to achieve success. I offer a range of services for parents, including writing the appeal letter & preparing the case for the appeal . I do not normally attend appeal hearings, as Panels are more interested in talking directly with parents. However, I am happy to represent parents where there is technical evidence to present, or where parents are not confident of making the case I will have prepared for them. Whichever package parents select, I ensure the best case is put forward and have a very good record of success.
• Remember, at the end of the day, if the school is genuinely full there may be no way to secure admission.

Kent County Council is experimenting with a new approach for some of its Appeal hearings this year, where schools are heavily oversubscribed. Schools where this process is being used for the first time  include Maidstone Grammar School for Girls, Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys and Simon Langton Grammar School for Girls.  The Admission Code for School Appeals recommends that where a school is oversubscribed, appeals should be divided into two stages, although Kent County Council has not followed this recommendation in previous years. Where this happens, the first part is called the group stage, where all parents appealing are invited to a meeting at the start of proceedings. At this meeting, all the issues relating to oversubscription are debated between parents and the Admission Authority Presenting Officer in front of the Appeal Panel. No matters relating to individuals are  considered. This enables the Appeal Panel to determine before hearing individual appeals how many children, if any, can be admitted before prejudice applies (see section on appeals).  The second stage is the individual appeal where each parent puts the case for their individual child. In the second stage there is no discussion of oversubscription issues. The Panel then has to decide which children should be offered places, possibly accepting that for some, there will be prejudice, but their individual circumstances outweigh this. I have some experience of the system, as Medway Council has used it for many years with, in my view, mixed success. Many parents are inhibited at the Group meeting and find it difficult to put forward their points. At some meetings the meeting rapidly degenerated into an unpleasant verbal battle (I don't see this happening at the Kent appeals); at others very few parents turned up,few views were expressed and the meeting fizzled out (more likely). My advice is go to the meeting, at the very least you will see the Appeal Panel members in advance. Don't be afraid to speak out if you believe the school is capable of admitting extra children although this can be come quite a technical argument and school cases for not admitting additional children can be quite intimidating.  You won't affect your individual chances by making the case that more children in general can be admitted. In Medway where Appeal Panel members were used to the process, they engaged in quite vigorous and challenging questioning of the Admission Authority. One would expect that KCC panellists will have been trained to carry out similar rigorous questioning. However, where there is no Group Appeal  (all KCC Appeal Panels up to now), questioning on prejudice is required to take place in every appeal and can be quite perfunctory and formulaic, so there does need to be a  change of approach.   One of the strongest arguments year on year comes from looking at the numbers in older year groups. If the school can manage these, then why shouldn't it manage the same number again. -------- This is a new article on a new theme and I am very happy to accept suggestions and ideas to improve it.

• I am happy to provide a consultation in the privacy of your own home, provided I believe I can be of assistance. For appeals, the service I provide includes an explanation of the process, collecting information, advising on options (there are often more than parents have considered), preparation of a unique appeal letter to suit your individual case, together with, and essentially, a final preparation for the appeal hearing by phone. A fixed quotation on cost for this service will be provided on request, starting at £400 depending on complexity and location.
• I will be arranging Secondary school appeal consultations from Mid February, although you may need to wait until the beginning of March if you don't know whether you are going to be accepted at the relevant school. Please send outline details to me via the contact me page. Information I need to assess if I can help you varies according to the school concerned, but for grammar schools this may include:

1. Your child's individual test scores (available from the primary school in Kent)
2. Was there a Kent headteacher assessment (available from the primary school), or a Medway Review (details sent with your decision)?
3. The town or village where you live;
4. Your child's current school;
5. Schools you are considering;
6. Any other relevant factors;
7. A contact telephone number.

For infant class appeals, please supply me with any reason you are aware of that could overcome Infant Class Legislation (see Primary page)

I will get back to you as soon as possible by phone or email to discuss possibilities and provide preliminary advice where appropriate.

• I am also available at other times of the year for consultations on matters relating to admissions and appeals, the fee being appropriate to the work to be carried out, but will be significantly less if it is a stand alone meeting.

• All communications are confidential, unless you authorise me otherwise.

Please note that my telephone consultation service is suspended for secondary school appeals until after the peak appeal period.

Please note also that because of pressure of work, and my own areas of expertise, I am only able to support families for Kent and Medway schools, who live in the Kent and Medway Local Authority areas (excluding Bexley and Bromley I am afraid). Howevre, if you are thinking of relocating to Kent or Medway, please feel free to enquire about my telephone consultation service to see if I can assist. 

I have had a very few cases where the Contact Me page link has apparently not worked, so if you have not had a reply after 48 hours, please send me a brief email directly to confirm your enquiry. 

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