School appeals

Making a school admission appeal

Your right to appeal

If we haven't offered your child a place at a school listed on your application form, you have the right of appeal to an independent appeal panel.

Temporary arrangements due to COVID-19

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government made changes to the way admission authorities  (school governing bodies, local authorities and academy trusts depending on the type of school) carry out school admission appeals.

The School Admissions (England) (Coronavirus) (Appeals Arrangements) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 provides Admissions Authorities with the option to conduct appeals more flexibly during Covid-19. 

Face-to-face appeal hearings can now take place, where possible, unless a participant has to self-isolate following a positive test or where government guidelines indicate it is not safe to do so.

Where it isn’t reasonably practicable to hold face-to-face hearings for reasons related to the COVID-19 pandemic, appeals arranged by Barnet Council will be held via Microsoft Teams and telephone dial-in options.

Further details on how on the options available will be provided in your school appeal invitation letter, once your appeal has been submitted to the School Admissions Team.

If you have any queries about school appeals, please email the Governance Service at barnetschoolappeals@barnet.gov.uk or contact 020 8359 6452.

How many appeals you can make

You can only make one appeal per school in a single academic year unless there is a change in circumstances.

How appeals are considered by the panel

Although each appeal is decided on individual merit, only exceptional circumstances are likely to lead to a successful appeal. An appeal is unlikely to be allowed on the grounds of a school’s academic performance or Ofsted report, home-to-school distance or personal preference.

The outcome of an appeal will not be influenced by the acceptance of a place an alternative school.

How the appeals process works

• how to prepare for your appeal
• what happens at the appeal hearing
• how the appeal panel will make its decision

Who you can make your appeal to

Schools in Barnet

We will arrange and hear appeals for:

• Barnet community primary schools
• Friern Barnet School 

We don't arrange and hear appeals for:

• academies
• faith schools
• foundation schools and free schools
• information on how to appeal to these schools is available on the individual school websites

Schools outside Barnet

Contact the local council where the school is located to make an appeal.

Make an appeal

Appeal submission deadlines

• reception deadline 22 May 2023
• in year appeals will be heard throughout the year

If you submit an appeal after the deadline, it will still be scheduled but it may be heard at a later date than appeals that were submitted on time.

Appeals for an infant class place

Infant classes (Reception, Year 1 and Year 2) must not contain more than 30 children with a single teacher.

This is why infant class appeals are rarely successful. 

Your personal reasons for wanting a place at the school, however strongly you feel, can't be taken into account unless your child has been refused admission to an infant class and:

• admissions arrangements didn't comply with admissions law
• admissions arrangements weren't correctly applied
• decision to refuse admission was unreasonable

Many parents think the decision not to offer their child a place was unreasonable and will present a case to support this argument.

The legal definition of an unreasonable decision is decision which was:

• beyond the range of responses open to a reasonable decision maker
• outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards, that no sensible person who applied their mind to the question could have arrived at it

Appeal hearing dates for Barnet's community schools

These appeal hearing dates are subject to change.