Special educational needs without an EHC plan

Second stage — does your case outweigh the harm to the school?

If your child has an Education, Health and Care plan, stop reading and go to the flag below — you are in the wrong forum and this page cannot help you. If your child has special educational needs and no plan, an ordinary admission appeal panel decides your case, and it is asking a much narrower question than the one you want to answer.

If your child has an EHC plan, this is not your route

Paragraph 3.20 of the Appeals Code is explicit. An appeal by the parent of a child with an Education, Health and Care plan against the choice of school named in the plan, or against the fact that no school has been named, is considered by the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) — not by a school admission appeal panel. An admission panel has no power over the contents of a plan and cannot give you what you are asking for.

And if the plan already names the school, you should not be appealing at all. Paragraph 1.6 of the Admissions Code says that all children whose EHC plan names the school must be admitted. That is an outright duty with no oversubscription criteria in front of it and no appeal needed. If you have a plan naming the school and have been refused, the thing to do is put paragraph 1.6 in writing to the admission authority and to your council's SEN team the same day.

Ask the SEN team to amend the plan to name the school you want. If they refuse, the appeal is to the Tribunal. Do not spend your at least 20 school days from the date on your refusal letter on an admission appeal a panel cannot decide.

Who this page is for

Everyone else. In practice that is three situations, and they are treated identically by an admission panel even though they feel very different from the inside:

Your child is on SEN support at school. The school has identified a need and is doing something about it, and there is no plan and no application for one.
Your child has a diagnosis but no plan. Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, a speech and language disorder, a physical or sensory impairment — diagnosed, documented, and not the subject of an EHC plan.
An EHC needs assessment is underway. You have asked, or the school has, and the council has either agreed to assess or not yet decided. Until a plan is issued you are in the ordinary admission appeal system. There is a section below on what to do about the timing, because it matters more than anything else on this page.

In all three, an independent admission appeal panel hears your case under the ordinary two-stage process at paragraphs 3.1 to 3.9 of the Appeals Code. Nothing about having SEN changes the test, gives you a separate route, or entitles you to a place.

The sentence that loses these appeals

It is some version of this: my child has additional needs and this school is better able to meet them. It is often true. It is also, on its own, not an answer to the question the panel is required to decide.

Paragraph 3.8 of the Appeals Code sets the second stage. The panel must balance the prejudice to the school against your case, 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. Read the clause slowly, because it has three moving parts and a diagnosis supplies none of them:

What that school can offer. Something the school actually has and would say it has. Not its reputation, not its results, not an impression from an open evening.
The child. This child, with this need — so the provision has to connect to something documented about your child rather than being good in general.
That the allocated school cannot. The comparison. This is the half almost every SEN appeal omits, and it is the half that decides them.

A panel hearing "my child has SEN, this school suits children with SEN" has been told about a need and about a preference, and has not been given the comparison it is required to weigh. A panel hearing "my child has this difficulty, the SENCO at their current school says it is managed by X, this school runs X and describes it on its own website, and the allocated school confirmed in writing that it does not" has been given a case.

The thing to notice about that second version

Almost none of it was written by the parent. That is not a coincidence and it is the single most useful thing to understand before you start drafting: your account establishes what you want, and other people's documents establish what is true.

What makes a supporting letter worth having, and what carries no weight at all: What actually counts as evidence

Building the case, in the order a panel can follow

Three steps, and the third is the one to start on first because it is the one that depends on somebody else answering you.

The need, stated by somebody other than you. What the difficulty is, who identified it, what is already in place and what effect it has had. A SENCO who knows your child is worth more here than a consultant who met them twice.
The provision, named. What specifically the preferred school has — a resourced provision, a nurture group, a particular therapist, a transition programme, a class structure, a member of staff your child already works with, a journey your child can make independently when they could not make the other one. Quote the school's own published description of it.
The gap, evidenced. Why the allocated school cannot meet it. Ask the allocated school a narrow written question — not "can you meet my child's needs", which will get you a yes, but "does the school have X, and if not is there an equivalent" — and attach the reply whichever way it goes. An honest reply that they do have something equivalent is worth knowing before the hearing rather than at it.

What to ask for, who has to write it, and how long it realistically takes. The lead times are a description of how long these requests commonly take, not a requirement of either Code — nothing in the Codes obliges anyone but the admission authority to answer you, and that duty is at paragraph 2.8 of the Appeals Code.
What	Who writes it	How long it takes
A letter from the SENCO at your child's current school	The current school, not the one you are appealing for — paragraph 2.14 of the Appeals Code forbids the school you want from writing in support of your appeal.	Weeks. Ask on the day you decide to appeal, and say what you need it to address.
The record of what has been tried and what happened	The current school. Support plans, review notes, the interventions that were run and for how long, and what changed. This record is supposed to exist: paragraphs 6.44 to 6.55 of the SEND Code of Practice set out the four-part "graduated approach" — assess, plan, do, review — and 6.49 says the support provided should be recorded on the school's information system. Ask for it by that name.	Days to weeks, and it is usually a request rather than a document that already exists in one piece.
Clinical or specialist correspondence	A paediatrician, CAMHS, an educational psychologist, a speech and language therapist, an occupational therapist — whoever is already involved.	Weeks to months. Ask for a copy of what already exists first; a new letter written for the appeal is slower and not necessarily better.
The preferred school's own published information about its SEN provision	You, off the school's website. Paragraph 6.79 of the SEND Code requires the governing body of a maintained school or the proprietor of an academy to publish information about its policy for pupils with SEN, updated annually, covering the kinds of SEN it provides for and how it identifies and assesses needs. The point is to quote the school's own description of what it does back to the panel.	An afternoon. This is the cheapest evidence on the list and the one most often missing.
What the allocated school says it cannot do	The allocated school, in writing, in answer to a specific question you asked it.	Days, if you ask a narrow question. This is the half of the comparison almost every appeal leaves out.

One rule that catches people out and is worth knowing before you ask the wrong person. Paragraph 2.14 of the Appeals Code says panels must not allow representatives of a school to support individual appeals for places at that school, either at the hearing or by writing letters of support. So a sympathetic SENCO at the school you are appealing for cannot help you this way, however willing they are. The SENCO at your child's current school is a different person in a different position and is exactly who you want.

Where SEN does become a first-stage point

This ground sits at the second stage, and that is where the argument on this page lives. But there are first-stage points that show up in SEN cases, and they are worth checking before you write anything, because a first-stage point leaves the panel no discretion at all: under paragraph 3.5(a) of the Appeals Code, if the arrangements did not comply or were not correctly and impartially applied and your child would have been offered a place otherwise, the panel must uphold the appeal.

Each of these is really the mistakes-in-the-process ground with a particular fact pattern, so check them there as well as here.

A social and medical need criterion that was not applied to you. Paragraph 1.16 of the Admissions Code says that where an admission authority uses social and medical need as an oversubscription criterion, it must set out in its arrangements how it defines that need, give clear details of what supporting evidence is required, and then make consistent decisions based on the evidence provided. If the school has such a criterion, read what it says, then read what you were told. Inconsistency here is checkable against a document.
Arrangements that disadvantage a child with SEN. Paragraph 1.8 of the Admissions Code requires oversubscription criteria to be reasonable, clear, objective and procedurally fair, and requires admission authorities to ensure their arrangements will not disadvantage unfairly, either directly or indirectly, a child with a disability or special educational needs. Paragraph 1.9(h) of the same Code says arrangements must not discriminate against or disadvantage disabled children or those with special educational needs.
A supplementary form that asked about your child's SEN. Paragraph 2.4 of the Admissions Code lists what a supplementary information form must not ask for, and limb (c) is details about parents' or a child's disabilities, special educational needs, or medical conditions. If you were asked, that is a breach of the Code on its face. Note the corollary, which surprises people the other way round: because 2.4(c) exists, the admission authority may lawfully have known nothing about your child's needs when it ranked the applications, and "they should have known" is not by itself an argument.
A selection test your child could not fairly sit. Where the school selects by ability or aptitude, paragraph 1.32(b) of the Admissions Code requires admission authorities to ensure tests are accessible to children with special educational needs and disabilities, having regard to the reasonable adjustments for disabled pupils required under equalities legislation. Paragraph 1.31 of that Code requires tests to be clear, objective and an accurate reflection of ability or aptitude irrespective of disability.
An equalities failure. Appendix 1 to the Appeals Code signposts the Equality Act 2010 and says at its paragraph 2 that schools' policies and practices, including admission arrangements and decisions, must meet the requirements of the Act, and that failure to do so may be relevant to the matters an appeal panel has to decide. That is a signpost rather than a test, and the appendix says in terms that it does not interpret the law — so this is a reason to raise the point, not a ground that decides itself.

A school failing your child is not a first-stage point

Every item above is a breach of the admission arrangements or of admissions law. That is what the first stage is about. It is a different thing from your current school handling your child's SEN badly, and the distinction matters because the second is far more common and feels far more urgent.

The SEND Code of Practice sets out what schools must do for a child with SEN, and this page cites it below for the records it says a school should hold. But paragraph iv of its introduction lists who must have regard to it — councils, governing bodies, academy proprietors, NHS bodies and the First-tier Tribunal (SEND) — and an independent admission appeal panel is not on that list. A panel deciding your appeal is not the forum for a complaint that a school departed from the SEND Code, and has no power to do anything about it.

Where that departure is useful is as evidence: what was tried, what it achieved, and what your child still needs. That is a second-stage point about the gap between two schools, and it belongs in the section above. If what you want is the departure itself put right, that is the school's complaints procedure or the council, and it runs separately from the appeal on its own timetable.

What a first-stage point looks like, and the second limb of 3.5(a) where most of them die: A mistake in how the decision was made

How to get the arrangements, the criteria as applied and the school's case papers before the hearing: Getting the information you need

If an EHC needs assessment is underway

This is the situation where the choice you make in the next fortnight actually changes the outcome, so it is worth being clear about the two systems running side by side.

Until a plan is issued, you are in the admission appeal system and the page above applies to you. Once a plan is issued naming the school, paragraph 1.6 of the Admissions Code requires the school to admit your child outright, with no oversubscription criteria and no appeal. Once a plan is issued naming a different school, paragraph 3.20 of the Appeals Code moves any argument about which school is named to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND), and an admission panel drops out of the picture entirely.

What follows from that

The plan route is the stronger one, because paragraph 1.6 is a duty rather than a balance. If an assessment is realistically going to produce a plan, that is where your effort belongs — and if it names the school you want, you did not need the appeal. Pursue it in parallel and do not let the appeal timetable make you drop it.

But lodge the appeal anyway. It costs nothing but the form, an assessment may not result in a plan, a plan may not name this school, and both processes take months. Missing the appeal deadline while you wait for the SEND system to move is the commonest way this situation ends with neither.

Say in your appeal statement that an assessment is underway and where it has got to. It is a fact about your child's needs being taken seriously by somebody other than you, which is the currency of the whole second stage. What it is not is a reason for a panel to hold the appeal open — nothing in the Appeals Code provides for that, and the hearing deadlines at paragraph 2.3 run regardless.

One narrow provision that is often quoted more widely than it reads. Paragraph 3.13 of the Admissions Code says admission authorities must not refuse to admit a child thought to be potentially disruptive, or likely to exhibit challenging behaviour, on the grounds that the child is first to be assessed for special educational needs. It sits under that Code's challenging behaviour heading and qualifies the in-year refusal power at paragraph 3.10 of the same Code. It is a real protection for the family it covers, and it is not a general rule that an application cannot be refused while an assessment is pending.

Two situations where the ordinary case does not apply

Reception, Year 1 and Year 2

If the refusal was because admitting your child would breach the infant class size limit of 30, paragraph 4.2 of the Appeals Code puts your appeal under a completely different and much narrower test, and the second-stage argument this page is about does not exist in it at all. A panel hearing an infant class size appeal may only uphold it on the three grounds at paragraph 4.6, and how much your child needs the place is not one of them. Nothing about SEN changes that.

The one route worth checking is the excepted-pupil list at paragraph 2.16 of the Admissions Code, because limb (h) covers children with special educational needs who are normally taught in a special educational needs unit attached to the school, or registered at a special school, who attend some infant classes within the mainstream school. That is a narrow category and it is about how a child is taught rather than about having a need — but where it applies, admitting the child does not breach the limit and the basis of the refusal falls away.

The three grounds and the excepted-pupil list in full, and the question to ask before you accept the narrow test applies: Infant class size

Applying outside the normal round

In-year, one extra route exists and almost nobody in this position knows about it. Paragraph 3.17 of the Admissions Code sets out the closed list of groups a Fair Access Protocol may be used to place, and limb (e) is children with special educational needs (but without an Education, Health and Care plan), disabilities or medical conditions — your exact situation, named in the Code. It applies where the child is having difficulty securing a school place in-year and it can be demonstrated that reasonable measures have been taken through the usual in-year procedures first.

Two things about it. Paragraph 3.19 of that Code says there is no duty to comply with parental preference when allocating through the Protocol, so it will not get you this school — its job is to get your child a place quickly. And paragraph 3.18 says eligibility for the Protocol does not limit your right to apply to any school, that admission authorities must not refuse to admit a child on the basis that they may be eligible for it, and that you keep your right of appeal even if the child has been offered a place via the Protocol. So it runs alongside the appeal and costs you nothing.

The in-year timetable, the Fair Access Protocol in full, and why the second stage is harder mid-year: In-year admissions

What does not work, and what to do instead

Across England 19.4% of appeals heard were upheld — 22,402 of 115,695 appeals heard in 2024–2026 — so roughly four in five were dismissed. That is a national figure covering every appeal heard in England. The Department for Education publishes appeal outcomes by council and by phase — primary, secondary and infant class size — and by nothing else, so there is no published success rate for SEN appeals at any level, none for any individual school, and nothing on this page is a forecast about your case.

What this page can tell you is where these cases fail. If most of the following describe your appeal, it is a weak one:

the statement sets out the diagnosis at length and the two schools briefly, or not at all;
nothing is attached that somebody other than you wrote about your child;
the preferred school's advantage is described in general terms — smaller, calmer, better with children like mine — rather than as a named provision the school itself says it has;
you have not asked the allocated school anything, so the comparison the Code asks for has one side missing;
and the honest reason for the preference is that the allocated school has a worse reputation.

That is the ordinary version of this appeal and it does not succeed. Saying so is not discouragement — an appeal costs a fortnight of evenings that could go into the routes below, and finding out early is free.

Pursue the EHC needs assessment if there is any prospect of one. Paragraph 1.6 of the Admissions Code is a duty to admit, which is a stronger thing than any argument on this page.
Stay on the waiting list. Paragraph 2.15 of the Admissions Code requires it to be kept until at least 31 December of the school year, re-ranked on the published oversubscription criteria every time a child is added, and never ordered by when you applied. A place from the list needs no hearing at all.
Get the SEN provision named at the allocated school. If your child ends up there, the paperwork you gathered for the appeal is exactly what a conversation with its SENCO needs, and none of it is wasted.
Check the first-stage list above once more. It is the only place on this page where a panel has no discretion.

Why the list is often the better of the two routes, and the two rules councils get wrong: Waiting lists, and when they beat an appeal

Deadlines

Set by the admission authority, which must publish its appeals timetable by 28 February each year under paragraph 2.2 of the Appeals Code. Within that, the Code requires:

at least 20 school days from the date on your refusal letter to lodge your appeal, in writing — paragraph 2.1(a)
at least 10 school days' notice of the hearing — paragraph 2.1(b)
appeals from the normal admissions round heard within 40 school days of the deadline for lodging appeals — paragraph 2.3(a)
in-year appeals heard within 30 school days of the appeal being lodged — paragraph 2.3(d)
the decision letter within 5 school days of the hearing, wherever possible — paragraph 2.1(d)

The evidence deadline is a separate one and it is the one that matters here. Paragraph 2.7 requires the hearing notification to include a deadline for submitting further evidence that was not sent with the initial appeal, and paragraph 2.10 lets the panel decide whether to consider material that arrives after it. Given how long a SENCO letter or a clinical report takes, lodge early, say in the appeal that further evidence is coming, and send each document as it arrives rather than in one bundle at the end.

How to structure the statement so a panel can find the two things it has to decide: Writing your appeal statement

Paragraph numbers on this page are from the School Admission Appeals Code 2022 unless the page says "Admissions Code", in which case they are from the School Admissions Code 2021. The EHC plan diversion is at paragraph 3.20 of the Appeals Code and the duty to admit where a plan names the school at paragraph 1.6 of the Admissions Code. Paragraph numbers introduced as "the SEND Code" are from the SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (January 2015), which is statutory guidance for schools, councils, health bodies and the First-tier Tribunal (SEND). It is cited on this page only for what a school must publish and should already record — an independent admission appeal panel is not among the bodies its paragraph iv requires to have regard to it, so nothing in it decides an admission appeal. An EHC needs assessment is a creature of the Children and Families Act 2014, which is named here but not cited by section. Appeal statistics are Department for Education figures used under the Open Government Licence, published by council and phase with no SEN breakdown — how we source and calculate them.

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.
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.
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.

Two things that are true on every page here

This is not legal advice. We are not a law firm. Admission appeals are not a reserved legal activity, and you do not need a lawyer to bring one — but what you are reading is an explanation of a statutory process, not advice about your case.

Nobody publishes appeal odds for individual schools. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and releases them by council only. Across England 19.4% of appeals heard were upheld — 22,402 of 115,695 appeals heard in 2024–2026 — and that is a description of what happened to other families, not a forecast about yours. Figures for your council.

The statutory framework is the School Admission Appeals Code 2022, which came into force on 1 October 2022. Paragraph numbers cited on this page refer to it. Appeal statistics are Department for Education figures used under the Open Government Licence — how we source and calculate them.