Introduction
You cannot make an appeal until you have applied for a place at your preferred school and received a refusal letter or email. If your application for a school place has been refused, you will be informed in your outcome email or letter of your legal right to appeal to an Independent Appeal Panel.
You can submit your appeal form online or you can download the Year of entry school admission appeal application form.
Please note that the School Admission Appeals Code requires that appellants set out their grounds for appeal in writing. For your appeal to be valid, you must include a reason for your appeal. Further guidance on what you might like to consider can be found on this page.
Submit an in-year school admissions appeal
If your application was considered and refused for a place from September 2024 and you wish to appeal this decision, please use the following button to complete an in-year appeal.
If you have been offered a place at a school you do not want, we suggest you arrange to visit the school. You may change your opinion of the school once you have spoken to staff, seen what the school does and addressed any specific concerns you may have about your child’s education.
This page tells you more about how to appeal and includes useful information on how to prepare for your appeal. Please download the School Admissions Appeal Booklet in Downloads for more information.
You may wish to ask for help from the Somerset Choice Advisor who you can contact at 01823 356903 or email choiceadvice@somerset.gov.uk. You can find more information about this service on the Somerset SENDIAS website.
If you require a paper appeal form, please email SchoolAdmissions@somerset.gov.uk to request one be sent to you, but please note that this may result in a delay to your appeal. If you have any issues using the link above, please contact
schoolappeals@somerset.gov.uk.
Preparing for your appeal
You will need to think about the following things when preparing your case:
Has the law been followed? Check the Admission Arrangements.
There are rules about admission arrangements. To be lawful, the school’s admission arrangements must comply with the School Admissions Code and the relevant law. The Admission Arrangements for an Academy, Voluntary Aided, Foundation or Free school can be found on the school’s website. You can find the Admission Arrangements for a Voluntary Controlled or Community school on Our admission arrangements page.
The admission arrangements contain over-subscription criteria, which are criteria used to determine a child’s priority for a school place.
The over-subscription criteria are only used if there are more applications than the number of places available. For example, if 100 children apply to a school with 60 places, the over-subscription criteria will be used to decide which 60 children get a place.
Schools must first give priority in their over-subscription criteria to Looked after Children (children in care) or previously looked after children who have been adopted or are subject to a special guardianship or residency/child arrangement order.
Other common over-subscription criteria can include
- the distance from home to the school
- faith criteria
- children of staff
- having a sibling at the school
The over-subscription criteria for Somerset schools can be found in the Primary or Secondary Admissions guide on Apply to start school for the first time or Starting at a secondary school in September.
Have the rules been followed properly? Has an error been made in applying the over-subscription criteria in your case – has your child’s application been considered correctly?
Check that your child has been considered under the correct criteria, for example, sibling, catchment, and religious criteria. Check how the Admission Authority has measured the distance between the school and your home address and that the method used to measure is as described in the admission arrangements. In all cases, the Admission Authority must allocate places as described in their published admission arrangements.
If you think a mistake has been made and your child should have been given a place, contact the Admission Authority immediately.
If the Admission Authority agrees with you, your child may be given a place in the school without an appeal.
If the Admission Authority doesn’t agree with you or you don’t agree with the information in your appeal statement when you receive it, you can present your reasons as part of your appeal hearing.
Is the school really full?
Schools have a set number of places to fill in the year of entry. This is called the Published Admission Number (PAN). You can ask the Admission Authority for the
PAN.
You will also find this in the Primary or Secondary Admissions guide on Apply to start school for the first time or Starting at a secondary or upper school in September. All places must be filled before a child can be refused a place. If your child has been refused a place because the school is full, the school will argue that another child will cause prejudice to the efficient education or efficient use of resources in the school.
Prejudice to efficient education or efficient use of resources means there will be an adverse effect on the education and resources provided by the school if they have to admit another child.
The school’s case should explain how admitting an extra child will have a negative effect on the quality of the education they can provide. Think about the physical space and layout of the school. Find out if the school has any plans to create extra space by building an extension or using rooms in a different way. Does this show that the school can take an extra pupil or can meet the legal limit of 30 children per infant class?
The infant class size limit is a legal limit, which states that there must only be 30 children per qualified school teacher in an infant class, which includes classes containing Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.
Please refer to the School Admission Appeals booklet in Downloads for information on the limited circumstances in which an infant class size appeal may be successful.
The appeal statement sent to you before your appeal hearing will include details such as the number of pupils on the roll at the school and how the school classes are structured.
If you do not have the details you need to prepare your case ask the Admission Authority before the appeal for this information.
You can ask questions about any of the statements made in the Admissions Authority’s case at or before the appeal hearing.
Preparing your case
You should try to explain why you want your child to attend the particular school.
Relevant points that could explain why this school is needed:
- What is your child good at?
- What does your child like to do?
- Any health problems now or previously?
- Any social problems – shyness, a victim of bullying?
- Any family problems?
- Any emotional problems – anxiety, low self-esteem?
- Any difficulties with learning, special educational needs or a disability?
- Any problems at your child’s current or previous school?
- Have any recent changes affected your child?
- Is this school the only school that can meet your child’s needs?
- What issues would arise if your child did not attend this school?
List all the positive points about the school that you can think of. Use information from visits and documents such as the School Prospectus, the most recent Ofsted report, school policies and the school website.
Please note that if the grounds for your appeal include bullying or issues at your child’s current or previous school, you should be aware that the school will likely be asked to comment. This information will then be made available to the Appeal Panel at the hearing.
Why other schools are not suitable
It is very important that you look carefully at the school you have been offered and other schools with places available. Visit them with your child. If you think that going to the other schools would cause your child problems you will need to be specific and explain why. Would the journey be particularly difficult? Does the curriculum not offer the right subjects or specialised facilities? Think of all the problems your child is likely to face. Again, explain the effects on your child.
Look at all the notes you have made and make sure all your points show why your child needs to go to this school and only this school. Think about how you can prove all your points. You will need to come up with evidence. This is very important and will make your case much stronger. Draw the panel’s attention to your evidence and explain why it supports the point you are making.
General information
To appeal, you will need to complete and return an appeal form following the instructions in your refusal email or letter. Your appeal form must be submitted within 20 school days of the date of your refusal letter, however, you are advised to submit your form as soon as possible.
You need to include all information requested on the form, as well as all the reasons why you want your child to attend your preferred school. Please make sure you sign the form.
In most cases the local authority will arrange the appeal. The Appeals Officer will write to you to confirm that your appeal form has been received. The officer will make arrangements for your appeal to be heard as soon as possible and will write to you to inform you of the date of your hearing – you will be given at least 10 school days’ notice (unless you indicate on your form that you would not need this much notice).
A reasonable time before your hearing, the local authority or Admissions Authority will send you their appeal statement, which sets out the reasons why the place at your preferred school was refused. This will be sent to the Appeal Panel at the same time.
Your hearing will be held virtually, as an audio telephone conference. We recommend that you take part in the appeal hearing, if possible, as the Appeal Panel will be able to ask you any questions they may have. You can ask a relative or friend to be with you if you wish and you should tell the Appeals Officer if you intend to do this.
For more information on the conduct of an appeal hearing, please see the School Admissions Appeal booklet.
You may wish to ask for help from the Somerset Choice Advisor who you can contact on 01823 356903 or email choiceadvice@somerset.gov.uk. You can find more information about this service on the Somerset SENDIAS website.
If you require a paper appeal form, please email SchoolAdmissions@somerset.gov.uk to request one be sent to you, but please note that this may result in a delay to your appeal. If you have any issues using the link above, please contact
schoolappeals@somerset.gov.uk.
