Secondary School Appeal

[Lionesses2026]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone had any advice about appealing our secondary school place please. We received our second choice but my daughter is unhappy.

I see it is often suggested to check whether there has been an error with the allocations. Im not sure how I would do this. Can anyone advise in more detail about what this means?

The reason my daughter is not happy with her second choice is that she currently plays for a girls football academy. She chose a school with excellent sporting facilities and that has a partnership with a premiership football club. The school she has been allocated doesn't even have an astroturf facility :-( They do have a grass football pitch but it is built on a flood plain and is frequently unusable during the winter months.

I realise this might sound a very weak reason, but it is something that is very important to my daughter's happiness and wellbeing.

Can anyone advise if this would even be considered as a reason or would I be laughed out of the appeals process?

Thank you

I'm sorry to hear your daughter received disappointing news yesterday.

When people talk about making sure that an error wasn't made it means making sure that the admissions authority used the correct info and applied the admissions criteria as written. The specifics vary depending on the school's oversubscription criteria, but often this means making sure your DD was categorized correctly (for example, if the admissions criteria has a category for students from feeder schools, or students in a specific catchment, or students who sat banding tests, or students with a faith commitment) and checking that the distance measurement to your home that they used is correct. One place to start with this is to look on the council website for the allocation of places offered for the school and make sure that they didn't offer to a farther distance than yours in the applicant category you think your daughter should have been in. Mistakes aren't common, but it's always worth checking. You can also contact either the school or admissions authority (whichever manages the waiting list) and confirm both your DD's position on the list and the admissions category and distance from school they have her listed at.

Your daughter's football commitment and ability definitely isn't a laughable appeal argument. It's difficult for anyone to tell you odds of success without knowing how oversubscribed the school is and what other appeals they will get, but that's a strong starting place.

You won't be laughed out, but if the school has a strong case for being full then your case may not be strong enough to win. Your daughter plays football at a very high level.outside of school, so you would have to give a good reason why not going to the preferred school will be to her detriment. Will she even have time for school-level football?

Plays for a girls football academy- does that mean attends a weekly football club? Or has been selected as a promising young player by an academy attached to a club?

Also the school you want - silly q perhaps but do they definitely do girls’ football? How much/ how often?

It would be a valid reason yes, you wouldn’t be laughed at. Whether it is enough is hard to say - a lot will depend on how crowded the school you want is already.

Regarding admissions errors - you would need some reason to believe there had been an error, like you have a sibling there or live on the doorstep but still haven’t got a place.

The letter should clarify why the place at her first preference was not allocated, which admissions category she was given and the oversubscription criteria applied be it distance, sibling priority, faith or similar. Her interest in football is worth an appeal if you can evidence it and this is the only school which can fulfil it.

This is incredibly helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time to write this out and to share your knowledge. That makes sense now - I thought I was somehow supposed to check they have properly allocated all the other places! 🙈 Thank you again.

Thank you for your reply, and you make a good point, which I hadn't considered. The school she was hoping to go to has links to a premiership football club and she was excited for the opportunities that would bring. The girls football offering at her allocated school looks poor - they train in an indoor sports hall (where as the boys get taken to an off site facility).

Thanks for your reply. She plays for an academy that she trials for each year. It's a "proper" academy, for want of a better word, that is run by a professional club. It's not a grassroots team. They definitely do girls football there and have excellent facilities. It's good to know I won't be laughed out even if it isn't guaranteed! Thank you again.

Thank you @LIZS this is really helpful x

This. It is worth appealing on the grounds that given this schools link to football, should have been taken into account and possibly hasn't been. It's also possible that children which more pressing reasons to attend that school were given the places, which is fair enough.

This is poor advice. Unless football aptitude is mentioned as an oversubscription criterion in the admission policy (unlikely) then it has no bearing whatsoever on admissions.

The OP can ask for it to be taken into account at appeal, but it is not correct to imply it should have been taken into account in the original decision.

Another reason we particularly wanted her first choice is that it offers law at GCSE. Her allocated school doesn't. I've worked in law for over 25 years. I presume that it is a somewhat tenuous arguement though to say she would have done it at GCSE, in 5 years time 🙈

Your daughter's aptitude for sports is a strong point in your favour for an appeal. I would see if you can strengthen it still further by identifying anything else this school offers that is missing from the allocated school and is particularly relevant to your daughter.

As I was typing this, you posted about law. As GCSEs are a few years away this is less relevant as a lot can change in that time, but I would still add it to your appeal if you have any evidence that your daughter would want to study law.

Edited to add - not sure why I quoted that post! Sorry.

I don’t think Law gcse is really significant. Gcses options can change and be dropped.

I have to be honest though and say that law at GCSE was just an added bonus. If her allocated school had done law she would still have chosen her first choice because of the football.

From experience a lot of schools do very little in reality re girls footy. Very few matches and maybe one (often half hearted) extra curricular session a week. The level is still low as only 1/2 max of any year group team actually play out of school. Most academy players aren’t interesed in it. The programmes run by premier clubs also often focus on pupils at risk of dropping out of schools and it an engagement tool to keep them in education. It’s not about excellence in coaching in my experience.
You'd be better focus on sports generally I suspect.

You might get a place on the wait list! Don’t rule that out there is loads of movement between now and the second round of offers.

https://www.mufoundation.org/en/Projects/Partner-schools

This is an example. You might find that the club link is not to coach high performers. In Manchester it’s focused on positive life choices in deprived areas primarily

https://www.mancity.com/city-in-the-community/healthy-futures/city-inspires

@Lionesses2026 Law is tenuous I think. It’s not remotely necessary for anything. A specific sport is more compelling. Plus other things like the sports facilities and how seriously they take sport.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply and giving your advice. I know it's a long shot but I feel we have to try ☺️

It's not a long shot if done right.

Last year I met none of the admissions criteria and successfully appealed a stupidly over subscribed school that I lived 7 miles from purely down to sporting and curriculum offerings, it's actually a really strong reason for appeal rather than 'my child wants to be with their friends'.

I knew someone else that had a sibling in the school, and didn't win their appeal for the same school, so mine was even placed above that 😬

If you need any help , feel free to ask!

This gives me so much hope 😍 If you've got any tips on what to put in the appeal then I'd be really grateful 🙏🏻 You must have put forward a really strong case to get in above a sibling! There's just such mixed advice on what is and what isn't relevant. Which I totally understand because each school and appeal board will be different. It might even vary from day to day on how they're feeling 🙈

@Funkylights the links you’ve posted relate to the clubs charitable arms which will have a different remit to the clubs youth development programmes. The latter will focus performance and potential

My DD is also in a club football academy and unfortunately her secondary school doesn’t have great footballing for girls. However to be honest she’s training at the academy twice a week plus fitness so it’s not made a big impact, she often doesn’t have time to represent the school due to the academy training.

I am not clear if the academy she is currently with is at the premiership club already but if not their scouts are always looking for talent at games and tournaments, so whilst her desired school would be great, it won’t fold her back if she’s not there.

I hope your DD is happy wherever she goes and keeps enjoying football.

If your daughter does get in to the first choice school on appeal I would make sure she is aware that the links with a premiership club could mean very little to nothing to her in terms of football development.

The school my son goes to is linked to a premiership club. They do have some good football facilities (they had her before the link anyway) but they are only really used in general PE and for after school home matches for the school team (which if she is at a proper academy she might not be able to play for). Other than that they are booked out to grassroots teams etc paying to use them.

The links with the premiership club are more things like engaging disruptive or low achieving pupils by taking them off site for some lessons at the club or community programmes such as cooking classes for pupils and parents identified of being in need etc.