Appealing for a school place

General arrangements

• Applicants have a minimum of 20 school days from the date of refusal of a place to submit an appeal
• For the annual allocation of reception class and year 7 school places, appeals will be heard within 40 days of the deadline for submitting appeals.
• For late applications, where the appeal cannot be heard in the first group, or for in-year admission refusals, appeals will be heard within 30 days of an appeal be lodged.
• Applicants will receive 10 days’ notice of the date and venue/format of the appeal hearing and all parties will receive a copy of the written case for the school and the appellant in advance of the hearing.
• If there is more than one appeal for the same school, the first part of the hearing when the school case is presented may take place in a group. But for the second part, when you are presenting the case for your child, no other parents who are appealing would be present.
• After the panel have heard all appeals, they take decisions in private, with only the Clerk present, so you will not usually find out the outcome of your appeal on the day. The appeal Clerk will send a letter confirming the outcome within 5 working days wherever possible, but if there have been several appeals for a school heard over a number of days, it may take a little longer.

The annual appeal timetable can be found here.