The appeals hearing
You'll be invited to the hearing to present your case in person.
Appeals hearings last 20-30 minutes.
You decide how to organise your presentation to the appeal panel.
If you don't want to attend the hearing, the panel will consider your appeal based on the written evidence you provided with your appeal form. This also happens if you don't arrive on time.
Bringing other people to the hearing
You can send a friend or solicitor to speak on your behalf, or they can attend in your absence to represent you. You can also call witnesses.
Whatever you decide, let us know on your appeal form.
You can't bring a representative of the school you're appealing for. Equally, the panel can't accept letters of support from representatives of the school.
Bringing your child
It's your decision whether your child comes to the hearing as a witness. However, the panel may decide that they need to leave the hearing once they've given their evidence. As such, you'll need to bring an appropriate adult to look after them afterwards.
Please don't bring other children – there aren't any childcare facilities.
The 2 types of appeal
All panels check to make sure admission arrangements have been correctly and legally applied. Beyond that they can follow one of two processes:
1. Infant class size appeals
This applies to Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 where class sizes are limited to a maximum of 30 pupils.
Infant class size appeals – read more
Infant class size appeals differ from other school admission appeals because the panel is limited on the circumstances in which an appeal can be upheld.
The panel can only review the decision to refuse admission. Therefore it can only consider information that was available to the admission authority at the time the decision was made.
The panel can't consider personal circumstances for a place in your preferred school.
When considering the decision to refuse admission, the panel must take into account:
- whether the admission of an additional child would breach the infant class size limit of 30 in the current year or future years
- whether the admission arrangements comply with admissions law
- whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in your child’s case
- whether the decision to refuse admission was one which a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case.
To uphold an appeal, a panel must establish that the decision to refuse admission was as a result of an error and / or was unreasonable.
1. Error – where the admissions authority has made an error in applying its admissions criteria (for example, where your home to school distance has not been calculated correctly), which has resulted in your child being wrongly denied a place. It's not enough to simply identify an error .
2. Unreasonable – the panel would need to be satisfied that the decision to refuse to admit the child was so illogical in light of admission rules that no sensible person could have arrived at it.
2. Two-stage process appeals
This applies to all other year groups, not subject to infant class size legislation.
Two-stage process appeals – read more
Stage 1 – Establishing the facts
The appeal panel must establish:
- whether the admission arrangements have been correctly applied and comply with admissions law
- whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in your child’s case
- whether to admit additional children would cause "prejudice to efficient education or the efficient use of resources".
The panel will uphold an appeal at this stage where:
a) it's clear that your child would have been offered a place if the admission arrangements had been properly applied or had complied with the mandatory requirements
or
b) it finds that the admission of additional children would not prejudice the provision of efficient education or efficient use of resources.
However, when hearing multiple appeals for the same school and year group and:
- there are a number of children who would have been offered a place
- to admit that number would seriously prejudice the provision of efficient education or efficient use of resources
the panel must proceed to the second stage of the appeal.
The panel can't reassess the organisation or capacity of the school but should consider the impact of admitting additional children in terms of:
- organisation and size of classes
- availability of teaching staff
- the effect it would have on a school in the current and following academic years.
If the panel is satisfied that the admission authority representative has made its case, the panel will move to stage 2 of the appeal.
Stage 2 – balancing the arguments
The appeal panel must consider whether the grounds for your child to be admitted to your preferred school outweigh any ‘prejudice’ that would be caused to the school by a further admission.
The panel will balance:
- the consequences for the school and other children by a further admission
versus
- the weight of the parent's case.
At this stage the panel will take into account your specific circumstances and your reasons for expressing a preference for the particular school. Each appeal is considered on its own merits.
The panel can't take into account the position of your child on any continuing interest list.
When dealing with multiple appeals, if the panel finds that there are more cases that outweigh prejudice than the school can admit, it must compare cases and uphold those with the strongest case for admission.
Panels make sure decisions comply with the School Admissions Appeals Code and the School Standards and Framework Act 1998.