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

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Schools’ admissions appeals panel should have granted his child, Q, a place this school.

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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 Mr 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. Mr X applied for a place at this school for reception to start in September 2026. Q had attended the attached nursery and had a sibling there. There were more applicants than places and the Council, on the School’s behalf, used its admission criteria to allocate the places. Mr X missed out to applicants who live closer to the school than him. The Council allocated Q a place closer to their address on their application, Home A.
22. Mr X and his family moved to Home B at the beginning of June 2026. This is closer to the school. If the Council had used Home B as the address for allocating places Q would have obtained a place at this School.
23. Mr X appealed to the Schools’ admissions appeals panel. It considered his appeal in July 2026. He told the appeal panel he believed the admission criteria had not been properly applied. He said the new address Home B should be used. He also said the allocated school was a 45 minute journey from the Home B. He said the family intended to permanently settle in this School’s area.
24. The appeal panel dismissed the appeal as an infant class size appeal. Mr X complained to us. He said the Council and the appeal panel were wrong to use Home A as the address to calculate distance from. He has provided evidence that his family have changed their addresses with all relevant bodies to Home B.

Analysis

25. The appeal panel’s role in infant class size cases is very limited. One decision it has to make is whether the admission arrangements were properly applied. Here Mr X accepts that at the time of the application his address was Home A and this did not change until June, nearly two months after places were allocated and five months after the application closing date. The Council allocates places based on the application address. Therefore, it is unlikely we could find fault in the appeal panel’s decision that it was right to use Home A.

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Final decision

26. We will not investigate Mr 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 this School.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman