School appeals

Anyone considering an appeal for a place in Reception class or years 1 & 2, should be aware that the law states that infant classes must not contain more than 30 pupils with a single teacher. The school can therefore refuse admission on infant class size prejudice grounds if the number of pupils in the class would then exceed 30.

The only areas a panel can consider in this type of appeal are:

1. Whether the admission of an additional child would breach class size limit; and
2. Whether the admission arrangements comply with the mandatory requirements of the School Admissions Code and Part 3 of the Schools Standards and Framework Act 1998; and
3. Whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in the case/s in question; and
4. Whether the decision to refuse admission was one, which a reasonable admission authority would make in the circumstance of the case.

Please note:

When considering (d) "reasonableness" the threshold for finding that an admission authority's decision to refuse admission was not one that a reasonable authority could have made is HIGH.

The panel need to be satisfied that the decision to refuse admission was "perverse in light of the admission arrangements" i.e. it was "beyond the range of responses open to a reasonable decision maker" or the decision was so outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question could have arrived at it.

Given the limited nature of the possible grounds on which an appeal may be upheld, Infant Class Size appeals are rarely successful.