School admission appeals

If your child has been refused a place at a School that you have selected as a preference on your application form, then you have the right to an appeal against this decision. An appeal will be arranged, and this will be heard by an Independent Appeals Panel.

We will contact you at least 15 school days prior to your appeal taking place to notify you of the time and date. The Local Authority’s case that will be put to the Appeals Panel for refusing the admission of your child will be sent to you in the week prior to your appeal date.

How to lodge an Appeal

Complete the appeal form, please note you must complete one form per child.

The form should only take 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

School Admissions appeal form

If you have any problems with the online form, please contact us at the following email or phone numbers:

admissionexclusionappeals@wakefield.gov.uk

Church of England Schools (VA)

If you wish to appeal for one of the following schools, please contact churchschoolappeals@gmail.com:

Alverthorpe St Paul's C E School
Featherstone All Saints CofE (VA) J, I & Nursery School
Normanton All Saints CE Infant School
Ossett Holy Trinity CE (VA) Primary School
Sandal Castle VA Community Primary School
St Giles CofE Academy
St Helen’s CE Primary School
St John's CE Junior & Infant School
St Mary's Cof E (VA) Primary School

Infant Class Size Appeals – Reception, Year 1, and Year 2

Infant classes (those where the majority of children will reach the age of 5, 6 or 7 during the school year) must not contain more than 30 pupils with a single school teacher.

In an infant class size appeal, a panel will only uphold the appeal if it finds one of these conditions apply:

the admission of an additional child would not breach the infant class size limit
the school’s admission arrangements were unlawful, or were not properly applied, and the child would have been offered a place at the school if the arrangements had been lawful or had been properly applied
the decision to refuse admission was not one that a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case

An unreasonable admission is not decided by the panel but by the School Admission Code which defines it as ‘so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question could have arrived at it’.

For example, using the legal idea of ‘unreasonable’, it would not be seen as unreasonable for a parent to have two children attending different schools. But it might be seen as unreasonable if a child is refused a place at a nearby school, and the next school with space is five miles away.

These examples are only meant to help explain the idea. They do not guarantee whether an appeal will be successful or not. Every appeal is looked at based on its own facts and situation.

For further information and guidance, please view The School Admissions (Infant Class Sizes) (England) Regulations 2012.

Appeals data for last year (2024/2025)

Not all appeals are successful. In the school year there were:

94 Infant Class Size appeals heard and 6 were successful (6.3%)
148 Year 7 appeals heard and 44 were successful (29.7%)
497 appeals and 83 were successful (16.7%)

Appeals data for this year (2025/2026)

Not all appeals are successful. For the school year so far, there have been:

122 Infant Class Size appeals heard and 4 were successful (2.2%)
178 Year 7 appeals heard and 19 were successful (10.7%)

Waiting List Positions

For information about waiting lists please view the School Waiting List Information. You can contact School Admissions on 01924 306052 to find out your waiting list position.