If it might help, questions I would prepare to be asked are:
1. There is an Applicaa website with a phone number on it can be found by googling Applicaa and phone number. I found it within about 1 minute. Did you do that?
2. Why didn’t you use another email address - looking at the Applicaa help online, they say that the reason for not receiving the second email is most likely due to mistyping the email address at the first stage. Given you were applying late in the day and possibly a bit stressed, this is a reasonable explanation. Why would you say that’s not the case?
3. You were registering very close to the time limit so it gave really no time for resolving IT problems. There was a period of months to register so prejudice and risk to your daughter could have been mitigated by registering earlier. I would have some explanation as to why that was not possible. It will be the elephant in the room so it is better you address it because, if you don’t, it will give credence to you being stressed and making a mistake rather than a system error that is not your fault.
4. I would make an FOI request to the council to see what data they hold since they started using the provider which sets out what contacts they have had from parents who were (a) struggling to use the system and (b) have failed to be able to register. If you can show a pattern, that would be very helpful. If not, I think the panel will work on the basis it was an unfortunate user error and you had given yourself little to no time to rectify it.
I would suspect the panel will be quite firm on this because they will realise if they allow an admission on this point alone at Stage 1 (not even sure they could legally) or even at Stage 2, this could create a wheeze were numerous parents say they couldn’t register their child for the October exam and give them an extra 6 months to mug up for the second sitting of the exam. If enough people started doing that, it could cause chaos because there might be a significant cohort who decide it’s worth the risk to do that re late places as child would have failed in any event in October but there’s a fighting chance for the later sitting.
5. Moving on from that, you would need to show why your daughter would be prejudiced more by not attending the school than the school would be by letting her in. If you have a place at another grammar, I think this could be hard to do but not impossible so long as you have very clear grounds on why that school is more suited rather than you don’t like the other school as much and don’t feel she should be prejudiced by your error (if that was the root of the issue)
I am not an admissions expert in any way so this maybe all wrong but I think these are definitely possible issues that logically could arise.
1. There is an Applicaa website with a phone number on it can be found by googling Applicaa and phone number. I found it within about 1 minute. Did you do that?
2. Why didn’t you use another email address - looking at the Applicaa help online, they say that the reason for not receiving the second email is most likely due to mistyping the email address at the first stage. Given you were applying late in the day and possibly a bit stressed, this is a reasonable explanation. Why would you say that’s not the case?
3. You were registering very close to the time limit so it gave really no time for resolving IT problems. There was a period of months to register so prejudice and risk to your daughter could have been mitigated by registering earlier. I would have some explanation as to why that was not possible. It will be the elephant in the room so it is better you address it because, if you don’t, it will give credence to you being stressed and making a mistake rather than a system error that is not your fault.
4. I would make an FOI request to the council to see what data they hold since they started using the provider which sets out what contacts they have had from parents who were (a) struggling to use the system and (b) have failed to be able to register. If you can show a pattern, that would be very helpful. If not, I think the panel will work on the basis it was an unfortunate user error and you had given yourself little to no time to rectify it.
I would suspect the panel will be quite firm on this because they will realise if they allow an admission on this point alone at Stage 1 (not even sure they could legally) or even at Stage 2, this could create a wheeze were numerous parents say they couldn’t register their child for the October exam and give them an extra 6 months to mug up for the second sitting of the exam. If enough people started doing that, it could cause chaos because there might be a significant cohort who decide it’s worth the risk to do that re late places as child would have failed in any event in October but there’s a fighting chance for the later sitting.
5. Moving on from that, you would need to show why your daughter would be prejudiced more by not attending the school than the school would be by letting her in. If you have a place at another grammar, I think this could be hard to do but not impossible so long as you have very clear grounds on why that school is more suited rather than you don’t like the other school as much and don’t feel she should be prejudiced by your error (if that was the root of the issue)
I am not an admissions expert in any way so this maybe all wrong but I think these are definitely possible issues that logically could arise.
Statistics: Posted by Jennieuk — Thu Mar 28, 2024 10:21 am