School admissions appeals

You have a right of appeal to any school named on your application that has refused your child a place. You cannot appeal for a school that was not named on your application.

As all Bromley schools and academies are their own admission authorities, you will need to lodge your appeal directly with the school. To find out how to do this, please contact the relevant school.

You can lodge appeals for more than one school if you have named the school on your application. You will need to complete a separate appeal form for each school.

Each school will not know that you have appealed for another school unless you advise them.

Each appeal made is specific to that school and each process is completely independent of the school.

When receiving notification of the date of your appeal hearing, you should also receive a deadline date for the submission of any further evidence that was not supplied with your initial appeal request.

It will be for the appeal panel to decide whether to accept any additional information or evidence provided after the deadline date and you should be aware that it is possible that such material may not be considered or may result in your appeal hearing being adjourned.

If you wish you can be accompanied or represented by a friend, interpreter or signer who may speak on your behalf. You must ensure that your friend/representative does not have any conflict of interest with the council, or the school being appealed for. Most parent/carers choose to represent themselves.

Your child’s current school can provide support (either in person or in writing) if they wish to. You can discuss this with them if you feel it would be of assistance to your appeal.

Representatives from the school being appealed for are not permitted to support individual appeals for places in their school in any way. This includes attending the appeal hearing to support parents/carers or submitting letters of support, as this would create a conflict of interests and unfairness to other appellants.

Your appeal will be heard by an Independent Appeal Panel which has no connection to the school or the admissions processes. It is the panel that makes the decision on whether to uphold your appeal and grant your child a place. The panel’s decision is binding on all parties, including the school and the council.

You will usually be invited to attend the appeal hearing (this may be by video/telephone call) and put over the case as to why you wish your child to attend the relevant school. The school will also be represented to provide their reasons as to why a place cannot be offered and why they cannot admit further children.

Some admissions authorities may be hearing appeals based on written submission only. If this is the case, they must advise you of this in advance of the hearing and give you a deadline as to when you can submit your case/supporting information in writing.

There will be a clerk present, who ensures that the correct procedure is followed throughout and keeps a full record of proceedings.

This is where a school cannot be offered because it is full, and the admission of further pupils would ‘prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources.’

In these circumstances, the Independent Appeal Panel will consider appeals in two stages.

Stage 1
The appeal panel will firstly consider whether the school’s published admission arrangements are lawful and have been correctly applied in your child’s case and whether prejudice would arise if your child were admitted to the school.

If the Panel decides the school is full it will then consider whether your grounds for admission of your child to the school outweigh any prejudice to the school. In which case it can uphold your appeal.

If there are a large number of appeals for a school, there is an option to hold a ‘grouped appeal’ to look at the specific issue of ‘fullness’ (i.e., The school’s case is that they are full and cannot admit further children)

The panel will listen to the case put forward by the school and the responses to questions put forward by the panel, parents/carers, and their representatives. There will be no discussion at this point on individual cases.

An appeal panel can decide to admit further children into the school that is full and place the school over its published admission number if this will not be prejudicial to the effective provision of education. The panel will also ensure that the admissions arrangements meet the legal requirements and have been correctly applied in your child’s case.

If the panel decides that all the children who are the subject of the appeals could be admitted without causing prejudice to the school, it must uphold all the appeals (unless the appeals are for a grammar School and your child has been assessed as non-grammar). If, however, the panel is satisfied that the admissions authority has proven that it would be prejudicial to admit any additional children (i.e., the school is full) the panel will then proceed to hear individual appeals on the date notified.

Stage 2
At the second stage the panel hears individual cases in private with the child’s parent/carer and representative (if any) present and with the clerk and presenting officer in attendance and decides if your individual grounds for admission to the school outweigh the prejudice. If there are several cases, which outweigh prejudice to the school and merit admission, but the panel determines the school could not cope with that number of successful appeals; the panel must then compare all cases and decide which of them to uphold.

The panel must not make its decisions on individual appeals until all cases have been heard.

If a school operates Key Stage 1 (Reception Year, Year 1, and Year 2) classes of 30 pupils there is legislation in place that limits class sizes in Key Stage 1 so that no child aged five, six or seven is in a class of more than 30 pupils.

This is known as ‘Infant Class Size Legislation.’

In these circumstances, refusal of a place will be because the admission of your child would have the effect of increasing the size of the infant class at the school to more than 30 pupils.

When submitting your appeal, it is important to check with the school whether they organise into classes of 30 in Key Stage 1, so that you are informed as to whether infant class size legislation is applicable for your appeal.

The School Admission Appeals Code asks Admission Authorities to advise parents of the limited grounds for such appeals to be upheld.

An Independent Appeal Panel can only uphold an ‘infant class size’ appeal where it is satisfied that:

1. The admission of additional children would not breach the infant class size limit of 30; or
2. The admission arrangements did not comply with admissions law or were not correctly and impartially applied, and your child would have been offered a place if the arrangements had complied or had been correctly and impartially applied; or 
3. It decides that the decision to refuse admission was not one that a reasonable Admissions Authority would have made in the circumstances of the case.

This means that to have your appeal upheld and gain a place for your child, you will need to be able to demonstrate that either:

• There has been an error made in the processing of your child’s application
• That the process does not comply to the requirements of the School Admissions Code
• That the decision made to refuse your child a place is not one that a reasonable Admission Authority would make in the circumstances of the case.

Are there exceptions to the infant class size legislation rules?

Additional children may be admitted to infant classes under limited exceptional circumstances. These children will remain as an ‘excepted pupil’ for the time they are in year, 1, or 2 or until the class numbers fall back to the current infant class size limit (30).

Excepted children are listed as follows:

a. Children admitted outside the normal admissions round with statements of special educational need specifying a school;

b. Looked after children and previously looked after children admitted outside the normal admissions round;

c. Children admitted, after the initial allocation of places, because of a procedural error made by the admission authority or local authority in the original application process;

d. Children admitted after an independent appeals panel upholds an appeal;

e. Children who move into the area outside the normal admissions rounds for whom there is no other available school within reasonable distance;

f. Children of UK service personnel admitted outside the normal admissions round;

g. Children whose twin or sibling from a multiple birth otherwise than as an excepted pupil;

h. Children with special educational needs who are normally taught in a special educational needs unit attached to the school or registered at a special school who attended some infant classes within the mainstream school. 

If you believe that your child falls under one of the permitted exceptions, please provide written evidence at the time of appeal.

Generally, the answer is no, however it is important to note that there are two distinct types of appeals for grammar schools.

Allocation appeals - This is where your child has been assessed as grammar but has been refused a place at the school when the oversubscription criteria have been applied.

Assessment appeals - This is where your child has been assessed as non-grammar, but you believe that they are of grammar ability.

You have the right of appeal for any school named on your application that has not offered your child a place. This includes schools outside of Bromley.

You will need to contact the admissions team for the Local Authority where the school is located or the relevant school to find out details of their appeal process. There is usually a time limit on this, and it is suggested you contact them as soon as possible.

An appeal panel’s decision is binding on all parties and there is no further right of appeal.

If you consider that the panel acted improperly, unreasonably, or not in compliance with the School Admissions Appeals Code 2022 in handling your case you can make a complaint to relevant body for the type of school. The appeal decision from the panel will provide you with the information for the appropriate body.