Secondary school admission appeals

What happens at a school appeal hearing

Your appeal hearing will take place online using Zoom.

Appeal hearings typically last around half an hour, but may take slightly less or slightly more time depending how long you or the school take to present your case.

Who is present at the school appeal hearing

There’ll be an independent panel consisting of 3 trained volunteers who are all completely independent of you, the admission authority and the school.

Appeals panels have to consist of at least one person who has no experience providing education in any school and one person with experience in education.

There’ll be a clerk (a member of the School Appeals Team) who advises the panel and ensures the correct procedure is followed. The clerk will take notes of the relevant points discussed at the hearing and they'll remain with the panel when they make their decision so they can record the reasons why.

Also present will be a representative from the school admission authority who will present the school’s case to explain why a place was refused.

Only the 3 members of the independent appeal panel make the decision on whether to allow your appeal or not. The clerk and representative of the admission authority aren't involved in the decision making.

Appeal hearing procedure

This is the order of events at a typical individual appeal hearing.

  1. The chair of the appeal panel will introduce you to the other panel members, the clerk and the representative of the admission authority (either the local authority or the school's governing body) who are present in the room.
  2. The representative of the school admission authority will present the school's case.
  3. You and the appeal panel may ask questions. 
  4. You'll be asked to present your case.
  5. The representative of the admission authority may ask you questions and the appeal panel members may also ask you questions about your case.
  6. The representative of the admission authority will sum up their case.
  7. You’ll sum up your case.
  8. You and the admission authority representative will leave the meeting so the appeal panel can discuss your case and reach a decision.
  9. When there is more than one appeal for any particular school, the Appeal Panel will hear all the appeals relating to that school before making any decisions.

We'll notify you by email of the result of your appeal within 5 working days of the hearing.

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