Department for Education

Reporting year 2026

Admission appeals in England

Appeals submitted by parents against their child not getting an offer to a preferred primary or secondary school for the start of the academic year.

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• Published: 6 August 2026

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• Featured tables

  Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by users and can be adapted to switch between different categories.

• Data sets: download or create tables

  Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

• Data guidance

  Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

• Data catalogue

  Alternatively use our data catalogue to search and filter for specific data sets from this release or our entire library, providing full data summaries, data previews and access to API data sets.

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Featured tables

Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by some users (such as local councils, regional government or government policy teams) and can be adapted to switch between different categories (such as different geographies, time periods or characteristics where available).

7 featured tables

• Percentage of admissions for which an appeal was heard 2016 to 2026

  Percentage of admissions (estimated) resulting in an appeal being heard for a primary or secondary school place 2016 to 2026

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• Percentage of primary and secondary appeals heard that resulted in a successful outcome 2016 to 2026

  Percentage of primary and secondary appeals heard that resulted in a successful outcome 2016 to 2026 time series

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• Primary appeals lodged, heard and resulting in a successful outcome 2026 by region

  The number of primary appeals lodged and heard, as a percentage of estimated admissions, and the number and percentage successful by region 2026

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• Secondary appeals lodged, heard and resulting in a successful outcome 2026 by region

  The number of secondary appeals lodged and heard, as a percentage of estimated admissions, and the number and percentage successful by region 2026

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• Rates of primary appeals heard and proportion of primary appeals heard that were successful by region 2021 to 2026

  Regional variations in rates of primary appeals heard and the proportion of primary appeals heard that were successful between 2021 and 2026

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• Numbers of appeals lodged, heard and successful by local authority 2016 to 2026

  Time series of the raw number of appeals lodged, heard and with a successful outcome by local authority 2016 to 2026

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• Rates of secondary appeals heard and proportion of secondary appeals heard that were successful by region 2020 to 2026

  Regional variations in rates of secondary appeals heard and the proportion of secondary appeals heard that were successful between 2020 and 2026

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Data sets: download or create tables

Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

3 data sets available for download

Download all (ZIP)

• Admissions appeals by geography - 2016 to 2026

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of new admissions and number and percentage of appeals lodged, heard and successful by the local authority and school phase.

  • Number of rows: 7,220
  • Indicators:
    • Admission appeals lodged by parents
    • Admission appeals lodged by parents (percentage)
    • Admissions
  • Filters:
    • School phase
  • Time period: 2016 to 2026

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Admissions appeals by school type - 2016 to 2026

  National

  Number of new admissions and number and percentage of appeals lodged, heard and successful by the governance of the school and school phase.

  • Number of rows: 275
  • Indicators:
    • Admission appeals lodged by parents
    • Admission appeals lodged by parents (percentage)
    • Admissions
  • Filters:
    • Governance
    • School phase
  • Time period: 2016 to 2026

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Time series - appeals rates by region

  Regional

  Number of new admissions and number and percentage of appeals lodged, heard and successful, at regional level.

  • Number of rows: 396
  • Indicators:
    • Admission appeals lodged by parents
    • Admission appeals lodged by parents (percentage)
    • Admissions
  • Filters:
    • School phase
  • Time period: 2016 to 2026

  Data set information page
  Create table

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Data guidance

Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

This document describes the data included in the ‘Admissions appeals in England: 2026’ Accredited Official Statistics release’s underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License (opens in new tab) and is intended to meet at least three stars for Open Data (opens in new tab).

The methodology document for this subject should be referenced alongside this release. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality and how the data is produced.

A guide for the 2026 data collection can be found at School admission appeals data collection: how to submit data - GOV.UK (opens in new tab)

Coverage

The data includes returns from 153 local authorities (via the APAD collection for voluntary controlled and community schools and direct returns via school census from voluntary aided, foundation and academy schools.) The City of London, Rutland and Isles of Scilly local authorities have no schools that would fall within the APAD collection and are not required to make an APAD return. 

The rate of appeals lodged and heard are calculated using a total number of new admissions estimated from the January school census.

File formats and conventions

Rounding and suppression: No rounding or suppression has been applied to either the appeals or admissions data.

Conventions

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data.

‘z’         Not applicable.

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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: Ann Claytor

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If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

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If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:

Phone: 0370 000 2288

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