Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s school admissions appeal panel refusing her appeal. It is unlikely we would find fault which caused Miss X to lose out on a school place.

The complaint

1. Miss X says the Council’s schools’ admissions appeals panel should have granted her child, B, a place at School Y.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way a school admissions appeals panel made its decision. If there was no fault in how the panel made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended).

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Miss X, which included the appeal panel’s decision letter and a letter in support of her appeal.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

The appeals process

5. Statutory guidance about school admissions and appeals can be found in The School Admissions Code and School Admission Appeals Code. Both are published by the Department for Education. 
6. Parents/carers have the right to appeal an admission authority’s decision not to offer their child a school place.  
7. Appeal hearings must be held in private and conducted in the presence of all panel members and parties. Appeal panels must act according to the principles of natural justice. 
8. A clerk supports the appeal panel. Parents can submit information in support of their appeal. The clerk must send all papers required for the hearing a reasonable time before the date of the hearing. This includes information from the appellant and the admission authority. 
9. The clerk must take an accurate record of the hearing, including the proceedings, attendance, voting and reasons for decisions. 
10. The admission authority must provide a presenting officer at the hearing to explain the decision not to admit the child and to answer questions from the appellant and panel. 
11. Appeal panels must allow appellants the opportunity to make oral representations.
12. Appeal panels must either uphold or dismiss an appeal and must not uphold an appeal subject to any conditions. Appeals must be decided by a simple majority of votes cast. A panel’s decision that a child shall be admitted to a school is binding on the admission authority concerned. 
13. The clerk to the panel must write to the appellant, the admission authority and the council with the panel’s decision and reasons. 
14. The Education Act 1996 states a child reaches compulsory school age on the prescribed day following his or her fifth birthday. The prescribed days are 31 December, 31 March and 31 August.
15. The School Standards and Framework Act limits the size of infant classes (a class in which most of the children will reach the age of 5, 6 or 7 during the school year) to 30 pupils a teacher. The Appeals Code refers to these as infant class size (ICS) appeals. Panels can only uphold these appeals in limited circumstances.  
16. Admission authorities must provide parents with information on the limited circumstances in which an infant class size appeal can be upheld so they can make an informed decision about whether to submit an appeal. 
17. The Appeals Code says in an ICS appeal the panel must consider:

• whether the admission of an additional child or children would breach the infant class size limit; 
• 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; 
• whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in the case in question; and 
• whether the decision to refuse admission was one which a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case. 

18. What is ‘reasonable’ is a high test. The panel needs to be sure that to refuse a place was “perverse” or “outrageous”. For that reason, panels rarely find an admission authority’s decision to be unreasonable. 
19. In limited circumstances, children can be admitted as exceptions to ICS limit. These exceptions include children of compulsory school-age who move into the area outside the normal admissions round for whom there is no other available school within reasonable distance.  
20. ICS appeals also applies where admitting a further child would lead to a breach of the infant class size limit in future years.

Events in this case

21. Miss X applied for a place at School Y in reception to start in September 2026. There were more applicants than places and the Council used its admission criteria to allocate the places. Miss X missed out to applicants who live closer to the school than her.
22. Miss X appealed to the Council’s schools’ admissions appeals panel. It considered her appeal in July 2026. She told the appeal panel she wanted a place for reasons including that:
• B had been in the attached nursery, she was settled and Miss X wanted the stability.
• She really liked School Y and thought it was the best fit for B.
• School Y suited her logistically and for childcare arrangements.
23. The appeal panel dismissed the appeal as an infant class size appeal. She complained to us. She said:
1. The appeal panel criticised her for attending late.
2. She felt rushed in her comments.
3. An appeal panel member had been at an appeal she had previously made for B’s sibling.
4. She did not like the way the appeal panel spoke to her and questioned her about her appeal.
5. She felt there was a delay in holding the appeal leaving her too little time to find an alternative school.

Analysis

24. The Clerk’s notes show that Miss X did not attend the stage one as she was happy with the information she had been given. She told us in her complaint that she had prior warned the Council she would not attend stage one. We are unlikely to find fault in the appeal panel then explaining that she should have attended stage one if she wanted to question whether the school or the classes were full. These arguments cannot be discussed in the second stage of an appeal.
25. We are unlikely to find any significant injustice from feeling rushed to provide her comments. The points she says she did not make as she wanted would probably not have made a difference to an infant class size appeal.
26. It is unlikely we would find fault with an appeal panel member having been on a previous appeal of Miss X. The Code does not bar this from happening.
27. The appeal panel is expected to question the parents. We would not find fault in its doing so.
28. The Code says the appeals should be heard within 40 school days of the deadline for appealing. Miss X’s appeal was heard within that limit and therefore we are unlikely to find that she had been subjected to unreasonable delay.
29. The appeal panel decided the admission arrangements had been applied properly and Miss X’s case did not amount to the decision to refuse a place being perverse. The Clerk’s notes show the appeal panel actively considered the points Miss X raised at the appeal but decided they were not sufficient to mean refusing allocation was perverse. We are unlikely to find fault in its decision.

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Final decision

30. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because it is unlikely we would find fault in the appeal panel’s decision which has caused them to lose out on a place at School Y.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman