Parents who appeal against school admissions: Who are they and why do they appeal?
Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, University of Exeter, England, 12-14 September 2002
John Coldron
Kathy Stephenson
John Williams
Contact:
John Coldron
School of Education
Sheffield Hallam University
36, Collegiate Crescent
Sheffield
S10 2BP
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Abstract
The proportion of parents who appeal against allocation of school places has increased over the last decade. Further there are considerable variations between areas in the level of appeals. There is speculation that the increase and variation between areas are signs of greater consumerism on the part of parents or in some other way is a response to the marketisation of education. It is also often assumed that more advantaged parents make more appeals than those who are less advantaged. Little is known however about the parents who appeal or why they appeal. This paper considers some previous explanations of area differences and presents evidence from two recent studies where parents were surveyed and interviewed in depth. The results of the two surveys are presented, one a nationally representative survey of parents involved in the admission process in 1999/00 and one a survey of 317 parents who had appealed and the transcripts of 21 parents who had appealed were analysed. The findings are discussed in an attempt to shed some light on who appeals and why they get to the appeal stage. The need to acknowledge the emotional dimension of the parental experience is one of the results of this discussion. We further conclude that the evidence does not support the view that advantaged parents are more likely to appeal than those less advantaged. Neither does it support the view that there is an increase in consumerism amongst parents in general or from specific social groups. The increase in appeals and regional variation seems to us to be better explained by greater polarisation of parental perception.
Introduction
Every maintained school has an admission authority that decides whether or not children will be admitted to the school. For community schools this is the local education authority (LEA), and for foundation and voluntary-aided schools it is the school governing body. Parents have a right to express a preference for any school. In the event of a school receiving more applications than it has places available, places are allocated in accordance with the published criteria set by the admission authority. These criteria and the contexts in which they are applied vary considerably from area to area. If parents are not allocated a place for a child at their preferred school, they have the right to appeal to an independent appeal panel. The admission authority is responsible for arranging admission appeals and for appointing a properly constituted appeal panel.
Most parents are offered a place in a school for which they have expressed a preference (Flatley and Williams 2001). Nationally 85% of parents were offered a place in their favourite[1] school; 92% of parents received an offer of a place at a survey-measured stated first preference school[2]; and 96% of parents received an offer of a place in a school for which they had expressed at least some preference and 4% in a school for which no preference was stated.
Parents either accept the place offered or appeal against the admission authority decision. The number of appeals has steadily increased over the past five years. Taylor et al (2001) have argued that there are four contributory causes to high regional levels of appeals; greater consumer behaviour on the part of parents, pressure on school places, diversity of schooling and the level of social advantage of parents in an area. The reasons for both the increase in appeals and regional variations is of some interest in relation to whether or not parents are, as advocates of the marketisation of education predict, acting more as educational consumers and using the opportunities of the market to gain access to the 'best' schools.
Knowing who appeals and why helps to answer some of the questions raised by Taylor et al's claims and to whether parents are becoming more active consumers. This paper seeks to provide evidence from two recent studies about parents who appeal. The first study was conducted in 2000 entitled, Parents' Experiences of the Process of Choosing a Secondary School[3][4] (hereafter referred to as PEPC) and was in three stages. The first stage conducted by Sheffield Hallam University was an analysis of policies and practices relating to school admission in 139 Local Education Authorities in England. The second stage conducted by the Office for National Statistics was a nationally representative survey of parents of children about their experience of choosing a secondary school. The third stage conducted by Sheffield Hallam University (unpublished) was in depth interviews with 32 parents and 13 admission officers. The final report describes and analyses both the context of choice for parents and their views about the process and outcomes of choosing a secondary school. The other study, was, Admission Appeals: Research Study into the Operation of Appeal Panels, Use of the Code of Practice and Training for Panel Members[5] (hereafter referred to as AA) and was conducted in 2001/2. As part of this project we conducted a postal survey of 1011 panel members and 317 appellants and interviewed in depth 15 admission officers, 17 panel members and 21 parents who had appealed.
We first look in detail at the question as to how and where appeals are increasing. We then look at evidence of background characteristics of appellants such as occupational class and education. Having presented evidence of the kinds of parents who are most likely to make an appeal we look at the evidence as to the motivation to appeal.
Analysis of the increase in appeals[6]
There are two measures available for measuring appeals, appeals lodged and appeals heard. Clearly there are differences in the significance of these measures. Lodging an appeal is the registration of an intention. Parents may lodge an appeal, or a number of appeals, but this does not necessarily result in the appeal being taken to a hearing either because the issue is resolved to the parents' satisfaction before that point, or despite being dissatisfied they do not wish to pursue the issue. Where an appeal is heard the intention has been followed through and typically will have involved considerable work and, often, anguish. For most it will require considerable investment of time and effort. When making and considering claims about the increase in appeals it is helpful to be clear which figures are being cited. When figures for all schools are combined both measures show a similar upward trend for admissions (Table 1) [7].
Table 1: Appeals lodged and heard by parents against non-admission of their children to maintained primary and secondary schools: England 1995/96 – 2000/01
95/96 / 96/97 / 97/98 / 98/99 / 99/00 / 00/01Appeals lodged as a % of total admissions / 5.4 / 6.2 / 6.6 / 7.2 / 7.6 / 7.6
Appeals heard as a % of total admissions / 3.8 / 4.4 / 4.6 / 5.1 / 5.3 / 5.4
The numerical consequence of this increase in the proportion of appeals lodged was 27,861 more appeals lodged in 2000/01 compared with 1995/96 and 19,871 more appeal hearings. To illustrate the practical implications of the increase in appeals heard, if this increase were evenly divided between all LEAs in England it would amount to an average increase of 132[8] or approximately 12 more days of hearings. In reality appeals are not evenly spread and some areas such as London will have experienced much larger increases (see below for regional analysis). These figures represent a considerable expansion of the work of administering the appeals, of the time panel members and others spend on the process and of the experience of appeals by parents. So there is a real increase in overall appeals. There are however differences between geographical areas, age phases and types of school.
Appeal for Secondary and Primary Schools
There are important differences between appeals for primary and secondary school places. For example (see Table 2) the steady increase in the proportion of appeals heard overall is not the case for primary schools on their own. It is also the case that while parents from both age phases make appeals parents of children about to enter secondary school are more likely to appeal than those entering primary.
Table 2: Admission appeals for primary and secondary schools: appeals lodged and heard by parents against non-admission of their children to maintained primary schools in England 1995/96 – 1999/00
Primary schools
95/96 / 96/97 / 97/98 / 98/99 / 99/00 / 00/01Appeals lodged as a % of total admissions / 4.8 / 5.7 / 5.5 / 5.7 / 5.2 / 4.7
Appeals heard as a % of total admissions / 3.2 / 3.8 / 3.6 / 3.7 / 3.4 / 3.1
Secondary schools
95/96 / 96/97 / 97/98 / 98/99 / 99/00 / 00/01Appeals lodged as a % of total admissions / 6.0 / 6.7 / 7.6 / 8.7 / 9.6 / 10.3
Appeals heard as a % of total admissions / 4.3 / 4.9 / 5.5 / 6.3 / 7.0 / 7.5
Differences between types of school
Voluntary Aided and Aided schools are denominational schools most being Roman Catholic or Church of England. Foundation schools were the grant maintained schools prior to 1998 Standards and Framework Act which renamed them as Foundation Schools. Some, but not all, of these schools are selective and they became grant maintained for a variety of reasons to do with their relationship with their LEA. Often however they were the more popular schools that felt that they could manage better by opting out of the LEA.
Community schools are those schools wholly maintained by the LEA. This category is the largest by far and includes extremely popular schools and some that are extremely unpopular. It is a heterogeneous category. Therefore there needs to be some caution in interpreting any significance from the figures concerning types of school.
Nevertheless they do reveal some interesting differences (Table 3). For example the figures for primary schools show that in 2000/01 there were more appeals lodged and heard for places in community schools than in either VA, or Foundation schools. In secondary schools the picture is different with Foundation schools receiving more appeals, followed by VA schools and Community schools with the smallest number of appeals heard as a proportion of their total intake. The overall picture for both primary and secondary combined shows parents applying for places in Foundation schools make more appeals as a proportion of all admissions than parents applying for places in Community schools and parents applying to VA schools appeal the least.
Table 3
Appeals lodged and heard for Primary Schools as a percentage of total admissions for types of school 2000/01
Appeals Lodged / Appeals HeardCommunity / 5.2 / 3.3
Voluntary Aided and Aided / 2.6 / 2.1
Foundation / 4.3 / 3.0
Appeals lodged and heard for Secondary Schools as a percentage of total admissions for types of school
Appeals Lodged / Appeals HeardCommunity / 10.1 / 6.9
Voluntary Aided and Aided / 9.7 / 8.5
Foundation / 11.2 / 9.2
Appeals lodged and heard for Primary and Secondary Schools as a percentage of total admissions for types of school
Appeals Lodged / Appeals HeardCommunity / 7.6 / 5.0
Voluntary Aided and Aided / 5.3 / 4.6
Foundation / 10.4 / 8.4
Differences between areas
There is a wide variation between geographical areas in the proportion of appeals made. The analysis by area needs to be conducted with circumspection. For example local contexts at the LEA level are all important. In our study of the policies and practices of admission authorities (PEPC) it was found that the way in which local factors interact means that there is no simple relationship between the numbers of parents gaining their first preference place and the level of appeals. The contingent nature of LEA modes of practice means that there is a weak relationship between different modes of practice and particular outcomes. The key issue is not necessarily the individual modes of practice used per se but their application and interrelationship in particular contexts. What 'works' in one context may have a completely different effect in another. However an analysis of the figures for each LEA (DfES 2002) categorised as rural or metropolitan (Table 4) shows a clear pattern and corroborates the conclusion reached by Taylor et al (2001) that a greater number of appeals are associated with a greater density of population.
Table 4
Appeals lodged as a percentage of total admissions
Rural / Metropolitan(inc.London) / Metropolitan
(exc.London) / Inner London / Outer London / All London
Primary / 4.0 / 5.6 / 5.0 / 4.7 / 6.2 / 5.6
Secondary / 7.0 / 14.3 / 12.1 / 18.8 / 21.0 / 20.3
Combined / 5.7 / 9.9 / 8.7 / 10.5 / 13.6 / 12.4
Appeals heard as a percentage of total admissions
Rural / Metropolitan(inc.London) / Metropolitan
(exc.London / Inner London / Outer London / All London
Primary / 2.5 / 3.8 / 3.8 / 3.3 / 4.0 / 3.7
Secondary / 5.0 / 10.5 / 9.1 / 16.2 / 13.5 / 14.3
Combined / 3.9 / 7.1 / 6.6 / 8.5 / 8.7 / 8.6
Why should this be the case? It is tempting to assume that the greater level of appeals in metropolitan LEAs reflects the greater opportunities that parents have in these areas to choose alternative schools to their local school and appeals are part of the mechanism used by parents to maximise their consumer choice. But, as Taylor et al point out (2002 p 254) '…there is not necessarily always a direct relationship between pupil density and market activity of parents in the education market place. For example, there was little difference in the degree of parental activity in one metropolitan borough and a county LEA. This would suggest that other factors are also of importance.' They then identify four factors that were statistically associated with high levels of appeals in LEA areas and, in this sense, explain the variation from area to area of the level of appeals. These are greater consumer behaviour of parents, pressure on school places, diversity of schooling and the social advantage of parents. We consider these claims in the light of other quantitative and qualitative findings and suggest a further factor as a more powerful explanation of the different levels of appeals between areas.