Appeals
You can appeal at a school where you have applied and been refused admission.
If you plan to appeal, please read the advice on our website carefully. You can only appeal against the refusal of a place at a school that is currently one of your live preferences.
Appeals are heard and decided by panels that are independent of the council and the school(s) you may appeal for.
Infant class size legislation appeals
It is important you understand that the circumstances in which an appeal panel may uphold an infant class size appeal (reception class, year 1 or year 2 only) are extremely limited.
For an appeal to be successful, an appeal panel must be satisfied that:
- the admission of additional children would not breach the infant class size limit (which requires that no infant class should contain more than 30 pupils with a single qualified teacher; if this is exceeded, the school will be required to take qualifying measures).
- the child would have been offered a place if the published admission arrangements had been properly implemented.
- the child would have been offered a place if the arrangements had not been contrary to mandatory provisions in the School Admissions Code and the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, and/or
- the decision to refuse admission was not one that a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case.
It is important that parents and carers recognise this before investing what can be a significant amount of time and effort in an infant class size appeal.
For full information on the infant class size legislation see section 4 .
Appeals are generally only successful if you or your child have exceptional reasons for needing admission to a particular school.
There are no guarantees that any appeal will be successful. Below you can find a table of the number of heard and successful appeals administered by the council over the last 3 years.
| School year | Number of appeals heard | Percentage of successful appeals |
|---|---|---|
| Reception intake 2024 | 72 | 0% |
| Reception intake 2023 | 89 | 0.9% |
| Reception intake 2022 | 91 | 0% |
If you want to appeal, the closing date for submitting your written appeal is Monday 2 June 2025.
If you submit an appeal after this date, it will be classed as a late appeal and will be heard after the on-time appeals, and it may not be heard before the beginning of September 2025.
You will be able to access the appeal form online from 4pm on 16 April 2025.
Page last updated: 7 April 2025