What happens at the hearing

Who is in the room, and who each of them works for

Usually six or seven people, most of whom you will never have met. Every one of them is appointed or provided by the admission authority — the body that turned your child down — so the useful question is not who arranged them but what the Code requires of each.

The clerk is the role parents misread most. Paragraph 1.4 requires the clerk to be independent of the school and of the council's education functions, and to know this Code, the School Admissions Code and the law relating to admissions well enough to advise the panel. Paragraph 1.11 sets out the rest of the job: to provide an independent and impartial service, to notify the parties of the order of proceedings in advance, to respond to queries from appellants before the hearing or find the person who can, to be an independent source of advice on procedure and admissions law, to keep an accurate record, and to send you the decision in writing. The clerk is not the school's representative and does not vote. A question you are unsure about between now and the hearing is a question for them.

The presenting officer is the one arguing against you, and it is worth knowing that before the day. Paragraph 2.12 requires the admission authority to provide one, in person or remotely, to present the decision not to admit and to answer detailed questions about your case and about the school. At a community school that is usually a council admissions officer. At an academy, where the trust is its own admission authority, it is often someone from the school — sometimes the head teacher.

The school cannot speak for your appeal

This one catches families badly, usually because a head teacher or a head of year has offered to help and meant it kindly.

So a letter from the school you are appealing for cannot be put in front of the panel in support of your appeal, and nobody from that school can speak up for you at the hearing. It is not a rule about whether they like your child. It exists because the school would otherwise be choosing between the families appealing for its own places, which is exactly the job the panel is there to do independently.

Two practical consequences. If someone at the school has offered to write in support, thank them and build your case on something else — find that out now rather than in the room. And if the presenting officer is the head teacher of the school you are appealing for, that is the same person required by 2.12 to present the decision not to admit: they are there to explain the refusal, not to help you overturn it.

What paragraph 2.14 does not touch is a letter from your child's current or allocated school, or from anyone outside the school you are appealing for — a clinician, a caseworker, a specialist service. Those are ordinary evidence and are usually stronger anyway, because they describe what your child needs rather than which family the school would prefer.

In detail: What actually counts as evidence

In person, by video, or a mixture

Paragraph 2.11 lets admission authorities arrange hearings in person, remotely by video conference, or as a mixture of the two — a hybrid, where some people are in the room and some join remotely. Whichever forum is chosen, the same sentence requires panels to allow appellants the opportunity to make oral representations. You do not lose the right to be heard out loud because the hearing is on a screen.

Hearings held entirely by telephone are permitted only where video cannot be used for reasons of connectivity or accessibility, and only if you and the presenting officer both agree (2.11). If you are offered a telephone hearing and would rather be seen, you can say no.

What each format has to deliver:

• In person. Paragraph 2.15 requires all reasonable steps to make sure the venue is appropriate, accessible to appellants, and has a suitable area where appellants and presenting officers can wait separately from the panel before and between appeals.
• Remote. Paragraph 2.16 requires the admission authority to be satisfied that the appeal can be heard fairly and transparently, that both parties will be able to present their cases fully, and that every participant has access to video or telephone facilities letting them engage in the hearing at all times. If your connection drops, say so immediately — that condition is continuous, not a box ticked at the start.
• Hybrid. Paragraph 2.17 requires both sets of requirements to be met, as appropriate.

Paragraph 2.13 also requires panels to comply with their duties under the Equality Act 2010 when considering how you attend and whether you are represented. If you need an adjustment — an interpreter, step-free access, a remote link because you cannot travel — ask the clerk in writing as soon as the notification arrives. Under paragraph 2.7 you are owed at least 10 school days' notice of the hearing, so there is time to arrange one if you ask straight away.

If you cannot attend at all, paragraph 2.13 says that where it is impractical to offer an alternative date the appeal may go ahead and be decided on the written information submitted. That is worth avoiding if you can — but it is also the reason the written case matters more than the hearing does.

The order things happen in

Paragraph 2.19 requires the clerk to notify both parties of the order of proceedings in advance of the hearing. If you have not been told it, ask — that is a duty on the clerk, not a favour.

The Code then sets out a suggested order. Most hearings follow it, but it is a suggestion rather than a requirement, which is why the clerk telling you the order is the part that is mandatory. Yours may differ, and paragraph 2.20 says it may need to be varied slightly where multiple appeals are grouped.

1. The admission authority's case The presenting officer explains why your child was refused and why admitting another child would harm the school.
2. Questions from you and from the panel Your chance to question the presenting officer directly. This is the part most families waste, and the only part where you can test the school's own case.
3. Your case You put your appeal. The panel has already read your written statement, so this is for the things that need saying out loud, not a recital of it.
4. Questions from the admission authority and the panel The panel's questions are usually the longest part of this, and the section below on the ones that catch people out is about this moment.
5. The admission authority sums up Briefly, and usually without saying anything new.
6. You sum up You go last. A minute is enough — one sentence on what went wrong, if anything did, and one on what this school can do for your child.

The suggested order at paragraph 2.19(a) to (f).

Two things about that list are more useful than the list itself.

Stage two is your only chance to test their case. The presenting officer has just told the panel that admitting one more child would harm the school, and paragraph 3.10 requires the admission authority to demonstrate prejudice over and above the fact that the published admission number has already been reached — while forbidding the panel from reassessing the school's capacity for itself. So "the year group is full" is the start of their case, not the end of it, and the questions worth having ready are the ones that go to the difference:

• How many children are in the year group now, against the published admission number?
• Has the school admitted above that number in this year group before, and what happened?
• What specifically would one more child affect — which class, which room, which subject?
• How were the oversubscription criteria applied to my application, and at which criterion did the last place go? (Paragraph 3.2(b) puts whether the arrangements were correctly and impartially applied squarely in front of the panel.)

You go last. The summing up at 2.19(f) is yours, after theirs, and it is short. It is not a second speech — it is the one thing you want the panel thinking about while it retires.

Paragraph 2.20 adds two rules about how the panel decides as it goes: it must hear all the evidence on an issue before deciding that issue, and while it may decide issues as they arise or at the end, it must retire to reach those decisions. Nobody will announce anything mid-hearing.

In detail: Writing your appeal statement

If your child is appealing as well as you

This is small print with real consequences, and it is almost never explained anywhere.

Two separate entitlements sit in those two sentences. The first is that a joint hearing is not one appeal with a spare person in the room — the panel has to give both of you the chance to put your case. The second is that you do not have to say the same thing. A young person can tell the panel what they want from the school in their own words while a parent argues something entirely different about provision, travel or need, and the panel must hear both.

Where this comes up most is sixth form. Paragraph 2.6 gives a young person refused a sixth form place and their parents the same right of appeal, and where they appeal separately it requires the admission authority to arrange the appeals so that they are heard together. Two appeals, heard together, both of which must be given the chance to be put. Families who do not know this send one person to speak and quietly give up half of what they were owed.

In detail: Sixth form places

When several families are appealing for the same school

Usually they are, and it changes the shape of the day more than anything else on this page.

Paragraph 2.21 defines multiple appeals as a number of appeals received in relation to the same school, and requires admission authorities to take all reasonable steps to ensure they are heard by one panel with the same members. Where more than one panel has to be used, each must make its own decision independently. And a panel hearing multiple appeals must not make a decision on any of them until it has heard them all — which is the main reason nobody gets an answer on the day.

Paragraph 2.22 says multiple appeals may be heard either individually or in groups, and the difference is worth knowing before you arrive.

One detail that surprises people who have read paragraph 2.18 and expect privacy: the requirement that hearings be held in private carries an express exception in its own footnote for the first stage of grouped multiple appeals, until all the appeals have been heard. The group session is the exception; your own case is not part of it.

This is also what being heard late costs you. Paragraph 2.4 means an appeal lodged after the deadline must still be heard, but outside the group — and by then the panel has decided the appeals it heard together.

In detail: Appeal deadlines and the timetable

The questions parents are thrown by

The panel's questions are not a cross-examination and they are not trying to trip you up. But four or five come up again and again, they sound hostile when they are not, and an answer given defensively is worse than the honest one. Remember what the panel is doing at the second stage: paragraph 3.8 requires it to balance the prejudice to the school against your case, taking into account your reasons for preferring the school, including what that school can offer the child that the allocated or other schools cannot. Most of these questions are that sentence, asked out loud.

"Why this school specifically?"

The commonest question and the one most often answered badly. It is not an invitation to say how good the school is — the panel knows, and every other family that day will say the same thing. The Code's own wording tells you the shape of the answer: what this school can offer your child that the allocated one cannot. A named provision, a specific subject or programme, a support arrangement, a continuity that matters for a reason.

If your honest answer is its results or its Ofsted grade, say it honestly and expect it to carry very little. That is the weakest version of a second-stage case, and it is being weighed against real prejudice to the school.

"What is wrong with the school you were offered?"

This feels like a trap and is usually not one — 3.8 makes the comparison part of what the panel must consider, so it has to ask. The mistake is answering it as an attack on the allocated school. Paragraph 1.5(b) requires at least one panel member to have experience in education, be acquainted with educational conditions in the local authority area, or be a parent of registered pupils; the person you are criticising that school to may well know it.

Answer about the gap rather than the school: what your child needs, what the allocated school does not have, and how you know. "It has a smaller sixth form and no X" is a fact. "It is a bad school" is an opinion the panel cannot act on, and it makes everything else you say sound like one too.

"Have you accepted the place you were offered?"

Say yes if you have, and do not think it weakens you. Nothing the panel is required to decide turns on it: paragraphs 3.2 and 3.3 are about the admission arrangements and about prejudice to the school, and 3.8 is about what this school offers your child. Turning down the allocated place to look committed leaves your child without a school and changes none of those three tests.

"Where are you on the waiting list?"

Answer if you know, but the panel cannot use it. Paragraph 3.21 says 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 for other children on it, and must not make any decision relating to a child's placement on it. If the question turns into a suggestion that you will get in anyway, or that you are being greedy for doing both, 3.21 is the answer.

"How would your child get there?"

Give real numbers, not optimistic ones, and say how you know them. A journey you have actually timed on a school-morning is evidence. A journey you have estimated is not, and a panel that finds one figure soft starts wondering about the others.

"Is there anything else you would like to add?"

This is the summing up at 2.19(f), not small talk, and it is the last thing the panel hears before it retires. Have two sentences ready: one on what went wrong in the process, if anything did, and one on what this school can do for your child that the allocated one cannot. Then stop.

The second-stage argument most families lead with: Medical and social need

How long it takes, and how formal it is

The Code sets no length for a hearing, so anyone quoting you a number is describing custom rather than a rule. What it does fix is what you are owed within it: paragraph 2.24(b) requires that each side be given the opportunity to state their case without unreasonable interruption, and paragraph 1.12 makes the chair responsible for ensuring the parties have sufficient opportunity to state their case and ask questions. If you are being hurried past something that matters, that is the entitlement to point at.

On formality — there is no oath, no evidence rules, no wigs and nobody is on trial. Paragraph 2.24 requires panels to operate according to the principles of natural justice, which the Code lists as members having no vested interest in the outcome or involvement in an earlier stage, each side being able to state their case without unreasonable interruption, and all written material and evidence having been seen by all the parties. That last one is why you will not be ambushed with a document.

There is no fee. The costs of running appeals sit with the admission authority, and councils must allocate reasonable funds to maintained schools that are their own admission authority to meet them (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 must give you the opportunity to make oral representations (2.11), and you may be represented or simply accompanied by a friend (2.13). Someone to take notes while you talk is worth more than someone to talk for you.

At the end

The panel retires (2.20). Where multiple appeals for the school are being heard, it will not decide any of them until it has heard them all (2.21), so you should not expect an answer in the room.

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

The decision and the reasons for it must come to you in writing, signed by the clerk or the chair, and sent within 5 school days of the hearing, wherever possible. Paragraph 2.27 puts that as "as soon as possible after the hearing but not later than five school days, unless there is good reason", so it is a softer number than it looks. Paragraph 2.28 requires that letter to be easily comprehensible, to summarise the relevant factors the parties raised and the panel considered, and to give clear reasons — including how and why any issue of fact or law was decided. A letter that just says "dismissed" does not meet 2.28.

Separately, paragraph 2.29 requires the clerk to keep an accurate record of the points raised at the hearing, including the proceedings, attendance, voting and reasons for decisions, and 2.30 requires those records to be kept securely for at least two years — though it also notes they will in most cases be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 2018.

In detail: After the decision

Be realistic about what the hearing changes

Across England 19.4% of appeals heard were upheld — 22,402 of 115,695 appeals heard in 2024–2026. Four in five are dismissed. Those are national figures for every appeal heard in England; we publish council-level and phase-level rates as well, and those for your council are here. Nobody publishes an appeal rate for an individual school, so none of this is a forecast about your hearing.

Being nervous will not lose you an appeal and being articulate will not win you one. What the panel is weighing is fixed by 3.2, 3.3 and 3.8 — whether the arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, whether admitting another child would prejudice the school, and whether your case outweighs that prejudice. A calm hour will not turn a case that rests on preference alone into one of those things.

So if you are reading this the night before and worrying about how you will come across, worry about the wrong thing less. Reread the school's papers, write down four questions for the presenting officer, and decide the two sentences you will finish on. If you are reading it earlier than that, the grounds pages are a better use of the time — they are about what a panel is permitted to act on, which is the half that decides most appeals.

Every paragraph number on this page is from the School Admission Appeals Code 2022. Where this page says a panel or an admission authority "must" do something, the Code uses that word too; where the Code says "should", "may", "usually" or "suggested" — as it does for the running order at 2.19 — this page keeps that word. 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.
• 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.