Summary: We did not uphold Mr X’s complaint about an admission appeal panel’s decision to refuse his appeal for a reception place for his daughter. There was no fault in the way the panel considered the appeal.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the admission appeals panel’s decision to refuse his appeal for a reception year place for his daughter, Y. He says the panel did not take account of the impact on the family of his other child’s special needs and the difficulty they face in getting their children to different schools. He says the decision is affecting the whole family. He would like the School to offer his daughter a place.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether an independent school admissions appeals panel’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider if there was fault in the way the decision was reached. If we find fault, which calls into question the panel’s decision, we may ask for a new appeal hearing. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered the complaint made by Mr X.
4. I considered the documents the School provided in response to my enquiries.
5. Mr X and the School had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

Background

6. All schools must have a set of admission arrangements containing oversubscription criteria. The school’s admission authority uses these to decide which children will receive an offer of a place if there are more applications than places available. The school’s admission authority sets the admission arrangements.
7. A school’s admission arrangements must also contain a Published Admission Number. This is the number of places the school will offer at each point of entry. The point of entry is when the school normally admits children. In an infant or primary school this is usually the reception year.
8. Parents can appeal about a decision not to admit their child to a school. The appeal will be considered by an independent panel.
9. Statutory guidance about school admissions and appeals is in The School Admissions Code and School Admission Appeals Code, published by the Department for Education.
10. In 2020, the government introduced emergency regulations because of the COVID-19 pandemic. These are the School Admissions (England) (Coronavirus) (Appeals Arrangements) (Amendment) Regulations 2020. These temporarily amend the existing regulations and are due to remain in force until 30 September 2022. The government published guidance to accompany the temporary regulations, ‘Changes to the admission appeals regulations during the coronavirus outbreak’.
11. The School Admission Appeals Code says appeal panels must allow appellants the opportunity to appear in person and present their case. The emergency guidance stated that face-to-face hearings should not take place, and appellants should be offered a hearing by telephone or video conference wherever possible.
12. Where this was not possible, appeals could be conducted entirely based on written submissions. The guidance suggested a process for deciding appeals on this basis but said admission authorities and panels had to exercise their own judgement in each appeal to ensure parties were able to fully present their case.

School appeals – infant class size

13. The School Standards and Framework Act limits the size of infant classes (a class in which most of the children will reach the age of 5, 6 or 7 during the school year) to 30 pupils per teacher. The Appeals Code refers to these as Infant Class Size (ICS) appeals. Panels can only uphold these appeals in limited circumstances.
14. Admission authorities must provide parents with information on the limited circumstances in which an infant class size appeal can be upheld in order they can make an informed decision about whether to submit an appeal.
15. Where an appeal only involves one child, the panel examines the decision to refuse admission. The Appeals Code says in an ICS appeal the panel must consider:
• whether the admission of an additional child/additional children would breach the infant class size limit;
• whether the admission arrangements complied with the mandatory requirements of the School Admissions Code and Part 3 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998;
• whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in the case in question; and
• whether the decision to refuse admission was one which a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case.
16. What is ‘unreasonable’ is a high test. The panel needs to be sure that to refuse a place was “perverse” or “outrageous”. For that reason, panels rarely find an admission authority’s decision to be unreasonable.
17. The clerk to the panel must write to the appellant, the admission authority and the local authority with its decision and the reasons for it.

What happened

18. Mr X applied for a reception place for his daughter, Y, at the School in the normal admissions round.
19. The School was over-subscribed so it prioritised places as follows: looked after children; children who regularly attended the parish church; siblings of children already attending the School; children who attend other churches; and all other children based on their distance from the School.
20. The last child admitted to the School lived 0.59 miles away. Mr X lived 0.65 miles away so Y was not offered a place at the School. Y was offered a place at another school.
21. Mr X appealed the decision not to offer Y a place. In his appeal submission, Mr X indicated he understood the admission of further pupils would cause the School to exceed the limit of 30 pupils per qualified teacher. He did not answer questions on the appeal form about whether the admission authority had made a mistake or that its decision not to admit Y was unreasonable.
22. Mr X said he wanted Y to have a place at the School because his other child, Z, attended the nursery there and he did not want to move Z to another setting. He said Z had additional needs and if Y did not get a place at the School it would not be possible for Z to continue attending the nursery. He said he already struggled to drop the children at three different schools. He said he had been advised to keep Z at the School’s nursery as he was settled there and moving to another setting may affect him.
23. The local council, which coordinated appeals on behalf of the admission authority, sent Mr X a form asking whether he would prefer to have his appeal heard by video conference, telephone conference, or based on written submissions. Mr X asked that his appeal be based on written submissions only. He was given an opportunity to submit written questions about the School’s case.
24. The appeal panel met to consider Mr X’s appeal based on written submissions. The panel noted the admission arrangements had been correctly applied and there was no information provided which met the high threshold for an infant class size appeal. The panel noted Y lived further away than the last child admitted to the School and that Mr X’s appeal was based on the needs of Y’s sibling. It dismissed Mr X’s appeal.
25. The clerk wrote to Mr X with the panel’s decision. The letter said the panel was satisfied the infant class size limit would be breached by admitting another child. It agreed the admission arrangements complied with the legal requirements and that those arrangements had been applied correctly in Y’s case. The clerk said the panel had taken account of the reasons why Mr X wanted Y to be offered a place at the School but these were not sufficient to reach the very high threshold required to override the infant class size limit.

Analysis

26. Mr X’s preference was for his appeal to be based on written submissions. The panel complied with his preference.
27. The panel correctly considered the criteria for infant class size appeals as set out in paragraph 15. While I acknowledge the difficulties Mr X faces in transporting his children to school, there was no fault in the way the panel reached its decision.

Final decision

28. I have completed my investigation as there was no evidence of fault in the admission appeals panel’s decision to refuse Mr X’s appeal for a school place for his daughter.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman