School appeals: how they work and how to prepare

Your right to appeal

If a school you applied for refuses your child a place, you have a right to appeal. You appeal against each refusal separately, and once for each. The refusal letter must say why, how long you have, how to appeal and who to write to. You must set out your grounds in writing.

The admission authority must give you at least 20 school days from the day it told you the application failed. It must tell you the date of the hearing at least 10 school days before. Appeals about applications in the normal round must be heard within 40 school days of the deadline for lodging them. The decision should come in writing within 5 school days of the hearing.

An appeal sent after the deadline must still be heard, but on the council's later timetable. Do not rely on that.

Who decides

An independent panel of three or more people, who must be independent of the school and the admission authority. The panel has a clerk, and the admission authority sends someone to explain the refusal. You can bring a friend or speak for yourself. The Code says panels must not allow school staff to support an individual appeal, at the hearing or by letter.

The two stages

Most appeals have two stages. Both come from the Appeals Code.

Stage 1: was the decision right? The panel asks if the school's admission arrangements followed the law, and if they were applied correctly to your child. Then it asks if admitting more children would prejudice the school's ability to teach efficiently. The school cannot show harm just because it has reached its published admission number. It has to show harm over and above that.

The panel must uphold the appeal at this stage if the rules were not lawful or not applied correctly and your child would have got a place if they had been. It must also uphold if there would be no real harm from admitting your child.

Stage 2: weighing the case. If the school was right and there is harm, the panel balances that harm against your case. It takes into account your reasons for wanting this school, and what it can offer your child that other schools cannot. If your case outweighs the harm, the appeal succeeds.

Infant class appeals

An infant class (Reception, Year 1 or Year 2) must not have more than 30 pupils with one teacher, except in a few listed cases. If the school refused you for that reason, the panel works differently. It can only uphold the appeal if:

• admitting your child would not break the 30 limit, or
• the arrangements were unlawful or wrongly applied and you would have been offered a place, or
• the refusal was one that no reasonable admission authority would have made.

The last test is a high bar. The Code calls it a decision that is "perverse in the light of the admission arrangements".

How to prepare

1. Ask for the facts. Admission authorities must answer reasonable requests for information. Ask how your application was ranked, and how your distance was measured.
2. Check the rules were followed. Read the school's arrangements. Did it count a sibling, a catchment, or your address correctly? A mistake can decide an appeal at stage 1.
3. Write about your child and this school. General reasons do not help. Say what this school offers your child that the other schools cannot, and give evidence: a letter from a doctor, a therapist, a teacher.
4. Meet the deadline for evidence. The date for further evidence is in the hearing notice. Evidence sent later might not be considered.
5. Keep the waiting list going. A panel does not decide your place on the list and cannot look at it.

What the figures show

The Department for Education reports that for admissions to the 2025/26 school year, 7,600 primary and 27,100 secondary appeals were heard. Of those, 15.0% of primary and 19.5% of secondary appeals were successful (figures rounded, published 6 August 2026).

That is what happened nationally in one year. It is not a chance of success for your appeal, which depends on your own case and the school's arrangements.

If an appeal fails

You cannot appeal a second time against the same refusal. You can stay on the waiting list, and you can complain if the panel did not follow the process: see GOV.UK's page on complaining about the appeals process. For the dates, see After offer day.