Children and/or their parents can appeal against a decision to refuse a 6th form place.
Please note that you can only appeal if you have been refused a place at the school. If you have been offered an alternative course at the same school, you do not have the right to an appeal.
A child might have been refused a place for two reasons:
- They did not meeting the entry requirements set out in the school’s admissions arrangements. For example, they didn’t get the required number of GCSEs of specified grades
- The school is oversubscribed.
For all sixth form appeals, the deadline for lodging an appeal is Tuesday 30 September.
Appeals that are due to a children being refused because they did not meet the academic requirements of the school will be heard either on Friday 10 October or Monday 13 October online (Microsoft Teams). Any received after this date will still be heard, but will be scheduled within 30 school days of receipt.
Appeals that are due to the school being oversubscribed will be heard within 40 school days following results day.
Next steps
Once you've received written notification from the school with its decision to refuse admission, email school.appeals@hertfordshire.gov.uk.
Please attach evidence that you have been refused a place at the school – this could be an email or a photograph of a letter from the school. If this shows you have been refused a place, we will then send you a form to complete in order to lodge your appeal.
Please don't send us information where third parties can be identified (e.g. other children's names or photographs).
If you need to include information about other people, you will need to send us written consent from the individuals or families involved.
When you send us your information as part of a school admissions appeal, you are sending your information to Hertfordshire County Council (as the Data controller).
This information is gathered and will be processed for the purpose of processing school admissions appeals, exclusion reviews and home to school transport appeals. Hertfordshire County Council will use this information to ensure all contacts (including calls, emails, and online contacts) are managed effectively to log, record and administer the statutory school appeals service and to give the best customer service possible.
Hertfordshire County Council is obliged to collect and process this data under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, Admissions code 2014 and Appeals code 2012.
The information you give us will be held by the Appeals team of Hertfordshire County Council.
It will be shared with schools and independent appeal panel members.
We will also share information with third parties if we are legally obliged to do so, for example if it necessary to safeguard or protect a child.
We may also share information with the police or other agencies if it is necessary for the following purposes:
a) the prevention or detection of crime
b) the apprehension or prosecution of offenders
c) the assessment or collection of any tax or duty or any imposition of a similar nature
The information that you supply to us will be kept on file for 25 years. For more information, including how to remove your data, visit our website privacy policy.
What the panel considers
When a child has been refused a place at a particular school because they did not meet the academic requirements of the course they applied for, the panel only considers whether the admission authority’s decision that the child was not of the required standard was reasonable in the light of the information available to it. This is in accordance with para. 3.17 of the School Admissions Appeals Code. The panel cannot make its own assessment of a child’s ability. The panel must consider whether the process of deciding that the child was not of the required standard was carried out in a consistent and objective way.
When a child has been refused a place at a particular school because there are more eligible children than places available, the appeal will be heard by following the normal two-stage process.