How a school appeal works, start to finish

1. Read the refusal letter before anything else

Paragraph 2.5 of the Appeals Code requires the letter refusing your child a place to tell you four things: the reason admission was refused, that you have a right of appeal, the deadline for lodging one, and who to contact to do it. It must also tell you that you have to set out your grounds in writing.

The same paragraph says admission authorities must not limit the grounds on which an appeal can be made. If a form or a letter implies that only certain reasons are allowed, that is wrong, and you can say so.

The reason in that letter is not a formality. It decides which of two completely different tests your appeal is heard under, and therefore what is worth writing about:

• Refused because admitting your child would breach the infant class size limit. Paragraph 4.2 sends this to a separate and much narrower process, where the panel may only uphold the appeal on three specific grounds and how much your child needs the place is not one of them. Across England 9.4% of infant class size appeals heard were upheld — 1,500 of 15,927 appeals heard in 2024–2026. Read infant class size before you write a word.
• Refused for any other reason. Paragraph 3.1 applies the ordinary two-stage process, set out below. Paragraph 4.2 is explicit that a refusal in an infant class for any reason other than the class size limit is decided this way — which is a better test to be judged under, and one parents talk themselves out of by assuming that Reception automatically means infant class size.

2. Who hears it, and why it is not the school

Responsibility for arranging the appeal sits with the admission authority of the school that refused you — the academy trust, the governing body or the council, depending on the type of school (paragraph 1.1, under section 94 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998). That surprises people, because it means the body that turned your child down organises the appeal against its own decision.

What stops that being a problem is that it does not decide the appeal. Paragraph 1.2 says appeal panels perform a judicial function and must be transparent, accessible, independent, impartial and operate according to the principles of natural justice. Paragraph 1.6 requires admission authorities to ensure panel members are independent and stay independent throughout.

Paragraph 1.5 sets the make-up: a chair and at least two other members, including at least one lay member — someone with no personal experience of managing a school or providing education in one — and at least one member with experience in education. Paragraph 1.7 disqualifies anyone who is a member of the council that is the admission authority or in whose area the school sits, anyone who is or was a governor of that school, most of its employees, anyone whose connection to the school might reasonably raise doubts about their impartiality, and anyone who has not done the required training.

The clerk is the role parents misread most often. The clerk is appointed separately from the panel and must be independent of the school and of the council's education functions (paragraph 1.4), is not one of the panel members who decide your appeal (paragraph 1.5), and exists partly to be an independent source of advice on procedure and admissions law — including to you, before the hearing (paragraph 1.11). The clerk is not the school's representative, and a question you are unsure about is a question for them.

In detail: Who decides your appeal

3. The two stages, and why their order matters

For every appeal except infant class size, paragraph 3.1 requires the panel to work through two stages. You can win at either. They ask for completely different material, and a case aimed at the wrong one is the commonest way a winnable appeal is lost.

One thing worth knowing at the first stage: paragraph 3.10 says the admission authority has to demonstrate prejudice over and above the fact that the school's published admission number has already been reached, and that the panel must not reassess the school's capacity for itself. "The year group is full" is the start of the school's case, not the end of it.

The grounds pages are organised around this split — which stage each argument bites at, and what it needs to work. A mistake in how the decision was made is the first-stage argument with no discretion in it; medical and social need is the second-stage one most families lead with.

4. Preparing: information first, evidence second

Paragraph 2.8 requires the admission authority to comply with reasonable requests from parents for information they need to prepare their case. This is the paragraph most first-stage arguments depend on, because you cannot show that the arrangements were misapplied without seeing how they were applied.

Separately, paragraph 2.9 requires the admission authority to give the clerk all the documents needed to conduct the hearing fairly, including how the admission arrangements applied to your application, the reasons for the refusal, and an explanation of how admitting another child would cause prejudice. Paragraph 2.10 requires the clerk to send all the papers to both parties a reasonable time before the hearing — so you will see the school's case, and you can answer it.

Ask early. Under paragraph 2.7 the admission authority must set a deadline for further evidence, and 2.10 lets the panel decide whether to consider material submitted after it — taking into account its significance and whether a hearing would have to be adjourned. Late material is a decision someone else gets to make about your case.

In detail: Getting the information you need · What actually counts as evidence

5. The hearing

It is shorter and less formal than nearly everyone expects. Paragraph 2.11 lets hearings be held in person, by video, or as a mixture of the two, and requires the panel to give you the opportunity to make oral representations whichever it is. Paragraph 2.12 requires the admission authority to provide a presenting officer to present the decision not to admit and to answer detailed questions about your case and about the school.

Paragraph 2.13 says you may be represented, or simply accompanied by a friend. Paragraph 2.19 sets out the suggested order — the admission authority's case, your questions, your case, their questions, then both sides summing up — and requires the clerk to tell you the order in advance. Paragraph 2.18 requires hearings to be held in private, with neither side left alone with the panel.

Where several families are appealing for the same school, paragraph 2.21 requires all reasonable steps to have them heard by one panel, which must not decide any of them until it has heard them all. Under 2.22 and 2.23 those appeals may be heard one after another or grouped, with the school's case put once in front of everybody and each family's own case heard privately.

In detail: What happens at the hearing

6. What the panel can and cannot do

Paragraph 2.25 gives the panel two options and no others: it must either uphold or dismiss the appeal, and it must not uphold one subject to conditions. The decision is taken by a simple majority, with the chair holding a casting vote (2.26). Where the panel decides a child shall be admitted, that decision is binding on the admission authority under section 94(6) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (2.25).

You must be told the decision and the reasons for it in writing, signed by the clerk or the chair and sent as soon as possible: within 5 school days of the hearing, wherever possible (2.27). Paragraph 2.28 requires the letter to be comprehensible, to summarise the relevant factors the panel considered, and to give clear reasons — including how and why any issue of fact or law was decided.

What it cannot do:

• Give you a place at a different school. The panel is deciding one appeal against one school's refusal, and 2.25 gives it only the two answers.
• Do anything about the waiting list. Paragraph 3.21 forbids the panel from taking account of where the admission authority has placed your child on it, or from making any decision about that placement — and equally from taking account of the fact that other families on the list did not appeal.
• Decide the school could squeeze one more in. Paragraph 3.10 says the panel must not reassess the school's capacity. It weighs the impact of admitting another child; it does not set the number.
• Attach conditions to an offer. Also 2.25.

7. If the answer is no

Paragraph 5.1 is blunt: you do not have the right to a second appeal for the same school in the same academic year. The exception is narrow — where the admission authority has, in exceptional circumstances, accepted a fresh application because of a significant and material change in the circumstances of the parent, child or school, and refused it again. A second panel must then be made up of different members (5.2). You can apply again for a later academic year and appeal again if that is refused (5.3).

There is a complaint route, and it is important to be clear what it is for. Under paragraph 5.4 you may complain about maladministration by the panel — to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for maintained schools, or to the Secretary of State for academies. Paragraph 5.5 says the Secretary of State cannot review or overturn an appeal decision for a maintained school; only a court can, on judicial review. A complaint is about how your appeal was run, not about whether the panel got it wrong.

Meanwhile the waiting list keeps running, and it is the route that needs no hearing. Paragraph 2.15 of the School Admissions Code requires it to be ranked by the school's published oversubscription criteria — not by when you joined it — and to be maintained until at least 31 December of the school year.

In detail: After the decision · Waiting lists, and when they beat an appeal

What it costs you

There is no fee to appeal. The costs of running appeals fall on the admission authority, which councils must fund maintained schools to meet (paragraph 1.14); nothing in the process is charged to you.

You do not need a lawyer, and most people do not use one. Admission appeals are not a reserved legal activity, the panel is required to give you the chance to put your case orally (2.11), and you may bring someone with you (2.13). What the process costs is preparation time, and the slowest part of that is evidence written by other people — start it the week the letter arrives.

Be realistic about the odds

Across England 19.4% of appeals heard were upheld — 22,402 of 115,695 appeals heard in 2024–2026. Four in five fail. That is not a reason to skip an appeal you have grounds for, because it costs nothing but your time; it is a reason not to build your plans on winning one.

If, after reading the two stages above, your case is that you would strongly prefer this school and there is nothing more to it, be honest with yourself about where that lands. The panel must take your reasons for preferring the school into account at the second stage (3.8), but it is weighing them against real prejudice to the school, and a preference with nothing behind it about what this school can do for your child that the allocated one cannot is the weakest version of that argument. Put the same hour into the waiting list and into checking whether anything went wrong in the process, and you are likelier to get somewhere.

Appeal rates vary enormously between councils, and the figures we publish are council-level and phase-level only — figures for your council. Nobody publishes an appeal rate for an individual school, so treat any of this as a description of what happened to other families rather than a forecast about yours.

The timetable, in one place

The admission authority sets its own appeals timetable, which it must publish on its website by 28 February each year (paragraph 2.2). Within that, paragraphs 2.1, 2.3 and 2.7 fix the following:

• at least 20 school days from the date on your refusal letter to prepare and lodge your written appeal
• at least 10 school days' notice of the hearing, which you may waive if you would rather be heard sooner
• appeals from the normal admissions round heard within 40 school days of the deadline for lodging appeals
• in-year appeals heard within 30 school days of the appeal being lodged
• the decision letter within 5 school days of the hearing, wherever possible

If you miss the deadline, lodge the appeal anyway. Paragraph 2.4 says appeals submitted after the deadline must still be heard, in accordance with whatever timescale the admission authority has published — so a late appeal is not a refused appeal, but you lose the protection of the timescales above.

In detail: Appeal deadlines and the timetable

Paragraph numbers on this page are from the School Admission Appeals Code 2022 unless stated otherwise; the waiting list rule at paragraph 2.15 is in the School Admissions Code 2021. Where this page says a panel "must" do something, the Code uses that word too. For what each requirement means for a particular argument, see the grounds pages.

The rest of the process

• 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.