After the decision
Most people reading this have lost, so here is the shape of it before the detail. The decision itself is effectively the end of the argument: there is no second appeal for the same school in the same academic year except in one narrow case, and the complaint routes are about how your appeal was run rather than about whether the panel got it right. What is still live is the letter — which has to do considerably more than tell you the answer — and the waiting list, which the panel was forbidden to touch.
Read the letter against paragraph 2.28 first
Paragraph 2.28 of the Appeals Code requires the decision letter to be easily comprehensible, to contain a summary of the relevant factors that were raised by the parties and considered by the panel, and to give clear reasons for the decision — including how, and why, any issues of fact or law were decided by the panel during the hearing.
A letter that says the panel considered your case carefully and was not persuaded does not meet that. Nor does one that never mentions the points you actually made. Asking the clerk for a letter that complies with 2.28 is the first move on this page, and it is the cheapest thing you will do all week: it costs an email, it is a duty the Code puts on the panel rather than a favour, and it is the only way to find out what the panel actually decided and why.
Do it whether or not you are considering anything further. If you are, you need it — a complaint about how an appeal was run, written before you know how it was run, is a complaint about your own guesses.
What the decision letter has to do
Two paragraphs govern it and they do different jobs. Paragraph 2.27 is about who sends it, who gets it, who signs it and when. Paragraph 2.28 is about what is in it, and it is much more demanding than the letters most families receive.
Paragraph 2.27 of the Appeals Code
The panel must communicate the decision of each appeal, including the reasons for that decision, in writing to the appellant, the admission authority and the local authority. The clerk or chair must sign the decision letter and send it to the parties as soon as possible after the hearing but not later than five school days, unless there is good reason. In the case of applications outside the normal admissions round, the child must be admitted without unnecessary delay.
The last sentence of that only bites where an appeal is upheld and the application was an in-year one — it is about getting a child who has won into a classroom rather than into a September start eight weeks away. It is worth quoting back if you have won an in-year appeal and are being told to wait for a convenient date.
| What the letter must do | Code | What falls short |
|---|---|---|
| Reach you, the admission authority and the local authority, in writing, with the reasons for the decision | 2.27 | A phone call, or an email from the school rather than the panel. The decision is the panel's to communicate, and it goes to three recipients rather than one. |
| Be signed by the clerk or the chair | 2.27 | An unsigned template on the council's letterhead. Minor on its own, and worth noting if you are already writing about something else. |
| Be sent as soon as possible after the hearing, and not later than five school days unless there is good reason | 2.1(d), 2.27 | Three weeks of silence. This is the softest number in the whole timetable — 2.1(d) says decision letters must be sent within five school days “wherever possible” and 2.27 allows longer where there is good reason — so chase it rather than treating a late letter as a breach. |
| Be easily comprehensible, so you can understand the basis on which the decision was made | 2.28 | A page of statutory quotation with no application of it to you. If you have read it three times and still cannot say why you lost, that is the test 2.28 sets and the letter is failing it. |
| Contain a summary of the relevant factors that were raised by the parties and considered by the panel | 2.28 | Your case not appearing in it at all. If you made three points and the letter mentions one, either the panel did not consider the other two or the letter does not record that it did — and you cannot tell which from the outside, which is the reason the requirement is there. |
| Give clear reasons for the decision, including how and why any issues of fact or law were decided during the hearing | 2.28 | “The panel was not persuaded that your case outweighed the prejudice to the school.” That is the outcome restated, not a reason. Where you and the presenting officer disagreed about a fact — a date, a distance, what was on the form — 2.28 requires the letter to say how that was resolved and why. |
The three rows from 2.28 are the ones to press. They are a single sentence in the Code and they add up to something quite specific: the letter has to show the panel's working. Not at length, and not in legal form, but enough that you can see which of your points were treated as relevant, what the panel made of the disputed facts, and what tipped it.
What to send, if the letter does not do that
Write to the clerk, not to the school and not to the panel members. The clerk signs and sends the letter under 2.27 and keeps the record of the hearing under 2.29, so they are the right recipient and the one who can actually answer.
- Quote paragraph 2.28 and ask for a decision letter that meets it. Name the parts you say are missing rather than complaining generally — a summary of the factors raised and considered, and clear reasons including how and why any issues of fact or law were decided.
- List the points you made that do not appear in the letter, in one line each. This is the part that does the work, because it is checkable against the clerk's record.
- Name the specific factual disagreement, if there was one. Where you said the form was received on the 12th and the presenting officer said the 19th, 2.28 requires the letter to say how that was decided.
- Ask in the same email for the arrangements for making a complaint. Paragraph 5.4 requires admission authorities to inform parents about those arrangements, so it is a duty rather than a request, and having it in writing early costs you nothing if you never use it.
Two things about the clerk's record, because families ask for it and are often surprised by the answer. Paragraph 2.29 requires the clerk to ensure an accurate record is taken of the points raised at the hearing, including the proceedings, attendance, voting and reasons for decisions — so a record exists, and it exists whatever the letter says. Paragraph 2.30 requires it to be kept securely by the admission authority for a minimum of two years, but adds that such notes and records will in most cases be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 2018, and that admission authorities receiving requests for them should obtain legal advice.
Read that as it is written. The record is kept, you may ask, and you are not entitled to it in the way you are entitled to a letter that complies with 2.28. Ask for the letter first. It is the document the Code says you are owed.
What you can require the admission authority to give you, and the difference between that, a subject access request and an FOI: Getting the information you need
If the appeal was upheld, the decision binds them
This is short because it is simple, and it is worth having in plain terms because families who win are sometimes told otherwise by a school with no room.
Paragraph 2.25 of the Appeals Code records that under section 94(6) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, a panel's decision that a child shall be admitted to a school is binding on the admission authority concerned. The same paragraph requires panels to either uphold or dismiss an appeal and not to uphold an appeal subject to any specified conditions.
So there is no such thing as being upheld on condition that a place comes free, and "we are full" is not an answer to a decision in your favour — the panel reached its decision knowing the school was full, because prejudice to a full school is the thing it was weighing at 3.8. If the application was outside the normal admissions round, 2.27 adds that the child must be admitted without unnecessary delay.
Two practical things follow, neither of which is in either Code and both of which are simply what a sensible family does next. Tell the council in writing that you accept the place, and ask the school to confirm the start date. And release what you no longer need — the place you were allocated, and the waiting lists you are on for schools you have now decided against. Somebody else on those lists is where you were last month.
There is no second appeal, and the exception is narrower than you have been told
This is the most searched question on this page and the one most often answered wrongly elsewhere, so it is worth doing slowly. Paragraph 5.1 of the Appeals Code, in full:
Paragraph 5.1 of the Appeals Code
Appellants do not have the right to a second appeal in respect of the same school for the same academic year unless, in exceptional circumstances, the admission authority has accepted a second application from the appellant because of a significant and material change in the circumstances of the parent, child or school but still refused admission.
The version circulating online is that a significant and material change in your circumstances entitles you to appeal again. That is not what the sentence says, and the difference is not a technicality — it moves the decision from you to somebody else. Four things have to happen, in order.
| What has to be true | What that means in practice |
|---|---|
| 1. The circumstances are exceptional | The Code's word, and it sits at the front of the sentence governing everything after it. A change that is real and significant to your family is not automatically exceptional, and nothing in the Code defines the term further. |
| 2. You made a second application | Not a second appeal, and not a request to be reheard. A fresh application to the admission authority for the same school and the same academic year, which is a different act from anything the appeal process involves. |
| 3. The admission authority accepted it, because of a significant and material change in the circumstances of the parent, child or school | This is the link that carries all the weight, and it is a decision somebody else makes about your application. The Code does not oblige an admission authority to accept a second application, and note that the change can be in the school's circumstances rather than yours — an expansion, a change to the published admission number, a change to the arrangements. |
| 4. It refused that application as well | The right of appeal comes from the refusal of the accepted second application, in the ordinary way. If the second application succeeds you have your place and there is nothing to appeal; if it is never accepted there is no refusal, so there is nothing to appeal either. |
The third limb is the one to sit with. The change in circumstances does not give you a right of appeal. It gives the admission authority a reason to accept a second application, which it is not obliged to do. A family that reads 5.1 the folk way spends a fortnight assembling evidence of a change and sends it to the appeals team, when the thing that has to happen is a fresh application to the admission authority and a decision by the admission authority to accept it as an exception.
So the useful move, if you genuinely have a change of this kind, is to write to the admission authority making a second application, say plainly what has changed and when, and quote 5.1 as the reason you are asking them to accept it in exceptional circumstances. Attach the evidence of the change rather than describing it. If they refuse to accept the application at all, there is no refusal of admission and so no second appeal — which is the point at which this route is over, and it is better to know that in a week than in a term.
Be honest with yourself about what "significant and material" is likely to cover. A house move that changes which criterion you fall in, a change in the child's circumstances that a service can evidence, a change at the school itself such as an expansion or a change to the published admission number — those are the kind of thing the wording reaches. Finding a better argument, obtaining the letter that arrived too late, or wishing you had said something different at the hearing are not changes in circumstances at all. They are the ordinary regret of a dismissed appeal, and they are what 5.1 exists to stop being relitigated.
Two related things 5.1 does not stop
- A different school. 5.1 is about the same school for the same academic year. If more than one school refused you, each refusal carries its own right of appeal and each is heard separately.
- A later academic year. Paragraph 5.3 says appellants may apply for a place in the same school in respect of a later academic year and have a further right of appeal if that application is unsuccessful. That is a fresh application producing a fresh decision, not a second appeal against the old one, which is exactly why it is available.
One footnote for the rare family that gets through 5.1: paragraph 5.2 requires a second appeal panel to be made up of different members from the first.
Where more than one school refused you, and how the appeals interact: Appealing for more than one school
The complaint routes are about how the appeal was run
There is a complaint route and it is worth understanding precisely, because almost every complaint that fails does so for the same reason: it is a complaint that the panel was wrong, sent to a body that is required not to decide whether the panel was wrong.
Hold the distinction. Whether the panel reached the right answer is not reviewable by anyone except a court. Whether your appeal was properly organised, properly constituted and fairly run is what the complaint routes exist for. A complaint written in the first register gets read in the second and comes back looking like a refusal to engage.
| If the school is | Who investigates, and what they can do | What they cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| A maintained school — community, voluntary controlled, voluntary aided or foundation | The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Paragraph 5.4 of the Appeals Code gives this route for maintained schools and Appendix 2 sets out how it works. It can investigate maladministration on the part of the appeal panel — Appendix 2 paragraph 1 gives failure to follow correct procedures and failure to act independently and fairly as its examples. Where it finds maladministration it may make recommendations for a suitable remedy, and Appendix 2 paragraph 2 gives the example of recommending that an appeal is reheard by a different panel and with a different clerk. | Overturn the decision, which Appendix 2 paragraph 2 says in terms. It also does not cover the merits of decisions that only the panel has authority to make, so generally it cannot consider whether the panel was correct to uphold or dismiss your appeal (Appendix 2 paragraph 1). |
| An academy or free school | The Department for Education. Paragraph 5.4 puts complaints about academy appeal panels to the Secretary of State; Appendix 2 paragraph 4 says they are investigated by the Department, and the Code's own footnote records that this moved from the Education and Skills Funding Agency on 4 July 2022 with the same remit. Under sections 496, 497 and 497A of the Education Act 1996 and under an academy's funding agreement, the Secretary of State may consider whether the panel was correctly constituted by the admission authority, and whether the admission authority acted reasonably in exercising its functions in respect of the appeals process or failed to discharge a duty in relation to it (paragraph 5.6). Appendix 2 paragraph 4 also covers a complaint that an academy trust failed to comply with the Appeals Code in setting up a panel. | Reach the merits. Paragraph 5.5 says the Secretary of State cannot review or overturn an appeal decision relating to a maintained school, and that an appeal panel's decision can only be overturned by the courts on judicial review. Neither paragraph 5.6 nor Appendix 2 gives the Department power to substitute a different outcome for yours. |
Neither route can give you the place
The Ombudsman is not able to overturn the appeal panel's decision (Appendix 2, paragraph 2). The Secretary of State cannot review or overturn an appeal decision relating to a maintained school (paragraph 5.5). The best realistic outcome of a complaint is the one Appendix 2 gives as its own example — a recommendation that the appeal is reheard by a different panel, with a different clerk.
That is a second hearing, not a second answer. The new panel applies the same two-stage test at 3.2, 3.3 and 3.8 to the same school with the same number of places, and it can dismiss the appeal too. Worth having where something genuinely went wrong. Not worth six weeks where what went wrong is that you lost.
What does belong in a complaint is anything about the conduct of the process, and the Code is where the standards come from. Appendix 2 paragraph 1 names failure to follow correct procedures and failure to act independently and fairly as examples of maladministration; the specific duties those attach to are in the Code itself.
- Independence and constitution. Paragraph 1.6 requires admission authorities to ensure panel members are independent and retain their independence for the duration of their service, and paragraph 1.7 lists who is disqualified from membership — including anyone with a connection to the authority or school that might reasonably be taken to raise doubts about their ability to act impartially, and anyone who has not attended the training the admission authority required. Paragraph 1.4 requires the clerk to be independent of the school and of the education functions of the local authority.
- Natural justice. Paragraph 2.24 requires panels to operate according to the principles of natural justice, and names three: no vested interest in the outcome or involvement at an earlier stage, each side given the opportunity to state their case without unreasonable interruption, and written material and evidence seen by all the parties. Being cut off, or being shown a document for the first time in the room, is a 2.24 point.
- Papers and notice. Paragraph 2.7 requires written notification of the hearing no later than 10 school days beforehand, and paragraph 2.10 requires the clerk to send all the papers required for the hearing, including the names of the panel members, to the parties and the panel a reasonable time before the date of the hearing.
- A panel that changed part-way. Paragraph 1.9 requires that where a panel starts with three members and one has to withdraw temporarily, the remaining hearing is postponed until they return — and if they cannot return, a replacement is appointed and all appeals must be reheard, including any part-heard before the withdrawal.
- The decision letter. Where you have asked for a letter that meets 2.28 and not received one, that is a question about the administration of the appeal rather than about its merits — which is the side of the line complaints are for.
Neither Code sets a deadline for making a complaint. Do not read that as unlimited time: the bodies that receive them set their own rules on how late a complaint can be made, and those are not in the Appeals Code, so check before you assume. Paragraph 5.4 requires the admission authority to inform you about the arrangements for making a complaint, which is the quickest way to find out where yours goes.
Paragraph 5.5 also records the one route that can overturn a decision: an appeal panel's decision can only be overturned by the courts, where the appellant or the admission authority succeeds in applying for judicial review of it. That is a court process with its own procedure, time limits and costs, none of which are set out in either Code and none of which this page can advise you on. If you are seriously contemplating it, that is the point to take proper legal advice rather than to read further here.
What should have happened in the room, which is what a complaint is measured against: What happens at the hearing
How a panel is constituted, and who is disqualified from sitting: Who decides your appeal
Something happens even in an appeal you lost
Worth knowing, because it is the only part of a dismissed appeal that has an effect beyond your own family, and nobody tells parents about it.
Paragraph 3.4 of the Appeals Code
In all cases, the panel must refer to the local authority and the admission authority (if the appeal is for a school that is its own admission authority) any aspects of the admission arrangements that do not comply with admissions law.
Read "in all cases" literally. The duty does not depend on your appeal succeeding, and it does not depend on the defect having cost you the place. A panel can find that the arrangements were defective, find under 3.5(a) that you would not have been offered a place even if they had not been, dismiss your appeal — and still have to refer the defect on. The same duty applies on an infant class size appeal, where paragraph 4.5 requires the panel to refer immediately any aspects of the arrangements it identifies as unlawful.
That is not a consolation prize and it is not worth appealing for on its own. But if you found something genuinely wrong in the arrangements and lost anyway, the finding does not evaporate with your appeal, and the arrangements a later cohort applies under are the thing it acts on. It is also a reason to make a first-stage point properly even when you can see it will not clear the second limb of 3.5(a) — the panel cannot refer a defect nobody put in front of it.
What a first-stage point built on the arrangements looks like: A mistake in how the decision was made
The waiting list is untouched, and it is now the live route
This is the most useful section on the page for most readers, and it rests on a point of law that families consistently get backwards. A dismissed appeal has done nothing to your position on the waiting list, and it could not have done.
Paragraph 3.21 of the Appeals Code
Appeal panels must not take account of where the admission authority has placed a child on the waiting list, or of the fact that appeals have not been made in respect of other children on the waiting list. Appeal panels must not make any decision relating to the placement of a child on a waiting list.
The panel was forbidden to make any decision about your placement on the list, so no decision about it was made. You are exactly where the published oversubscription criteria put you, which is where you were the day before the hearing. Nobody has marked your file. The appeal and the list never touched at either end — which was true when you lodged, and is the reason running both cost you nothing.
And the list keeps running. Paragraph 2.15 of the School Admissions Code 2021 requires each admission authority to maintain a clear, fair and objective waiting list until at least 31 December of each school year of admission, stating in its arrangements that each added child will require the list to be ranked again in line with the published oversubscription criteria, and it says priority must not be given based on the date an application was received or a name was added. So the months after a dismissed appeal are months in which places genuinely come free and the list genuinely moves.
What to do this week is short and it is all list-shaped.
- Confirm in writing that you are still on the list for every school you still want, and ask for your current position and the criterion you are ranked under. Being refused at appeal does not add you to a list and does not remove you from one.
- Tell the admission authority immediately about anything that changes a criterion — a move, a sibling starting, a change the arrangements recognise. Under 2.15 the list is re-ranked on the criteria, so a change to your criterion is the only thing you can do that changes your position.
- Ask again at the end of August and in the first week of term, when schools reconcile the places that were accepted and never taken up.
- Keep the allocated place. Declining it demonstrates nothing to anybody, is not one of the published criteria, and leaves your child without a school.
How the list is actually ranked, why your position can go down, and what moves it: Waiting lists, and when they beat an appeal
The other live route is a fresh application, and it is worth being clear about why it is not a second appeal. Paragraph 5.3 of the Appeals Code lets you apply for a place at the same school for a later academic year with a further right of appeal if that application fails. An application made outside the normal admissions round is an in-year application, and paragraph 2.30 of the Admissions Code requires the admission authority — or the local authority where it co-ordinates in-year admissions — to notify you of the outcome in writing within 15 school days, aiming for 10. If it is refused, paragraph 2.32 of the Admissions Code requires that refusal to give the reason, information about the right to appeal, the deadline for lodging one and the contact details for making it.
That right of appeal is a real one, arising from a new refusal rather than from the old one, and it runs on the shorter timetable: an in-year appeal must be heard within 30 school days of the appeal being lodged, against at least 20 school days from the date on your refusal letter to lodge. One caution before you count on it. The same paragraph 3.8 test applies, the year group will usually still be full, and applying again in November for a school that refused you in March is not a new argument — it is the same argument in front of a new panel, unless something has actually changed.
How in-year applications and appeals work, and the shorter timetable: In-year admissions
Every date in the process, and how school days are counted: Appeal deadlines and the timetable
Most dismissals were correct, and that is worth hearing
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. Appeal outcomes are published by council and not by school, so nobody publishes a rate for the school you appealed for, and none of it is a statement about your case. Rates vary a great deal between councils, which is worth looking at, and is still a description of what happened to other families.
Behind that number is something this page would be dishonest to leave out. Most of those dismissals were the system working. The school was genuinely full, the arrangements were lawful and applied correctly, and the family's reasons for wanting the place — however real — did not outweigh the prejudice to the school at 3.8. Nothing was done to you. Two limbs of a statutory test were applied to your case and it did not meet them, and the panel that did it had no interest in the outcome either way.
That matters because of where the next few weeks go. The reflex after a refusal is to look for the mistake, and if there was one, the routes above are how you pursue it. But a complaint written because losing felt unfair takes six weeks, is read by somebody who is required not to consider whether the panel was right, and comes back saying so — during which the waiting list moves without you paying it any attention. If nothing about the conduct of your appeal was wrong, the honest reading is that the argument is over and the list is what is left.
One thing that is genuinely worth doing before you close the file. Read the decision letter for what it tells you about next time, if there is a next time — a later year under 5.3, or a sibling coming through behind. The letter written to meet 2.28 has to say which of your points the panel treated as relevant and how it resolved the facts, and that is the most specific information anybody will ever give you about how this admission authority's appeals are decided. It is worth more than anything you can read online, including this.
If there is a next application and a next appeal, this is the page to start from: Writing your appeal statement
And if you are reading this on behalf of somebody who has not yet lodged — or you have another child, or another school still to be heard — the grounds pages are where the time goes. What a panel is permitted to act on decides more appeals than how well they are argued, and it is the half most families never look at until the decision letter arrives.
If your refusal was made on infant class size grounds, the test was a much narrower one: Infant class size
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. References to "Appendix 2" are to that appendix of the Appeals Code, which numbers its paragraphs from 1 separately from the main sections — so "Appendix 2, paragraph 2" is not paragraph 2.2. Where this page says a panel, a clerk or an admission authority "must" do something, the Code uses that word too; where it says the Ombudsman "may recommend" or the Secretary of State "may consider", so does the Code. Neither Code sets a deadline for making a complaint, or sets out the procedure for judicial review, and this page does not supply either. The third column of the decision letter table is an observation about letters rather than anything the Code says. Appeal statistics are Department for Education figures — how we source and calculate them.
The rest of the process
- 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.
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.