Grounds for Sec29 appeal to DoEd refusal to enrol into secondary school.

HappyGirl,

Its good to see that it all worked out for your daughter and her new secondary school.

My view is that the 1st school by chopping and changing the rules and not informing prospective students of the policy in good time is not acting fairly, transparently aor professionally.

I think that decisions made by the school on the basis of poorly communicated "chop and change" policy is wide open to challenge by parents of parents who feel they are the victims of such mal administration.

aj

Looking for some advise on this

My childs primary school is not a feeder A school for any of the local secondary schools , the nearest schools ( 2 of them and the primary school is in the feeder b list) which are circa 8 to 10 km from our house have all wrote back saying no place as they are oversubscribed and now we have to go on their waiting list. We applied to other schools much further away and no places have been offered

I don’t think think we have any choice now but to peruse a section 29 appeal to the 2 nearest schools.

This is the preferred schools admission policy
1: Children with brother or sister in the School
2: Children from feeder A Schools whose parents are in the catchment area
3: Children who’s parents live in the catchment area
4: Children from feeder A Schools
5: Children from feeder B Schools
6: All other applicants

We are not in the catchment area despite being 8km from the School so my child is only in number 5

From my understanding this appeal must be made within 30 days but I am unclear as to whether this 30 days starts from the first round offers or not, as I would not like to wait until the waiting list options is exhausted to be then told I didn’t appeal in time

We can dispute why are location isn’t in the catchment area as other locations which are nearly 20km away from the School are in it.
We can also raise the question as to why our child’s primary school isn’t a feeder A school given its closeness
I understand why siblings get preference but if the child applying is the eldest what hope have they ?

Any advise or clarification on what is the best route to follow would be greatly appreciated

Catchment areas are often based on parish boundaries.
Your child is in Category 5. Did everyone in Category 4 get a place? Did anyone in Category 5 get a place? Was there a lottery for places within Category 5? Is your child on a waiting list?

In my experience in Dublin, kids who are high on a waiting list often get in. Some kids will be offered more than one place, and as they choose which one to take, they release a place in another.

I can't advise you what to do regarding an appeal - but it's worth gathering as much information as you can.
Parents of older children in your area might have information about what happened in previous years.

What do the parents of other children in your primary school do? Do they qualify under one of the other criteria?

Can the school management not do anything about it?

Brendan

Thanks for the replies

The 2 schools had their application process and allocation of places completed last week. Both schools wrote saying they are oversubscribed ,one automatically put my child on waiting list with a number in the late thirties, the other sent a form to fill out to indicate if you wanted to be put on the waiting list. This form was filled in and returned to the school,this is the school we would prefer.

Upon further investigation it seems that all the other feeder b schools on the list for our preferred school are located in the catchment area, so effectively Children from my child’s school are really category 6. I can’t see a natural parish boundary they seem to have just used the roads as the boundary.

Parents from previous years it seems have had no problem securing places in these schools and of course some would of had older siblings. My child’s school is very small with no more than 60 pupils in the entire school, 6th class this year has 9 pupils, I dont know for sure their current status.

I will be contacting school principal today but I’m sure I will be greeted with the usual shrug of the shoulders apologetic look, good idea to contact the BOM but not sure how they can do anything at this stage. We did think it was strange when we checked with school when we enrolled about secondary schools schools that they weren’t a feeder school but they assured we wouldn’t have a problem securing place in local secondary schools

There is schools further away but I’m sure we have now missed the deadline for applications with these schools. What else as a parent are we able to do?

Ask the principal of the preferred school, what he or she suggests you child do now.

Contact your local education and welfare officer.

Contact your all your local politicians.

I did this some years ago for my child and one local politician took up the case, arranged meetings etc.

It would seem that every kid in your primary school is likely to be affected, and possibly in coming years. Very attractive for a politician.