You will be offered the right of appeal against a school admission decision if your school preference has not been successful. There is no right of appeal for nursery admission decisions.
Details will be included in the decision email you will get after you have applied.
When you need to tell us you are appealing
You will need to tell us that you want to appeal a decision within 10 school days.
You will then be given a date and time for your appeal hearing. The hearing will be held within 30 days of your decision to appeal.
The council’s reason for the decision will be presented to an independent panel of three people not connected to the school concerned or the council.
You (and the panel) will then have an opportunity to ask any questions and present your own reasons for appealing.
What you should do in an appeal hearing
By appealing, you are making a case for your child to attend a specific school and the case should be based upon why your child should attend that school.
The appeal hearing will be as informal as possible. If you feel you need some advice on how to present your case you should do independently.
Members of the council, local authority officers, Members of the Senedd or local politicians cannot accompany you to your appeal hearing, as this may lead to a conflict of interest, unfairness to other appellants and place undue pressure on the panel.
During the appeal process, you can still choose an alternative preference school for your child. Please contact the school admissions team (email and address).
Accepting an alternative school does not affect your right to appeal.
Decision of the appeal panel
The decision of the panel is final in all school admission appeals.
The Public Services Ombudsman can investigate written complaints about maladministration on the part of an admissions appeal panel.
Maladministration covers issues such as a failure to act independently and fairly, rather than complaints where a person simply feels that the decision taken is wrong.
An appeal panel’s decision can only be overturned by the courts where the appellants or admission authority are successful in applying for judicial review of that decision.
What happens in an appeal
Your appeal will be heard in private.
If there are a lot of appeals for one school, the first stage of the appeal may be done as a group and have other parents present who have also appealed.
The appeal hearing will follow a pattern.
Stage 1
- The presenting officer will explain why the admissions authority turned down your/the application(s) (for example, the school would be too crowded).
- Parent will have an opportunity to question the admission authority’s reasons for refusal.
If at this stage the panel decides that there was no need to refuse a place, for instance, if the school would not be too crowded, the hearing will end, and the parent will be informed that the appeal has been successful.
If the panel decides that there were reasons for refusal on the grounds that the school would be too full, then a second stage will follow, these will always be individual (private) appeals.
Stage 2
- The parent will explain why their child should be provided with a place at the school even though it is full.
- The panel and the admissions authority will have an opportunity to question the parents’ reasons.
- The admissions authority will then sum up the case.
- You will also have an opportunity to sum up your case.
The panel will listen to all sides of the case and may ask questions at any time if they need clarification or more information to reach a decision.
The panel’s decision should be sent by written notification within 5 working days.
Group appeals may take longer.
Information on appeals from Welsh Government
Welsh Government has more information on appeals.