Your child did not get a place at the school you want – what next?

The answer is yes. A refusal of a place at a school that parents have sought admission to for their child will automatically attract a right of appeal. The appeal is against the so-called ‘admission authority’ for the relevant school. There is a set process that is followed in each appeal, and the appeal panel must consider certain legal tests. Let’s look at this process a little closer.

Timewise, there will be a few deadlines to diarise and to work towards. The first of these will be a deadline to lodge the parents’ appeal in writing. Admission authorities must give parents at least 20 school days to do so, counting from the date when parents were told about the refusal of a place. Then there will be a deadline for parents to submit any additional evidence in support of their appeal which they were not able to submit when the appeal was lodged. At this stage, parents may also choose to submit additional written arguments in support of their appeal. Finally, the admission authority will set an oral hearing date, and parents must be given at least 10 school days’ notice of this date.

Admission appeals are heard by appeal panels which must have at least three members. A representative of the admission authority will attend the hearing as a so-called ‘presenting officer’. They will set out the basis of the decision not to admit the child, and answer questions from parents and/or the panel. After this, parents will present their case, and answer questions from the presenting officer and/or the panel. Both the admission authority and the parents will then be given an opportunity to sum up their case. The panel will then proceed to make its decision. This should be communicated to the parents in writing within five school days of the hearing.

Where there are multiple appeals for the same school, it is common practice for admission authorities to hold a part of the appeal hearing as a group hearing. Where this happens, the presenting officer will ordinarily set out the admission authority’s case in such a group hearing to all parents concerned. The parents’ respective cases will then be heard individually and in private.

Each appeal hearing has two stages. At the first stage, the panel considers three fairly technical questions: whether the admission arrangements (including the area’s co-ordinated admission arrangements) complied with the relevant law; whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in the case in question; and whether the admission of additional child or children would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources at the relevant school. If an appeal fails at this stage, the panel will move on to the second stage. Here, the panel will carry out a balancing exercise, comparing the prejudice to the school by the child being admitted against the parents’ case for the child to be admitted to the school.

Where parents are seeking admission to Reception, Year 1, or Year 2, the admission authority is allowed to refuse admission on the basis that the so-called ‘infant class size limit’ of 30 pupils per teacher will be breached if an additional child or children are admitted. In practice, this will apply to the vast majority of primary school appeals. If admission is refused on this basis, then a somewhat different set of legal tests will apply in the appeal. The first stage of an infant class size appeal will thus look at whether the admission of an additional child or children would breach the infant class size limit; whether the admission arrangements (including the area’s co-ordinated admission arrangements) complied with the relevant law; whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in the case in question; and whether the decision to refuse admission was one which a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case. At the second stage, the panel must compare the parents’ cases for their child to be admitted to the school and decide which of them, if any, to uphold.

As you can see from the above, the various questions considered by an appeal panel can get fairly technical. Therefore, careful preparation is key to maximising your prospects of success. This includes not only understanding what the various legal tests mean on the ground, but also collating information and evidence to support any arguments you wish to raise. For example, is the school correct in saying that it has no more physical or staff capacity to accommodate additional pupils? What can the chosen school offer to your child that other schools cannot? Does your child have any specific needs that only the chosen school can effectively meet?

Whilst this may seem a little counterintuitive, you should always accept the school place your child has been offered whilst an appeal process for another school is ongoing, even if the allocated school is not one of your top preferences. There is never any guarantee that you will succeed in your appeal or appeals. If you do not and you have refused the place offered, your child may well end up without a school place.

Some additional rules and considerations apply to admission appeals for grammar schools, particularly where a child has not passed the 11+ test but their parents nevertheless consider that the child is of grammar school ability.

For completeness, the above does not apply either to admissions to independent schools or to children who have an Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHC plan). Independent schools set their own, bespoke admission arrangements. Admission of children with EHC plans, including parental preference for placement and the appeal process to follow if the preferred placement is not named in the plan, are entirely separate from the standard admission rules and processes.

This article applies to the law in England as in December 2025.