How a school admission appeal works

The order it happens in

1. Read the refusal letter properly

   It must give the reason for the decision and tell you how to appeal — paragraph 2.5 of the Appeals Code. The reason decides which test your appeal is heard under, which matters more than anything else you will do.

2. Note the deadline, then work backwards

   You get at least 20 school days from the date on your refusal letter. The admission authority must publish its timetable by 28 February each year, and you are entitled to at least 10 school days' notice of the hearing.

3. Join the waiting list the same day

   It runs alongside the appeal and costs nothing. It must be ranked by the published oversubscription criteria rather than by when you joined, and for a lot of families it is the route that actually works.

4. Ask for the information you need

   The admission authority must comply with reasonable requests for information (paragraph 2.8). Most first-stage arguments are won or lost on documents you have to ask for.

5. Gather evidence somebody else wrote

   A panel weighs a letter from a clinician, a caseworker or a head of year quite differently from an account written by the parent. Get the third-party material moving early — it is the slowest part.

6. Write the case around the two stages

   Not around how much you want the school. The panel is answering two specific questions in a fixed order, and a statement that answers neither is the commonest reason a winnable appeal is lost.

7. Attend the hearing

   Shorter and less formal than almost everyone expects. You do not need a lawyer, and the panel is required to hear the school's case in front of you so you can answer it.

8. Read the decision letter

   Due within 5 school days of the hearing, wherever possible. It binds the admission authority. There is no second appeal for the same school in the same year, but there are real exceptions and a separate complaint route about how the appeal was run.

The steps in detail

• How a school appeal works, start to finish

  The whole process in order: what the refusal letter has to tell you, who hears the appeal, what the two stages are, and what the panel can and cannot do at the end of it.

• Appeal deadlines and the timetable

  Twenty school days to lodge, ten days' notice of the hearing, forty days to be heard in the normal round and thirty in-year. What is fixed by the Code, what each council sets for itself, and what happens if you miss it.

• Getting the information you need

  The admission authority must meet reasonable requests for the information you need to prepare. What to ask for, when to ask, and the handful of documents that decide most first-stage arguments.

• What actually counts as evidence

  The difference between a letter that moves a panel and one that does not is almost always who wrote it. What to gather, what to leave out, and why the strongest evidence is written by somebody other than you.

• Writing your appeal statement

  How to structure a written case so the panel can find the two things it is required to decide. Most statements are an account of how much the family wants the school, which is the one thing that carries no weight.

• Who decides your appeal

  The panel is independent of the school and the council, constituted under the Code, and its decision binds the admission authority. Who sits on it, who is disqualified from sitting, and what independence does and does not mean.

• What happens at the hearing

  The running order, who speaks when, what you will be asked, and what to do about the questions parents are routinely thrown by. Hearings are shorter and less formal than almost everyone expects.

• Appealing for more than one school

  Every school that refused you carries its own right of appeal, and paragraph 5.1 bars a second appeal only for the same school. Each runs on its own admission authority's timetable — and a thin case for three schools is usually worse than a strong case for one.

• Waiting lists, and when they beat an appeal

  A waiting list must be ranked by the published oversubscription criteria, not by when you joined it, and must run to at least 31 December. For a lot of families this is the better of the two routes, and it needs no hearing.

• After the decision

  The decision letter has to show the panel's working, and there is no second appeal for the same school in the same academic year — the one exception is narrower than the version circulating online. What a complaint can reach, and why the waiting list is now the live route.

What a panel is allowed to act on

The procedure above is the same for everyone. What differs is the argument you put through it, and only some arguments are ones a panel has power to act on at all.

• 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.
• 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.