Hardly any complaints about appeals to discuss academy admissions were upheld last year, the Department for Education has said.
The received 216 complaints of maladministration by admission appeal panels from April to October 2024 and considered 123 of these under its remit. Of those, 39 were upheld.
Just 16 of the complaints about admission appeals for 2024-25 entry resulted in the DfE instructing the admission authority to offer another appeal.
“We found that most appeal hearing complaints we considered had adhered to the statutory regulations in place at the time of the hearing,” the DfE said.
The other 23 complaints were upheld for maladministration, but the DfE found that this had not affected the outcome of the appeal hearing.
A further five cases were withdrawn where the admission authority offered a fresh appeal when the complaint was made.
The DfE set out that common reasons for complaints at admissions appeal hearings included delays, timescales not being adhered to, decision letters with inaccurate information, and arrangements that did not comply with the School Admissions Appeals Code.
Admissions authorities are responsible for convening panels and appointing a clerk. The clerk responds to queries from parents, advises both parties and keeps an accurate record of the proceedings.
More specifically, the DfE team noted administrative errors, such as parents not being given notice of the appeal hearing or the membership of the panel not being provided.
The DfE also found some mistakes in the notes of the clerk, for example, where the clerk’s notes did not evidence the panel having given due consideration to the parent’s reasons for preferring the school.
The report comes on the day that secondary school places have been confirmed for thousands of pupils across the country.
Parents can appeal school admissions decisions, and statistics on overall appeals are released in August.
For , 20.7 per cent of appeals for secondary school places were successful, compared with 18.1 per cent of appeals for primary school places.
There were more than 40,000 appeals for secondary school places in 2023-24. Just over 32 per cent of these were heard, representing 4.2 per cent of secondary school admissions - similar to the previous year.
Under the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill currently passing through Parliament, councils would be given greater powers to ensure school admission decisions reflect local needs.
The bill extends a power councils currently have to direct maintained schools to admit children to academies.
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