Parents around the country are finding out if their child has secured a place at the secondary school of their choice today.
There will be a mix of relief and panic on Secondary School Offer Day, depending on whether or not the desired school place has been secured.
Parents and carers usually find out through an email, or a letter, which was likely posted around February 28 and should be dropping through letterboxes on Tuesday March 1.
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Those who missed out on their choice have a right to appeal but are also advised to accept any place they are offered before launching that appeal.
Each school may have its own admission criteria or have it set by its council. When appealing a decision to deny your child a place, you should consider if the admissions arrangements were applied correctly and fairly when the decision was made to refuse your child's place.
If your child has no offer at all, contact your council urgently.
What to do if your child did not get their secondary school offer
First of all, if your child has been offered any place at all, the Government and councils advise accepting it, even if it's not the school you wanted and you plan to appeal and/or add your child to a waiting list.
The Department for Education said: "You should also consider accepting any offer of a school place you receive to ensure that your child has a place should your appeal not be successful.
"Accepting another offer will have no bearing on your appeal and the appeals process does not limit other options available to you."
Accepting no offer at all is a risk, at least if you do, you've got a back-up should the appeal be unsuccessful.
You have around two weeks to accept the offer of a school place, which you can do before appealing. The deadline for accepting school places varies; it is March 15 in Newcastle, but Thursday March 14 in North Tyneside, and Monday March 11 in South Tyneside. Your offer letter should tell you which date you need to stick to.
As well as choosing to appeal, you can also add your child to a waiting list for a school, in case places open up if other pupils refuse them.
The Government says : "If your child does not have a place, contact your local council for schools with places.
"You can also put your child’s name down on a waiting list. The ‘admission authority' for the school (usually the school itself or the council) must keep a waiting list open for at least the first term of each school year.
"Contact the school or your local council if you want your child’s name added to a waiting list.
"You can add your child’s name to a waiting list even if they have been offered a place at another school.
"If your child is on a waiting list and the school offers you a place, the admission authority will send you a formal offer. You can still accept the offer even if your child has already started at another school."
How secondary school place appeal process works
You have at least 20 days from the receipt of your Secondary School Offer letter or email to launch an appeal if your child has been turned down for a place.
Parents and carers can launch an appeal through the local authority (council) responsible for that school.
The Department for Education says: "If a parent or carer wants to appeal, they should first contact the school’s admission authority. The school’s admission authority is responsible for establishing the appeal panel, but the panel itself is independent.
"The appeal panel must come to its own independent conclusion as to whether the school should admit the child, having regard to the case presented by both the admission authority and the parent.
"The decision of the appeal panel is binding – if the appeal is upheld, the admission authority must offer the child a place at the school."
At the appeal hearing, the council will be given a chance to explain why your application was rejected, and you give your reasons for why you think your child's place should be accepted. If you can prove the school's admission policy was not properly applied to your child, you've got the best chance.
"If your reasons for your child to be admitted outweigh the school’s reasons for not admitting any more children at all, your appeal will be upheld [approved]," the Department for Education says.
The appeal panel has to consider:
- Whether the admissions arrangements complied with the law
- Whether the admission arrangements were applied correctly and fairly in the case of your child
- Whether or not admitting an extra child would adversely impact on the provision of education at the school
What are secondary schools' admissions policies?
Councils and schools can set their own criteria, but in general living near the school, having a sibling at the school, and going to a feeder primary school (a primary school that has links to the secondary school) are important factors in securing a school place.
The Department for Education says schools and councils are likely to give priorty to children:
- who live close to the school
- who have a brother or sister at the school already
- from a particular religion (for faith schools)
- who pass an entrance exam (for selective schools, for example grammar schools)
- who went to a particular primary school (a ‘feeder school’)
- who are eligible for the pupil premium or the service pupil premium
- whose parent has worked at the school for 2 years or more
You can view your council's school admissions policy through the local authority's website
Where do I appeal the decision to turn down my child's secondary school place?
You will need to launch your appeal through the council responsible for the secondary school you want your child to go to. The Government says you should have at least 20 days to launch your appeal, from the date of the letter/email informing you your child's place was refused.
You can launch your appeal today, Tuesday March 1.
- Appeal to Newcastle City Council here
- Sunderland school places appeal information is here
- North Tyneside Council here
- Gateshead Council here
- South Tyneside Council here
- Northumberland County Council here
- Durham County Council here
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