Birmingham primary school offer day 2023: how to appeal school place after National Offer Day decision

The 2023 National Offer Day is quickly approaching, with parents and guardians in Birmingham eager to find out what primary school place their children will receive for the next school year. This year, the National Offer Day is on Monday April 17, with the offers being sent out throughout the day.

According to Birmingham City Council, parents who applied online and provided an email address will receive an email that day telling you which school your child has been offered. It is expected that you will receive the offer by 4pm on April 17.

Your child’s formal offer letter will also be sent from April 18. The council urges families to allow at least 3 working days for the letter to arrive in your letterbox.

Once you have received your offer, should you choose to accept it, you do not need to let the council know as this will be automatically assumed. If you want to refuse the offer, however, it is important that you contact the council before Tuesday May 2, 2023.

How to appeal your child’s National Offer Day school place

If your child has not been offered a place at any of the schools you applied for, this is because the school received more applications than it has places available. It also means other children might have met the admission criteria more precisely than yours.

Should this be the case, you can apply the decision, although Birmingham City Council strongly recommends you don’t refuse the offer to ensure your child has a place in September. Should you however decide to do so, you will have to write to an Education Appeal Panel, which is independent from the council.

After making an appeal, you must attend an appeal hearing, in which a panel will decide if you have a case. Should you have a case, you might be offered a spot at the desired school.

Very few appeals are successful each school year, and you will only have a case if you reach certain criteria. According to the Birmingham City Council, for an appeal to be successful, the panel must be satisfied that:

• the admission of additional children would not breach the infant class size limit
• the child would have been offered a place if the published admission arrangements had been properly implemented
• the child would have been offered a place if the arrangements had not been contrary to mandatory provisions in the School Admissions Code and the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, and/or
• the decision to refuse admission was not one that a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case

An appeal form to start making your appeal will be available from 9am on April 17. The closing date for your written appeal is Tuesday May 16, 2023.