If you have applied to a school and your child does is not offered a place there, you can appeal the decision. An independent Appeal Panel will determine your appeal.
You can appeal for a place at more than one school if you listed them as a higher preference than the allocated school on your application form. You can accept an offer of a place at a school whilst still making an appeal for your preferred school.
You can only appeal once for a place at a school in the same academic year. The exception to this is where there is a significant change in your circumstances and the admission authority accepts a second application from you for the same school in the same academic year, but does not offer your child a place.
Please complete the appeal form. Give as much detail as possible and include all your reasons for making the appeal. Additional documents can be attached to your appeal form.
Reading Borough Council does not arrange appeals for all of the schools in the borough, see a list of the schools that manage their own appeals. You should contact these schools directly to submit an appeal.
The School Appeals Clerk will send you an acknowledgement email.
You will be sent an email at least 10 school days before your appeal hearing, to confirm the date and time of your appeal hearing, which will be held via Microsoft Teams. We will send you a link to join the meeting a few days before the hearing. We can set up a test meeting beforehand if needed.
You will be sent a copy of the paperwork for your appeal approximately one week before the hearing. This will include your appeal form and all other information you have submitted, and information from the school’s admission authority explaining why your child was not offered a place.
For infant class size appeals there is a very limited chance of success. Usually either no appeals or a tiny percentage are allowed each academic year.
For appeals that are not restricted by the infant class size limit, it is not possible to give any indication of your chance of success as it will depend on the case you and the admission authority make.
Tell the School Appeals Clerk as soon as possible if you do not want to continue with your appeal or if the school is able to offer you a place. We will not continue with the arrangements for your appeal.
If you applied for a place during the normal admissions round (when your child is starting school or transferring from primary to secondary school) the deadline for submitting an appeal is published each February.
All on time appeals will be heard within 40 school days of the deadline.
If you have applied for in-year admission, (when your child is moving school outside the normal admissions round) your appeal will be heard within 30 school days of it being submitted.
We encourage you to attend your appeal hearing and present your case to the Appeal Panel as it helps them to understand the individual circumstances of your case. However, you do not have to attend your appeal hearing and Panel will consider all the written information that is submitted.
Please let the School Appeals Clerk know if you will be attending the appeal hearing or not as soon as possible. If you will not be attending, your appeal could be heard at any time during the day on the appeal hearing date.
If you need the services of a translator or signer, please let the School Appeals Clerk know as early as possible.
You may be accompanied or represented by a family member, friend, adviser or legal representative. If you are unable to attend your appeal hearing, you may ask someone to present your appeal on your behalf. Tell the School Appeals Clerk if this will be the case.
You cannot bring with you, or send in your place, a representative of the school you are appealing for. The Appeal Panel cannot accept letters of support from representatives of the school you are appealing for.
It is not necessary for you to bring your child, who is the subject of the appeal, to the appeal hearing.
A representative of the school will attend to explain why it was not possible to offer your child a place. This could be a member of the Reading School Admissions Team, a member the school’s staff or a governor at the school.
The School Appeals Clerk will also be present to record the appeal, to ensure the correct procedure is followed and to advise the Appeal Panel if needed.
You will need the paperwork sent to you before the appeal hearing. Everyone attending the hearing will have been sent the same page-numbered information.
Please send any additional information to the School Appeals Clerk at least five working days before the date of the appeal hearing to allow time for it to be sent to all parties. You can email documents to us.
If you submit information after this deadline, the Appeal Panel will decide at the appeal hearing whether or not to consider it. Your appeal hearing may have to be adjourned to a later date in order for it to be considered.
A set procedure is followed to ensure everyone has the same opportunity to present their case and to ask questions.
The Chair of the Appeal Panel will ask everybody present to introduce themselves, explain the procedure and how the Appeal Panel reaches a decision. The procedure below will be followed at the appeal:
You and the school’s representative will leave the meeting at the same time.
The School Appeals Clerk is the Clerk to the Appeal Panel and must be independent. Their role is to make all the necessary administrative arrangements for the appeal hearing and to give advice where required. This includes:
Appeal Panels perform a judicial function, and must be independent, impartial and transparent.
An Appeal Panel is made up of three volunteers. At least one panel member will be a lay person, who has no personal experience of the management or provision of education in a school and at least one panel member will have experience in education.
The Appeal Panel will not have any connection with the school you are appealing for and cannot have been involved with the original decision to refuse your child a place there.
The Appeal Panel is the decision maker. It will consider the cases put forward by you and the school, and come to an independent conclusion as to whether the school should admit your child. The decision is binding on the school and should your appeal be allowed the school must admit your child.
You will be sent the names of the Appeal Panel in advance of your appeal hearing. If you believe that you may know or have any association with any of the Appeal Panel members or the Clerk tell the School Appeals Clerk immediately so that other arrangements can be made.
Appeal Panels must make a decision in accordance with the School Admission Appeals Code 2022 issued by the Department for Education.
The decision-making process varies depending on whether you are applying for a place in Reception, Years 1 and 2, or if you are applying for a place at a grammar school.
If there are a number of appeals being heard for the same year group at the same school (multiple appeals) then no decision will be made until all the appeals have been heard.
A two-stage decision making process is followed for appeals for a place in Year 3 to Year 13, and for those appeals for a place in Reception to Year 2 where the infant class size limit of 30 children per teacher does not apply. Infant class size appeals, grammar school appeals, boarding school appeals and sixth form appeals are covered in separate sections.
The Appeal Panel must consider:
If you are the only person appealing for a particular year group at a school, the Appeal Panel must allow the appeal at the first stage, if they find any of the following:
If the Appeal Panel is hearing more than one appeal for the same year group at the same school (multiple appeals) and finds that a number of children would have been offered a place but to admit that number on appeal would cause prejudice, the Appeal Panel must proceed to the second stage.
If the Appeal Panel has not found any grounds to allow your appeal at the first stage, it must move onto the second stage.
The Appeal Panel must balance the prejudice to the school against the reasons you have given for your child to attend the school. The Appeal Panel must decide whether your reasons for
wanting your child to attend the school outweigh the prejudice that would be caused to the school by another child being admitted. The Appeal Panel can take into account your reasons for wanting your child to attend the school, and what it can offer your child that other schools cannot.
If you are the only person appealing for a particular year group at a school and the Appeal Panel decides that your case outweighs the prejudice to the school, the Appeal Panel must allow your appeal. If the Appeal Panel decides that your case does not outweigh the prejudice to the school, the Appeal Panel must refuse your appeal.
If the Appeal Panel is hearing multiple appeals it must balance the arguments for each appeal.
This is the decision-making process that will be followed for appeals for places in Reception to Year 2 where the infant class size limit of 30 children per qualified teacher applies.
Your appeal will be considered to be an infant class size appeal if the admission authority would breach the infant class size limit by admitting your child and there are no measures it could take to avoid this without prejudicing the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources
If your appeal is considered to be an infant class size appeal, then the Appeal Panel is reviewing the admission authority’s decision to refuse your child a place at the school. There are only very limited circumstances in which an infant class size appeal can be allowed.
The Appeal Panel can only allow an infant class size appeal, where:
Admission authorities for grammar schools are permitted to select children on the basis of academic ability and may leave places unfilled if there are not enough eligible applicants. Most admission authorities for grammar schools use an entrance test to determine whether a child is of the required academic standard for admission.
If your child has achieved the required academic standard but has been refused admission because there are more eligible children than places available, the Appeal Panel must follow the two-stage decision making process described above.
If your child did not achieve the required academic standard set by the entrance test, the Appeal Panel must be satisfied that there is evidence to demonstrate that your child is of the appropriate academic ability or they cannot allow the appeal. You may wish to submit evidence that your child is considered to be of the appropriate academic ability.
If the Appeal Panel is not satisfied with the evidence submitted in support of your child’s academic ability your appeal will be refused.
If the Appeal Panel finds that there is evidence that your child is of the required academic ability for
the school it will continue to follow the two-stage decision making process described above.
If a boarding school did not offer your child a boarding place because there were other children that were ranked higher in the school’s admission criteria, the two-stage decision making process described above must be followed.
If a boarding school did not offer your child a place because the admission authority decided your child was unsuitable to board, then the Appeal Panel will consider whether the admission authority’s decision was reasonable based on the information available to it.
If your child is refused a place at a school sixth form, both you and your child have the right to appeal the decision. If your child was not offered a place because there were other children that were ranked higher in the school’s admission criteria, then the two-stage decision making process described above must be followed.
If your child did not meet the specified entry requirements, then the Appeal Panel will consider whether the admission authority’s decision was reasonable based on the information available to it.
The School Appeals Clerk will send you the decision of the Appeal Panel in writing, normally within five school days of the appeal hearing.
If your appeal is successful, you should contact the school within 14 days of receiving the appeal decision in writing to agree a start date for your child.
If your appeal is unsuccessful and you do not want the place offered to you at another school, contact your home local authority to find out if other schools have places available.
There is no further right of appeal against the Appeal Panel’s decision.
If you consider that the appeals procedure has not been carried out properly, you may complain to the Local Government Ombudsman or the Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA).
If you appealed for a place at a community school or voluntary aided school you can make a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman. You can phone the Advice Team on 0300 061 0614 or visit the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman website.
If your appeal was for an academy or a free school, you can submit a complaint to the Secretary of State. Information can be found on Department for Education website or academy admissions on GOV.UK website.