Guide
School waiting lists and appeals: what you are entitled to
Updated
Not getting the offer is not the end of the process, and two of the rules here are more generous than most parents assume.
Check your catchment To check catchment area boundaries, the map is the easy part. Ask your admission authority for last year's furthest distance offered, by year group, and you will know far more than any catchment overlay can tell you.
Question 1
Where do you live?
School admissions are devolved. The body you contact, and the guidance that binds it, differ across the four nations.
Email me this result
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The waiting list must stay open
Gov.uk says the admission authority, usually the school or the council, must keep a waiting list open for at least the first term of each school year. Contact the school or your local council to add your child's name.
You can accept a place and stay on the list
You can add your child's name to a waiting list even if they have been offered a place at another school. If a place is later offered, the admission authority sends a formal offer, and you can accept it even if your child has already started somewhere else. Accepting a place elsewhere does not forfeit the list.
Appeals go to an independent panel
Where an application is refused there is a right of appeal to an independent panel, and a separate route to complain about how the appeal process itself was handled. Deadlines are short and set locally, so ask for them at the point of refusal rather than after deciding whether to appeal.
Keep applying in parallel
A waiting list place, an appeal and an application to another school are not alternatives. Running them together costs nothing and is what most successful outcomes look like.