Types of appeals
Please ensure you read the appeals process guidance before completing your appeal form.
There are broadly three different types of appeals:
Infant Class Size Prejudice/Future Infant Class Size Prejudice
If your child is of infant school age (Reception, Year 1 or Year 2), then Infant Class Size Legislation may apply for your appeal. This is very important, as if your appeal is to be heard as an Infant Class Size or Future Infant Class Size appeal it means there are limited grounds the panel can consider. Be aware that you are less likely to be successful in an Infant Class Size appeal than a non-Infant Class Size appeal.
The law states that in infant classes there must be no more than 30 pupils per teacher. If this applies to the school in either the academic year you are appealing for or in future infant academic years and the measures the school would have to take to avoid breaching infant class size regulations (such as employing an additional teacher) are unreasonable, then your appeal will be dealt with as an Infant Class Size Appeal/Future Infant Class Size Appeal. We will tell you if this applies in the letter we send you giving you information on your appeal hearing.
In Infant Class Size appeal hearings, the appeal panel is essentially reviewing the Admission Authority’s decision to refuse a place at the school in question (based on the information the Authority had available at that time). The appeal panel doesn’t have the flexibility to say that your personal circumstances mean you should have a place at the school if this would take the number of children in the class to over 30. This makes Infant Class Size appeals different to other school admission appeals.
The grounds which an appeal panel can legally allow an infant class size appeal are limited to the following four grounds:
- Admitting additional children would not breach the infant class size limit (there are not 30 children per fully qualified teacher in the year group).
- Your child would have been offered a place if the mandatory requirements of the School Admissions Code and Part 3 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 had been applied correctly (i.e. something unlawful in the arrangements meant your child didn’t get a place they would have got had the arrangements been lawful).
- Your child would have been offered a place if the admission arrangements had been correctly and impartially applied in your case (i.e. there has been an error in how your application was processed which meant your child wasn’t given a place that they would have got had the arrangements been correctly applied).
- The decision was not one which a reasonable authority would make in the circumstances of the case. The threshold for an unreasonable decision is very high and would be one that is perverse (i.e. completely illogical or irrational, taking into account all the relevant facts of the case so that no Admission Authority looking at the case would have ever refused it).
The Local Government Ombudsman has published a factsheet on complaints about Infant Class Size appeals which provides useful information to parents regarding the limitation of Infant Class Size appeals. In this factsheet, the Ombudsman states that “a decision that makes it impossible for you to transport all your family to school on time, or even impossible for you to continue working, is very unlikely to be perverse. The courts have established this.”
You may refer to personal factors on your appeal form or at the hearing, and the appeal panel will take them into account when considering whether the decision to refuse your application was a reasonable one. Further details on the reasonableness test can be found in paragraph 4.10 of the School Admissions Appeals Code.
As the question of reasonableness relates to whether the decision made by the Admission Authority to refuse admission was unreasonable, the panel will consider what information the Admission Authority had available to it at the time when it made the decision to refuse.
Prejudice appeals
The school's case
The panel must first consider:
- whether the admission arrangements complied with the mandatory requirements of the School Admissions Code and Part 3 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, and
- whether the admission arrangements were correctly applied.
The panel must uphold the appeal at this stage if something unlawful in the arrangements meant your child didn’t get a place they would have got had the arrangements been lawful, or there has been an error in how your application was processed which meant your child wasn’t given a place that they would have got had the arrangements been correctly applied.
If the panel finds the arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, it must then decide if admitting further children to the school would cause ‘prejudice’ (a negative impact) to the education of the children already at the school or the school’s resources. The panel will do this by looking at the impact on the school of admitting additional children and may consider the following factors:
- The effect on the school in the current and following years as the year group moves up through the school.
- Any changes that have been made to the school’s buildings or organisation since the PAN was originally set for the relevant year group.
- Any effects the Fair Access Protocol has on the school.
- The impact on the organisation and sizes of classes, availability of teaching staff and the effect of children already at the school.
The appellant's case
The panel must also consider your case and take into account:
- Your reasons for wanting a place at the school.
- What the school can offer your child that other schools can’t.
- Your child’s needs.
On your appeal form you need to include all of your reasons for wanting a place at the school and explain your reasons as fully as possible. The information you include here is very important as this information is part of your case to the appeal panel.
Balancing the prejudice
Single appeals
The panel must balance the prejudice to the school against the case for your child to be admitted to the school. If the panel considers that your case outweighs the school’s case, it must uphold the appeal and your child will be offered a place.
Multiple appeals
The panel must not compare the individual cases when deciding whether an appellant’s case outweighs the prejudice to the school. However, if the panel find there are more appellant cases which outweigh the school’s case than the school can admit, it must then compare the appellant cases and uphold those with the strongest case. If the panel finds there are a certain number of children that can be admitted to the school without causing prejudice (a negative impact) the panel must uphold the appeals of at least that number of children and places must be offered.
Behavioural/under PAN appeals
If you have been told that your child has been refused a place at a school due to challenging behaviour, this means that the school have evidence from your child’s previous schools that they display challenging behaviour and that they cannot take further children into the school with challenging behaviour. In your appeal, the school will present their case explaining the pressure on resources and staff, and information about the support needed for children already at the school.
The school's case
The panel must decide if admitting further children with challenging behaviour to the school would cause prejudice (a negative impact) to the education of the children already at the school or the school’s resources. The panel will do this by looking at the impact on the school of admitting additional children with challenging behaviour and may consider the following factors:
- There is evidence that the school has a number of children with challenging behaviour, and it would be detrimental to take any further children with challenging behaviour.
- The effect on the school in the current and following years as the year group moves up through the school.
- Any changes that have been made to the school’s buildings or organisation since the PAN was originally set for the relevant year group.
- Any effects the Fair Access Protocol has on the school.
- The impact on the organisation and sizes of classes, availability of teaching staff and the effect of children already at the school.
The appellant's case
The panel must also consider your case and take into account:
- Your reasons for wanting a place at the school.
- What the school can offer your child that other schools can’t.
- Your child’s needs.
On your appeal form you need to include all of your reasons for wanting a place at the school and explain your reasons as fully as possible. The information you include here is very important as this information is part of your case to the appeal panel.
Balancing the prejudice
The panel must balance the prejudice to the school against the case for your child to be admitted to the school. If the panel considers that your case outweighs the school’s case, it must uphold the appeal and your child will be offered a place.
