If you are not offered a place at your preferred school or schools, the relevant admissions authority will send you a letter that will give you further information. It will also explain what to do next, including the deadline for appealing and who to contact. Your appeal is likely to be heard along with all of the other parents for that school.
Who is responsible for setting up appeals
Individual admission authorities are responsible for making arrangements for admission appeals.
For community and voluntary controlled schools, this is the local authority. For foundation and voluntary aided schools, free schools and academies, it is the responsibility of the governing body or academy trust. Appeals must be arranged in line with statutory requirements.
In all cases the appeals panel is completely independent of the admissions authorities who have no say over the panel’s decisions.
When appeal are heard
Admission authorities must give anyone who wants to appeal at least 20 school days from the date of the notification that their application was unsuccessful to submit their appeal.
Appeals against decisions made in the 'normal admissions round' must then be heard within 40 school days of the deadline for submitting appeals.
For in year applications, appeals must be heard within 30 school days of the deadline for submitting appeals.
For applications that were made by the closing date, admission authorities will usually try to ensure that appeals are heard before the end of the summer term, but there are sometimes exceptions to this.
Appeals schedule for community and voluntary controlled schools
Who sits on an appeal panel
Independent admission appeal panel members are trained volunteers who are completely independent of the admission authority. At least one of the three panel members will have a background in education. They have the services of a clerk, who provides legal advice and takes notes at the hearing.
Parents can choose to attend the hearing, or have the hearing heard in their absence if for any reason they are unable to attend.
What happens at an appeal
At the appeal hearing, the panel will hear information from the admission authority about why the application was refused - and then need to make a decision as to whether or not the admissions arrangements were legal and correctly applied and whether or not the school would be 'prejudiced' (i.e - disadvantaged) by the admission of another child.
If the panel does decide that the arrangements were legal and applied correctly, and that the school would be prejudiced by the admission of another child, they then hear the case of the parents. They will ask questions of the parents to try to get all the information they need to make a decision as to who would suffer the greater prejudice - the school if the child were admitted, or the child and family if they were not. This is a balancing exercise - the panels look at a wide range of factors when making their decision.
If they find that the disadvantage to the child and family would be greater than that of the school, then the appeal will be successful and the child will be admitted.
Infant class-size appeals
If you have been refused an infant class place (reception, year 1 or year 2), the grounds on which you can appeal are limited.
The law states that infant classes must be restricted to 30 children. In these cases the appeal panel may only uphold your appeal if the admission rules were not administered correctly and your child should have been offered a place, or the decision to refuse a place was not one which a reasonable admission authority would make under the circumstances.
More information can be found on the GOV.UK website.