Non-statemented children

This advice relates to maintained schools and academies. If you want to apply for a place at another school there are several things you can do.

You may have a particular school in mind, in which case you can contact them directly to enquire about places.

Alternatively, you may not know where you want your child to attend, so contact your local authority and ask for a list of schools with places available during the year you want.

Admissions authorities deal with all applications for places. Depending on the type of school, the admissions authority will either be the local authority or the school itself. If you contact the school they should be able to direct you to the appropriate person.

Each school has a published admission number (PAN). Usually schools can only admit a certain number of pupils for infant classes, but for older pupils there is more flexibility. If a school has not reached its PAN you should be automatically accepted for a place.

If the school has gone above its published admission number, and you made your application for a place in writing, you should be offered a right to appeal against this decision.

An appeal is made to an independent appeal panel. The panel will examine whether the school has capacity to go above its published admission number, weighing any detrimental impact that may be caused to your child by not getting a place against any detrimental impact on the school from admitting another pupil.

Frequently schools find that they can in fact go above their PAN, so this is worth considering.

A school cannot refuse a pupil a place on the basis that they have been excluded elsewhere. Exclusion can only be a relevant factor in the decision-making process if a child has been permanently excluded twice in the last two years.

For more information refer to the School Admissions and Appeals Codes on the Department for Education website.

Statemented children

If your child has a statement of special educational needs, a different system operates for determining school places. In order for your child to move from one school to another the local authority will have to amend part four of the statement to name a different school. They may or may not agree to this straight away and you should consider further detailed advice on this point.

In some instances, depending on how the request is made, you can be offered a right of appeal to the independent Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (external link).

The tribunal, rather than an independent appeal panel, would then decide on a suitable school. 

A tribunal and an independent appeal panel must take different things into account, and so these two systems should not be confused.

For more information on the tribunal process see the HM Courts and Tribunals Service website.