Detailed guidance on school admission appeals


3. Key dates for school appeals

These deadlines are particularly important for appeals relating to the September 2024 intake.

Deadlines for submitting your appeal
Type Deadline Applies to
Secondary appeals Thursday 28 March 2024 Children starting secondary school in September 2024.
Primary appeals Wednesday 15 May 2024 Children starting Reception Year or Year 3 from September 2024 onwards.
In-year appeals Within 25 school days of being told your application was unsuccessful. All applications that are not part of the main primary, junior or secondary intake in September. This could be for any year group at any time of year.

We aim to have all appeals, which are received within the deadline, heard by the following dates.

When will my appeal be heard?
Type Final date appeals will be heard by
Secondary appeals Tuesday 18 June 2024
Primary appeals Thursday 18 July 2024
In-year appeals
(appeals which do not relate to the September intake)
Within 30 school days of receiving the appeal

When will I get the details of my hearing?

We will give you the details in writing at least 10 school days before your appeal hearing.

We will also share:

  • your appeal form and
  • the admission authority’s written response (statement of case).

We will send these 7 working days before the hearing (not including the day of despatch or the hearing day).

When will I know the outcome of my appeal?

We aim to send out written confirmation of the decision within 5 working days of your hearing. At peak times this is not always possible. Sometimes a panel needs to hear many appeals for one school over several days. In these cases we can’t release the decisions until after the last day of hearings for that school.

Please do not call the school appeals team for the outcome of your appeal. We cannot provide this information via telephone calls.