Allocations, Waiting Lists and Appeals

• Notification of school allocations
• Waiting lists for Tameside’s primary schools
• Calls to the Admissions Team
• Appealing for a school place

Notification of school allocations

Allocation letters will be sent out on 29th March, 2010. If you are not satisfied with your allocation, there are three options open to you. You can:

• Ask to be considered for a school(s), which has places available after allocations.
• Ask for your child’s name to be placed on the waiting list for any school.
• Submit an appeal.

You will retain the place you have been allocated until you are allocated an alternative school.

Waiting lists for Tameside’s primary schools

Waiting lists will be held for all Tameside primary schools in accordance with the over-subscription criteria for each school.

You will be sent details of how to place your child’s name on the waiting list if you are not allocated your first preference school.

The waiting lists will run until the end of the autumn term, unless individual schools admission arrangements say otherwise. Should any places become available they will be offered according to the over-subscription criteria, up to the school’s published admission number, to children on the waiting list or who have submitted an appeal.

If the appeals process leads to the admission of pupils beyond the published admission number any places which are given up later will not be offered to pupils on the waiting list until numbers fall below the published admission number.

The number of children on a waiting list for any particular school can vary from day to day. If new or late applications have a higher priority under the over-subscription criteria, they will be ranked higher than those who have been on the waiting list for some time. Information about waiting list positions will not be available until the last week in May 2010, approximately two weeks after the appeals closing date.

Should you put your child’s name on a waiting list(s), the Admissions Team will contact you if a place becomes available and your child can be offered a place. There is no need to telephone to find out your child’s position. If your child can be offered a place from the waiting list, the school place you had previously been allocated will be given to another child.

Calls to the Admissions Team

Please do not telephone the Admissions Team on 29th March to enquire about your school offer. Your letter is posted on this day, so you will receive it a day or two
later. Online applicants can select to have an e-mail sent on 29th March.

The Admissions Team understand the anxiety of parents at the time of school allocations and will do what they can to help. In return we ask you to treat our staff with courtesy and respect.

Appealing for a school place

Parents who have been refused admission to any school in Tameside have the right to appeal to an Independent Appeal Panel.

To appeal for a school place, you should complete and return an appeal form to the Admissions Team, Room 2.96, Council Offices, Wellington Road, Ashton-Under-Lyne, OL6 6DL, by 7th May 2010, stating your grounds for appeal. Any appeals received after this date may be heard after others for that particular school. If you are appealing for a voluntary aided school, your appeal will be forwarded to the relevant school.

You can submit an appeal for any preferred school(s) regardless of your original preferences. All appeals will be heard separately. Every effort will be made to hear appeals before the start of the Autumn Term, but no guarantee can be made that late appeals will be heard by September.

If you submit an appeal, your child’s name will automatically go on the waiting list for a place at that particular school.

You will be given 10 school days notice of your appeal hearing date, and you will be sent a copy of the school’s case. You can attend the hearing to present the case for your child. You may bring a friend or representative along. At the meeting, a representative from the school or the council will present the school’s case.

The Clerk to the Panel will inform you in writing of the Panel’s decision. The decision is binding and parents have no further right of appeal for the same school in the same school year, unless there has been a significant change in circumstances.

Please note that no places are ‘held back’ for appeals.

Parents of pupils with a statement of special educational needs have the right to appeal to the SEN Tribunal.

While you are awaiting your appeal, you are advised to consider alternative schools in case your appeal is unsuccessful. This could include the school you have been allocated. You could also request a change of preference to a school that has places available.

Please note that the law places restrictions on the circumstances in which an appeal panel can uphold an appeal for the admission of a child to an infant class. In normal circumstances an Independent Appeal Panel cannot uphold an appeal for your child if this means that a Key stage 1 (infant) class will have more than 30 pupils. Appeals against refusal to admit on the grounds of class size can be upheld only where an appeal panel are satisfied that one of the following conditions applies:

1. That the child would have been offered a place if the admission arrangements had been properly implemented; or
2. That 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 SSFA 1998; or
3. That the decision was not one which a reasonable council/governing body (“the admission authority”) would make in the circumstances of the case.