A mistake in how the decision was made

Why this ground is different

At the first stage of an appeal the panel asks two questions, set out at paragraph 3.2 of the Appeals Code:

1. Did the admission arrangements comply with the School Admissions Code and Part 3 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998?
2. Were those arrangements correctly and impartially applied in your case?

If the answer to either is no, and your child would have been offered a place had it been done properly, then paragraph 3.5(a) says the panel must uphold the appeal. Not "may". Not "should weigh". Must.

No balancing, no comparison with other families, no assessment of how much your child needs the school. That is what makes this worth an hour of checking before you write anything else.

What to actually check

Were the arrangements published properly?

Admission authorities must determine their arrangements every year by 28 February, and publish the determined version on their website by 15 March, keeping it up for the whole offer year (Admissions Code 1.49 and 1.50). Where arrangements changed, they must have consulted for at least 6 weeks between 1 October and 31 January (1.46), and they must consult at least once every 7 years even if nothing has changed (1.45).

The Code says in terms that failure to consult effectively "may be grounds for subsequent complaints and appeals" (1.48). If the criteria used on your application were not the criteria properly determined and published, that is a first-stage argument.

Were the criteria applied to you as written?

Read the determined arrangements for your admission year — not this year's, not the prospectus summary, the determined document. Then check your own case against them line by line. The commonest findings:

• a criterion applied in a different order than published
• a tie-break applied differently to you than to someone else — the Code requires arrangements to be applied "correctly and impartially"
• evidence you supplied on time not taken into account, or taken into account under the wrong criterion
• a category you clearly fell into that was not applied, most often sibling or catchment

Was the waiting list run lawfully?

Paragraph 2.15 of the Admissions Code requires a waiting list kept until at least 31 December of the admission year, re-ranked against the published oversubscription criteria every time a child is added. Priority must not be given by date of application, or by when a name was added to the list. Authorities get this wrong often enough to be worth checking.

Note the limit though: paragraph 3.21 of the Appeals Code forbids the panel from taking account of your position on the list or making any decision about it. A mishandled waiting list is evidence that the arrangements were not correctly applied — it is not itself something the panel can fix.

Were you refused for a reason that is not allowed?

Paragraph 2.9 of the Admissions Code says an admission authority must not refuse to admit a child solely because:

• they applied later than other applicants
• they are not of the faith of the school, where it has a religious character
• they followed a different curriculum at their previous school
• information has not been received from their previous school
• they missed entrance tests for selective places

If your refusal letter gives one of these as the reason, on its own, that is a direct first-stage point.

Was an offer withdrawn?

An offer may only be withdrawn where it was made in error, you did not respond in reasonable time, or it was obtained by a fraudulent or intentionally misleading application (Admissions Code 2.13). Where it goes on misleading information, the application must be considered afresh and a fresh right of appeal offered. Once a child has started at the school, a place must not be withdrawn at all except where fraudulently obtained, and the length of time the child has been there must be taken into account (2.14).

How to get the evidence

You are entitled to more than most parents ask for. The Appeals Code requires the admission authority to comply with reasonable requests for information you need to prepare your case (paragraph 2.8), and to give the clerk all relevant documents including how the arrangements applied to your application, the reasons for the refusal, and an explanation of how admitting another child would cause prejudice (paragraph 2.9).

Ask, in writing, early, for:

• the determined admission arrangements for your admission year
• how many children were admitted under each oversubscription criterion, and the cut-off point for the last child offered
• where your application ranked, and under which criterion it was considered
• the last-distance offered, and the method used to measure it — see distance and catchment

If the numbers you get back do not reconcile with the published arrangements, you have something. If they do, you have saved yourself arguing a ground that was never there — which is worth knowing too.

Two things people mistake for this ground

• "The criteria are unfair." A panel cannot rewrite lawful arrangements it dislikes. If you think the arrangements themselves breach the Code, the panel must refer them to the local authority and the admission authority (Appeals Code 3.4) — but objections to admission arrangements go to the Schools Adjudicator, separately from your appeal, and that route will not get your child a place this year.
  It is worth knowing what that route has found, though. The adjudicator has decided 1,251 objections since 2011 and found the arrangements did not comply in 68.3% of them, and every determination is published naming the school — how often admission rules are found not to comply. That is the share of objections that were decided, not of schools. Objections are made by people who already believe something is wrong, so most schools never appear here at all. If the criterion you were refused under has already been ruled on, that is evidence about the rules, not just an opinion about them.
• "The panel got it wrong." That is not this ground, and it is not an appeal. There is no second appeal for the same school in the same academic year unless your circumstances have materially changed (Appeals Code 5.1). Maladministration by the panel goes to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for maintained schools, or the Secretary of State for academies — and neither can overturn the decision. Only a court can, on judicial review (5.5).

Publication and consultation duties are at paragraphs 1.45 to 1.53 of the School Admissions Code 2021; the refusal restrictions at 2.9, offers at 2.13 and 2.14, waiting lists at 2.15. The first-stage test is at paragraphs 3.2 and 3.5 of the Appeals Code. Nationally 19.4% of appeals heard were upheld — 22,402 of 115,695 appeals heard in 2024–2026.

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.
• 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.
• Medical and social need The ground most parents lead with, and it is a second-stage argument almost every time. It works when it shows what this school can do for your child that the allocated school cannot — not how much you want it.
• 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.