Help - No place offered for secondary school because deemed too young

Awful situation.

I didn't think you could discriminate based on age though? As long as the age falls in the range it seems a strange way to order/restrict.

I hope you get a solution soon

I too have little to offer in terms of experience although I suppose with teacher shortages over subscription may become more of a thing & cut offs will likely become a feature more parents will become familiar with.

That said, your issue is more immediate.

The only thing I can think to do is to consider a third & fourth school where your daughter would consider going & you’d be happy for her to go too. Contact them, explain & hopefully one at least will have room for your daughter. At least then she’ll have an idea of where she might be in September & a little pressure will be off for her.

Keep in regular contact with your existing schools of choice. Although she may be far down the list, things do change for other families too & there will be movement, especially nearer the start time & in the first few weeks of the start term. Perhaps not ideal but the schools will know you have an ongoing interest should places arise.

A school in our locality is constantly over subscribed but every year some children on the list do get in before term starts, in the first few weeks & in one case in January. Some places also may become available in second & subsequent years which for you may be less than ideal, I know.

Maybe I'm reading that wrong but to me that suggests she needs to be 12 by the 1st January in the first school year of secondary, going by the age you listed I'm assuming she will turn 12 during the January of 6th class which means she is within the age limits?

E.g. If she is starting in September 2023 she needs to be 12 before January 2024? That's how I read it anyway?

But she won't be 11 starting she will be 12 going on 13 which means if she repeats 6th class she will be 13 starting secondary and turning 14 within 4 months of starting.

If anything as she is within the correct age limits as per department I would assume that the catchment should be a higher prioity. If someone is living and attending school in a town surely she should be given priority for a place in secondary in that same town.

Well, I don't think it can be a Dept of Education & Skills regulation: my child is younger than yours by a few months i.e. will still be 11 on 01-Jan-2023 and they have been accepted to secondary school in our area: if it was a regulation, our secondary school would be in breach as there are younger kids in my child's 6th class and they have also been accepted.

The school needs to have a documented admissions policy to ensure there is no discrimination. However, if it is based on a regulation that is being misinterpreted, it may not be valid. On the other hand, as a poster pointed out above, if the school is oversubscribed, there has to be some system to sort out who gets a place and who doesn't.

On the repeating 6th class, I know of another family who had a similar situation where they wanted to get their child to repeat 6th class but the school would not accept their child because I think the school would not receive the capitation grant for the child in these circumstances (I stress: I think that was the case!)

My advice would be to talk to a teacher you know who works in the school (if you know one) to see what they think and how best to approach it but definitely try and engage with the school and explain your circumstances. Failing that, talk to your local TD and see if they can be of any help.

Th is page is useful for setting out the position and how to go about appealing.

From what you have said, the schools have already breached their obligations. Might be time to threaten to go legal. Watch the deadline for filing appeals though, they re tight.

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/education/the_irish_education_system/admissions_policies_in_primary_and_secondary_schools.html

Then something definitely isn't right. Aside from anything else, you wouldn't have a position on the waiting list at all if it was due to the "twelfth birthday" rule. If they were applying that rule to your situation, the application should have been outright refused, the same as if the application was for a boy.

If the oversubscription policy section doesn't mention age of child, and they're using age to prioritise applicants, then they have completely screwed up. Unfortunately, you're probably going to have to push this pretty hard - no-one likes admitting when they've made a mistake, and will often double-down.

You need to kick off the appeals process immediately. As @TheWonderLlama stated, the deadlines in the process are tight. Make sure to follow the process as outlined in the admissions policy: if you make a mistake, and they can reject your appeal on a technicality, there's every chance they will

@KaneToad

They're not following policy though. At least, not the section that has been quoted so far. The child in question will have had their 12th birthday before the 1st of January that falls during her first academic year in the school.

The academic year in question runs from September 2023 to June 2024. According to the policy, January 1st is referring to 1/1/2024 - the OPs daughter will have been 12 for a long, long time before that

And (again), that part of the policy covers situations where they will refuse a place (same as if they received an application for a boy). It does not say they can use age to order applicants in the event of an over-subscription.

It's possible the section governing oversubscription policy does have an age criteria in place, but it is not the rule from the section that is posted so far

"● The student will not have reached her twelfth birthday before the 1st of January that falls during her first academic year in the school. (Department of Education and Skills’ regulation)."

It does indeed look like they have worded it incorrectly. Surely they mean "the 1st of Jan that falls during the year the student enrolls in the school".

Otherwise they would be saying that they are willing to take 11 yr olds in the September who will be 12 by Dec 31st?

Have you considered getting a local TD involved?

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This is interesting info.

So it looks like they gave places to sister of pupils and then were oversubscribed re feeder schools.

There process says that for over subscription, all the applicants go into a draw.

Some points:

1. Date of birth is not a criteria for the draw- its purely by lucky dip. If your daughter was excluded due to dob, then the draw is invalid.

2. Based on the number of children in local schools, is it credible that they were more than 100 oversubscribed? This equates to c.4 full classes of kids being excluded!

3. No child outside the area can be accepted ahead of your daughter - is this really the case?

There's a good chance this is all an admin mistake e.g. child wrongly catergorised. Talking to school and appealling might uncover this.

Well, best of luck with it, must be very stressful.

Looking at these selection criteria, OP, there is no mention of the child's age as being a factor at all. So your daughter should have been offered a place under category 2 regardless of age (category 3 only comes into play if there are still available places after all siblings of (past) pupils and the feeder schools have been accommodated). The only way she mightn't have been offered a place under category 2 is if there was oversubscription in category 2, in which case the "randomly pulled from a container" scenario comes into play and her name didn't come out to get a random place. Again, her age should have no bearing on this as there is no mention of it.

Incidentally, there are 11-year-old secondary students in the country; not many, quite honestly, but they do exist. Here's the proof from the CSO (look at the 11 year old enrollments in secondary schools):

So, the "Department regulation" thing about turning 12 before 1st January thing is very odd. Either the regulation doesn't actually exist or it is being misinterpreted (the 1st of January during the first academic year in the school is, by any literate reading of it, January 2024 for a September 2023 start; whoever is saying it is January 2023 is wrong, frankly). The law, as it stands, requires written admission policies to be applied in fine detail to avoid discrimination. So boys cannot be given unofficial preference by the school, however well intentioned. That's illegal.

I would go with raw facts OP. 11 year olds are admitted to secondary schools. Fact (CSO data). There is therefore no Department regulation that prohibits this. The admissions policy must (by law) be followed exactly as stated and, as stated, your daughter should be offered a category 2 place as she is from a feeder school and will be 12 before the 1st January that falls during her first academic year in the school. If they made a genuine error in applying their own admissions policy (which looks like it, frankly) then that error cannot disadvantage your child and she should be offered a place. If they try to brazen it out, quite honestly, you will have to tell them that you will have no choice but to approach your solicitor.

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