On Tuesday, April 19, parents across Bristol and South Gloucestershire will find out if their child has been offered a place at their preferred primary school. While most will get their first choice on National Offer Day, a minority will be disappointed.
For parents or carers who find themselves in the latter group, all is not lost. In Bristol, the council website states parents and carers can appeal to an independent panel, which must be done before June 1 for the 2022/23 academic year.
National Offer Day 2022, when primary school places are announced, is a little later than usual because of the timing of Easter weekend. Parents and carers who applied for places online will be notified of their child's place by email, as Hull Live reports.
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How primary school appeals work
Parents and carers will receive an appeals form from the council, which they can complete and return if they want to try to get a place at a different school. The appeal is not against the school a child has been given a place at.
Parents and carers can appeal for a place at any school even, if they did not originally include the school in their original choices, but can only do so once per application. New appeals are only considered if there has been a substantial change in circumstances for the family, or if new information comes to light that affects their case.
Appeals are heard within 40 school days of the closing date for cases to be raised for normal-round admissions. For appeals relating to in-year admissions, these will be held within 30 days.
An Independent Appeals Panel hears families' cases and considers them in line with the School Admission Appeals Code and relevant laws. Parents and carers can attend their hearing in person, where a representative of the admission authority would also be present, with opportunities for both to ask questions.
If the parent or carer does not wish to attend in person, the panel will consider their case in their absence by considering written information they have submitted. The pnel clerk is the point of contact for parents and has no part in making the final decision, which is legally binding.
There are two types of appeals: standard appeals and infant class size appeals. Standard appeals are heard in two stages, the factual stage and the balancing stage.
In the first stage, the panel must decide whether allocating a place to a child in a family's preferred school would stretch resources or affect the efficiency of education there. The balancing stage sees the panel weigh the case of the admission authority and the family to decide which is stronger.
Infant class size appeals follow a separate process. The panel considers the law on infant class sizes, which states that the reception class, and classes in years one and two, cannot have more than 30 children per teacher. Panel members have to decide whether the admissions authority was right to refuse a place to a child by taking into account the size of classes at their preferred school.
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