Medical and social need

What the second stage actually asks

Paragraph 3.8 of the Appeals Code sets the test. The panel must balance the prejudice to the school against your case for your child, and it must take into account your reasons for preferring the school — "including what that school can offer the child that the allocated or other schools cannot". If your case outweighs the prejudice, the panel must uphold the appeal.

Read that clause again, because it is the whole shape of a good case. Not what the school offers. What it offers your child that the allocated school does not. Every sentence you write should be doing that comparison.

The prejudice side of the scale

Worth understanding, because it is often weaker than schools imply and you are entitled to test it.

Paragraph 3.10 says that while the panel must take the published admission number into account, the admission authority must be able to demonstrate prejudice over and above the fact that the number has already been reached. "We are full" is not, on its own, a sufficient answer. The panel must not reassess the school's capacity, but it must consider the actual impact of admitting another child, and may look at:

• the effect in this year and following years as the year group moves through the school
• whether the accommodation or organisation has changed since the admission number was set
• the impact of the local Fair Access Protocol
• class organisation and sizes, availability of teaching staff, and the effect on children already there

So it is fair to ask the presenting officer what the specific harm is, and to press if the answer is only that the number has been reached. School capacity data on this site can inform that question — but it is a whole-school figure a year behind, not the year group being appealed, so ask it as a question rather than asserting the school has room.

One caution. At the prejudice stage the courts have held that your child's particular characteristics are not, except in extreme cases, relevant to whether admission would cause prejudice. Your child's circumstances do their work in the balancing exercise that follows, not in establishing whether the school would be harmed.

What makes a medical or social case land

The pattern that works is always the same three steps, in this order:

1. The need. What is the condition or circumstance, stated plainly, and who says so besides you.
2. The provision. What does the preferred school specifically have or do that meets it — a named unit, a particular programme, a therapist who already works with your child, a peer group they depend on, a route they can travel independently.
3. The gap. Why the allocated school cannot meet it. This is the step most appeals skip, and it is the one the Code actually asks for. If you have contacted the allocated school and been told they cannot provide something, say so and put it in writing.

Evidence that carries weight

• a letter from a GP, consultant, paediatrician, CAMHS clinician or therapist that names the school and explains why
• a letter from the child's current school — from a teacher or SENCo who knows them, not a proforma
• a social worker's or family support worker's letter where there is one
• for travel arguments: actual timetables, journey times and interchange points, not an estimate

Ask each writer to address the comparison. A letter saying "this is a good school for this child" is worth much less than one saying "this child needs X, the preferred school provides X, the allocated school does not".

What does not carry weight

• the school's Ofsted rating or exam results, on their own — a better school is not an argument about your child
• your own strength of feeling, however genuine
• that friends' children were admitted — the panel must not compare individual cases when deciding whether yours outweighs the prejudice
• your position on the waiting list, which paragraph 3.21 forbids the panel from considering at all

One rule that surprises people

Paragraph 2.14 of the Appeals Code says panels must not allow representatives of the school to support individual appeals — not at the hearing, and not by writing letters of support for appellants. So a supportive head teacher at the school you are appealing for cannot help you this way, however willing. A letter from your child's current school is a different thing and is exactly what you want.

Be realistic about it

Nationally 19.4% of appeals heard were upheld — 22,402 of 115,695 appeals heard in 2024–2026. A well-built second-stage case improves what you are putting in front of the panel; it does not change the fact that most appeals do not succeed.

If, having read the three steps above, you cannot fill in step three — what the allocated school cannot do — then the honest position is that your case is weak, and the better investment is the waiting list and a serious look at whether a mistake in the process gives you a first-stage argument instead.

The other grounds

• Infant class size Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are capped at 30 pupils per teacher by law. A panel can only overturn a refusal on three narrow grounds, and how much your child needs the place is not one of them.
• A mistake in how the decision was made The strongest ground there is, and the most underused. If the admission arrangements were unlawful or were applied wrongly — and you would have got a place otherwise — the panel must uphold the appeal.
• Distance and catchment How the distance was measured, from where to where, and whether the same method was used for everyone. Measurement disputes are first-stage arguments, and they are checkable in a way most grounds are not.
• Siblings Whether a brother or sister counts is decided by the school's own definition, not by common sense. Half-siblings, step-siblings, fostered children and a sibling in the sixth form are treated differently by different schools.
• Faith and religious criteria Faith schools rank applicants on evidence of practice — attendance records, a form signed by a minister, baptism dates. Most faith appeals turn on whether that evidence was gathered and scored the way the published arrangements say.
• Special educational needs without an EHC plan A child on SEN support has no automatic route to a named school, and it is an admission panel that hears the case — not the SEND Tribunal. It works as a second-stage argument about provision this school has and the allocated one does not.
• A late application Two first-stage questions a panel can act on: whether it was right to treat your application as late at all, and whether your reason for being late is one the published arrangements say must be accepted anyway.
• In-year admissions Applying outside the normal round — a house move, or a school that is not working out. The ordinary two-stage test applies on a much shorter timetable, and the year group will usually already be full.
• Grammar schools and the 11-plus A selection appeal and an oversubscription appeal are different things judged on different tests. If your child missed the qualifying score, the panel is asking whether they are of the required academic standard — not whether the school has room.
• Sixth form places Post-16 admission runs on published entry requirements as well as oversubscription criteria, and the student gains a right of appeal of their own alongside their parents'. Where the refusal was about grades, the panel may not form its own view of the student's ability.
• Twins and multiple births Where one twin is offered a place and the other refused, the excepted-pupil rule can admit the second over the infant class size limit rather than separate them. Above the infant years the limit falls away and it becomes an ordinary sibling or second-stage argument.