School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Jo Richardson Community School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 44 families who named Jo Richardson Community School as their first choice did not get a place: 296 put it first and 252 of them were offered one.

Below: what an appeal in Barking and Dagenham actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

44

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

296 first preferences for 299 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Jo Richardson Community School

There is no published appeal success rate for Jo Richardson Community School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Barking and Dagenham as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Barking and Dagenham, 10.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 28 of 265 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Barking and Dagenham.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Barking and Dagenham ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

Jo Richardson Community School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 2 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Jo Richardson Community School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 0.72 per place 216 first choices 300 places 2016/17 0.96 per place 284 first choices 296 places 2017/18 1.13 per place 339 first choices 299 places 2018/19 1.16 per place 340 first choices 294 places 2019/20 1.12 per place 337 first choices 300 places 2020/21 1.22 per place 366 first choices 300 places 2021/22 1.17 per place 352 first choices 300 places 2022/23 1.11 per place 335 first choices 301 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 314 first choices 300 places 2024/25 1.16 per place 347 first choices 300 places 2025/26 1.16 per place 346 first choices 298 places 2026/27 0.99 per place 296 first choices 299 places
First preferences per place at Jo Richardson Community School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 296 first preferences for 299 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Jo Richardson Community School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 300 216 209 0.72
2016/17 296 284 233 0.96
2017/18 299 339 269 1.13
2018/19 294 340 247 1.16
2019/20 300 337 259 1.12
2020/21 300 366 270 1.22
2021/22 300 352 277 1.17
2022/23 301 335 266 1.11
2023/24 300 314 271 1.05
2024/25 300 347 276 1.16
2025/26 298 346 281 1.16
2026/27 299 296 252 0.99

Places offered

299

in 2026/27

Named first choice

296

864 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

85.1%

252 of 296

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 287 offers

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

1,500

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,473

98.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

27

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

231

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that Jo Richardson Community School has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures Jo Richardson Community School reported 27 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.2% of capacity. That is worth asking about — but ask it as a question, not an assertion. A panel will want the figure for the year group in question, and the school may have a good answer about staffing, rooms or timetabling.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Jo Richardson Community School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,100 2,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,351 places 1,326 on roll 2010/11 1,390 places 1,322 on roll 2011/12 1,390 places 1,327 on roll 2012/13 1,414 places 1,352 on roll 2013/14 1,414 places 1,363 on roll 2014/15 1,414 places 1,322 on roll 2015/16 1,638 places 1,372 on roll 2016/17 1,638 places 1,424 on roll 2017/18 1,617 places 1,445 on roll 2018/19 1,617 places 1,556 on roll 2020/21 2,180 places 1,681 on roll 2021/22 2,180 places 1,711 on roll 2022/23 2,180 places 1,671 on roll 2023/24 1,731 places 1,647 on roll 2024/25 1,731 places 1,692 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Barking and Dagenham

Postcode RM9 4UN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 133561).

Other contested secondary schools in Barking and Dagenham

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.