Academic year 2022/23

Admission appeals in England

View latest data: Reporting year 2024This is not the latest data

• Published: 17 August 2023
• Last updated: 17 August 2023
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  1. 17 August 2023

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• Produced by: Department for Education

These statistics provide information about appeals made following the refusal of a school place application.

Most appeals are made when an applicant has not received an offer, via the annual coordinated admissions process, of a place at their first preference school for entry into primary or secondary school. However, appeals relating to other transfers at the start of the school year are also included.

Appeals relating to community and voluntary controlled schools are provided as aggregated totals by local authorities. Academy, foundation and voluntary aided schools provide their own appeal figures via the school census.

The latest data covers appeals relating to admissions at the start of the 2022/2023 academic year. The appeals must have been lodged with the appropriate admissions authority by 1 September 2022. A comparable time series back to the 2015/ 2016 academic year is available.

The figures detail the number of appeals lodged, heard (by an appeals panel) and successful. Appeal rates are calculated on the number of new admissions or, for successful appeals, the number heard.

The figures are provided by school phase, with primary schools split into infant and other primary classes where appropriate. The data is further divided by governance or, separately, broken down by national, regional and local authority level.

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Releases in this series

View releases (13)

• Reporting year 2024
• Academic year 2021/22
• Academic year 2020/21
• Academic year 2019/20
• Admissions appeals in England: academic year 2018 to 2019
• Admissions appeals in England: academic year 2017 to 2018
• Admissions appeals in England: academic year 2016 to 2017
• Admissions appeals in England: academic year 2015 to 2016
• Admissions appeals in England: academic year 2014 to 2015
• Admissions appeals in England: academic year 2013 to 2014
• Admissions appeals in England: academic year 2010 to 2011
• Admissions appeals in England: academic year 2009 to 2010
• Admissions appeals in England: academic year 2008 to 2009

Methodologies

• School admission appeals in England: methodology

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Headline facts and figures - 2022/23

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Appeals lodged

Applicants can lodge appeals for any school they have not been awarded a place in, but not all lodged appeals are heard at an appeal panel. A number are withdrawn before that point, for example because the child has been offered a place at the school via the waiting list. 

Therefore the best measure is the number of appeals which actually reach the stage of being heard by the appropriate authority, and this release focuses on these figures. 

However, in 2022/23 14,900 primary appeals were lodged, with 9,628 reaching the stage of being heard by an appeals panel. At secondary level, 38,186 appeals were lodged and 30,379 heard.

Appeals by school type

There were 40,007 appeals in total heard for 2022/23, or 2.6% of all new admissions. The rates by type of school varied from 2.9% for academy schools to 2.0% for community and voluntary aided schools.

There were 7,938 successful appeals for the same time period, or 19.8% of all appeals heard. The rates by school type varied from 25.2% for foundation schools to 15.2% for community and voluntary aided schools.

For 2022/23 a total of 68.0% of all appeals heard related to academy schools, compared to 66.6% in 2021/22. This is against a background of continuing increases in the proportion of the school population attending academy schools.

Primary appeals

Primary and infant classes

The primary level data is further split into infant (reception and years one and two) and other primary classes. There are regulations in place which require infant classes (reception and years 1 and 2) to be limited to 30 children[1] (opens in a new tab). This reduces the possibilities for appeal for these years.

The rate of appeals heard is 1.0% for infant classes and 2.3% for other primary classes. 

As would be expected, there is also a contrast in the success rates, with 9.5% of heard infant class appeals being successful (611) compared to 30.2% of other primary classes (969).

There has been a decrease in the proportion of infant appeals lodged over time, which is likely to be a result of the more limited chances of success.

 

[1] (opens in a new tab) The School Admissions (Infant Class Sizes) (England) Regulations 2012 prescribe certain limited circumstances in which pupils may be admitted as lawful exceptions to the infant class size limit of 30 for one-teacher classes. This means that a class of, for example, 32 pupils is lawful if two or more of those pupils have been admitted under lawful exceptions.

Primary timeseries

The number of appeals heard has dropped since 2015/16, from 2.6% to 1.2% in 2022/23. Although we can’t know why each appeal was submitted, there have been a reducing number of new admissions recorded year on year, and, separately, increases in the successful preference rate for applications for a primary school place[1] (opens in a new tab).

The number of successful appeals has dropped over the whole time period. However, as the number of appeals heard has dropped by differing levels the success rate has fluctuated rather than consistently declined. The success rate was at its lowest in 2021/22, increased by 1 percentage point for 2021/22, but has now dropped 0.8 percentage point to reach 16.4% in 2022/23.

Primary geographic variation

Figures are provided at LA level for infant classes and for total primary appeals (including the infant appeals). Differences in success rates can be driven by the results of a small number of appeals and therefore can be volatile. Caution should be used when comparing the figures.

By rate of appeals heard for primary schools, the local authorities with the highest rates were: 

• Kingston-upon-Hull (4.9%)
• Derby (4.4%)
• Bolton (4.3%)

And local authorities with the lowest rates were:

• Isles of Scilly (0.0%, on 18 admissions)
• Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster, Richmond-upon-Thames and Hillingdon (all on 0.1%)
   

[1] (opens in a new tab) https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/secondary-and-primary-school-applications-and-offers#releaseHeadlines-dataBlock-1

Secondary appeals

Secondary timeseries

At secondary level the rate of appeals heard is consistently higher than for primary, at 4.1% in 2022/23. The proportion has risen slightly from last year (3.9%), but is still lower than the rate of appeals heard in 2019/20 (4.9%).

The number of new admissions increased again to 747,182 in 2022/23 from 729,916 the previous year. This is the highest number since the timeseries started in 2015/16.

The number of successful appeals was slightly higher in 2022/23 (6,358) than it was in 2021/22 (6,055). However, because the number of appeals heard rose by a smaller proportion the success rate dropped slightly, from 21.1% in 2021/22 to 20.9% in 2022/23.

This is still notably lower than the rate in the first year of the timeseries, 2015/16, when 26.3% of the secondary appeals heard were successful.

Secondary geographic variation

As at primary level caution should be taken with the local authority data, which can vary notably year on year, although the overall number of appeals is higher at secondary level which can reduce extreme variability in the rates.

By rate of appeals heard, the local authorities with the highest rates were:

• Slough (17.4%)
• Trafford (13.5%)
• Liverpool (10.9%)

The same three local authorities had the highest rate of secondary school appeals heard in 2021/22.

And local authorities with the lowest rates were:

• Isles of Scilly (0.0%, only 2 admissions)
• Hartlepool (0.4%)
• Central Bedfordshire (0.8%)

Differences in success rates can be driven by the results of a small number of appeals and can vary significantly from year to year. Therefore caution should be used when comparing the figures, which are illustrated in the map below.

Further information available

This release concentrates on the headline figures for the proportion of appeals heard and which were successful by school phase. However, the underlying data provides more information including:

• The governance of the school being appealed by school phase
• The number and proportion of appeals initially lodged
• A full list of local authority and regional figures

Help and support

Methodology

Find out how and why we collect, process and publish these statistics.

• School admission appeals in England: methodology

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These accredited official statistics have been independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

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You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Admission appeals in England statistics and data:

Admission appeals statistics team

Email: admissions.appeals@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Ricardo Hayward

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