School Admissions Code
Statutory guidance issued by the Department for Education that admission authorities in England must follow when setting and applying school admission arrangements.
Independent editorial summary — not the official statute text. Read the official version on legislation.gov.uk.
The School Admissions Code is statutory guidance that schools must follow when carrying out duties relating to school admissions. It applies to local-authority-maintained schools, academies and free schools, and binds headteachers and school leaders, governing bodies, local authorities, academy trusts, schools adjudicators and admission appeal panels. Following public consultation and the Parliamentary process, a new school admissions code came into force on 1 September 2021, replacing the previous 2014 version and introducing new provisions to support the in-year admission of vulnerable children.
As statutory guidance, the Code carries particular legal weight: statutory guidance sets out what schools and local authorities must do to comply with the law, and admission authorities should follow it unless they have a very good reason not to. It covers the content of admission arrangements, the handling of applications and offers both in and outside the normal admissions round, and how fairness issues should be resolved, and is designed to be read alongside the separate School Admission Appeals Code.
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Official sources
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