Primary admissions/appeal query

[CURIOUSPARENT]

Hoping that one of the guru's around here may help.

Can you advise if you can appeal to any of your preferences for a place if unsucessful?

For eg. if I got a place at preference 1, but actually when the allocations are given thought that preference 2 was what we should have chosen can you appeal to here? Or can you only appeal for a place at a preference you listed higher up your chosen list? The schools would be C of E schools (not sure if that makes a difference?).

TIA!

You can appeal against any school allocated irrespective of where you ranked the school (if ranked at all, some parents do not get any of their 5 or so school choices). However if this is a reception or year 1 appeal the grounds for appeal are going to have to be exceptional because of the Infant class rule/law that no class can be over 30 in size ( there are a few exceptions such as twins and children of service children) but it means that successful appeals are very (about 1 to 2% ) rare. The odds increase for placers allocated for years 3 and above but good reasons for appeal are always required .

Confirm that you can appeal for any school that you want, no matter where you placed them as a preference. Some Local Authorities seem to want to operate a system where you can only apply for schools which were a higher preference and you did not get a place at but they are incorrect, you can appeal for any school. However as timmytoes says schools that are very popular will probably be full and your chances of success at appeal will be very limited.