I won my appeal for infant class size!!

When we were applying for school places earlier in the year, I blogged about how we made our choices and the fact that we only got our third choice. While we were living in York, I was actually quite happy with that because he had lots of friends at that school.

But then we moved to Bristol and had to start all over again. It was pretty annoying to move in September and trying to get a school place proved tricky. We found a house on the same street as a large, outstanding school so we moved in – surely if you move into the same street they’ll give you a place at the school!!

Apparently not!

After Bristol council taking their sweet time dealing with our application, we were offered a school about 2 miles away that was in special measures. I tried to see the best in it, I went for a look round but it was absolutely awful. We would have had to drive (because Harrison struggles to walk that far due to his heart condition) but there was nowhere to park. The school is in really bad condition and the head (well, I’m assuming he was the head but he never introduced himself) didn’t answer any questions, didn’t seem to care how I felt about sending my child there and they just assumed he was going to start the next day.

No. I would have rather kept him home until he was 5 than send him there. But ideally, I wouldn’t keep him home til he was 5 so the hunt for a school continued. We eventually found one ourselves without the help of the useless council and he started there about a month late. The problem was that it just wasn’t as nice, his peers didn’t live nearby and it was not the school we had planned on sending him to!

So I sent in my appeal letter to the council and about a month later the appeal date came around.

I was so nervous and a little emotional (OK, a lot!) but they were very nice and it wasn’t as formal as I thought it would be. The council sent a representative to present their case and then I presented my case. The panel asked questions to try and get a bit more background and to help them decide whether you have a genuine reason to appeal.

The very next morning I called up and found out the appeal had been upheld so I called the school to arrange a meeting. I went to see the head yesterday, uniform is on its way and he is starting on Monday!

I feel bad for Harrison that he has had so much change in his life but I’m proud of myself for presenting a good case and winning the appeal. It’s definitely the best school for him and I’m so excited to just pick up from the end of the road!