Appealing an offer

You can appeal for any school named on your application that has not been able to offer your child a place.

To do this you will need to complete an appeal request form. Details of where to return it to are on pages 5 to 6 of the form.

Download an appeal request form and information

The deadline for submitting an appeal is Tuesday 14 May 2024 for offers made on 16 April.

For late applications, appeal requests should be submitted within 20 school days of your application outcome.

You can appeal after these deadlines but your appeal might not be heard at the same time as those submitted on-time.

When you appeal you:

can only appeal for schools named on your application
can appeal for more than one school at the same time
must complete a request form for each school you're appealing for
can appeal for a school even if you have accepted another offer.

Schools will not know you have appealed for another school unless you tell them. The appeals for each school are completely independent of each other.

Appeals for infant classes

In reception, year 1 and year 2, the class size is limited to 30.

We cannot offer a place if all the classes already have 30 children.

You can still appeal but to be successful you will need to prove that the:

admission arrangements have not been properly followed
admission arrangements are not legal according to the School Admissions Appeals Code
decision to refuse your child a place was unreasonable.

Appeal panels can only consider infant class size appeals on these grounds.

Next steps after you've appealed

Your appeal will be heard by an independent panel with no connection to the school.

The panel will decide whether to grant your child a place or not.

You will be invited to the hearing to explain why your child should be given a place and the school will explain why a place cannot be offered.

There will be a clerk who will make sure correct procedure is followed and will keep a full record of the hearing.

You can bring a friend or family member to the hearing to support or represent you. This person cannot have a connection with the school you’re appealing for (such as a member of staff from the school).

At the appeal:

the panel will decide whether to grant your child a place or not
you can give your own reasons why your child should be given a place
the panel will decide if the school’s admission arrangements were properly followed and are legal according to the school admissions appeals code
if the arrangements are legal, the panel will decide if they were followed
if the arrangements were not properly followed or are illegal, the panel may uphold your appeal
if your appeal has not already been upheld, the panel will decide if your reasons for your child getting a place outweigh the school’s reasons for not admitting another child.

Decisions

The panel will make their decision in private after all appeals have been heard.

The panel will send you and the admission authority their decision within 5 working days.

The decision is final and can only be overturned by a court.

The way appeals are heard may vary slightly. This is due to temporary guidance giving admissions authorities flexibility around the appeals process due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

Read the full details of the appeal process and regulations in the School Admissions Appeals Code.

Applying for a primary school place