School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Sydney Russell School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 107 families who named The Sydney Russell School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 357 and 361 put it first.

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

1.01

first choices for every place available

361 first preferences for 357 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Sydney Russell School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Sydney Russell 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

The Sydney Russell School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 of those years. In the other 1 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 The Sydney Russell 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 1.33 per place 478 first choices 360 places 2016/17 1.34 per place 479 first choices 358 places 2017/18 1.27 per place 455 first choices 357 places 2018/19 1.37 per place 487 first choices 356 places 2019/20 1.29 per place 463 first choices 359 places 2020/21 1.29 per place 463 first choices 359 places 2021/22 1.27 per place 455 first choices 359 places 2022/23 1.38 per place 497 first choices 359 places 2023/24 1.19 per place 428 first choices 359 places 2024/25 1.19 per place 423 first choices 356 places 2025/26 0.89 per place 321 first choices 359 places 2026/27 1.01 per place 361 first choices 357 places
First preferences per place at The Sydney Russell School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 361 first preferences for 357 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Sydney Russell School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 360 478 319 1.33
2016/17 358 479 280 1.34
2017/18 357 455 307 1.27
2018/19 356 487 288 1.37
2019/20 359 463 313 1.29
2020/21 359 463 310 1.29
2021/22 359 455 310 1.27
2022/23 359 497 274 1.38
2023/24 359 428 294 1.19
2024/25 356 423 275 1.19
2025/26 359 321 267 0.89
2026/27 357 361 254 1.01

Places offered

357

in 2026/27

Named first choice

361

1,061 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.4%

254 of 361

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 272 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 101246.

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

2,438

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

2,384

97.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

54

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

212

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 The Sydney Russell 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 The Sydney Russell School reported 54 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.8% 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 The Sydney Russell School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,400 2,800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,740 places 1,649 on roll 2010/11 1,740 places 1,661 on roll 2011/12 1,740 places 1,637 on roll 2012/13 2,088 places 1,623 on roll 2013/14 2,088 places 1,684 on roll 2014/15 2,088 places 1,771 on roll 2015/16 2,718 places 1,890 on roll 2016/17 2,718 places 2,052 on roll 2017/18 2,718 places 2,136 on roll 2018/19 2,718 places 2,298 on roll 2020/21 2,718 places 2,492 on roll 2021/22 2,718 places 2,586 on roll 2022/23 2,718 places 2,563 on roll 2023/24 2,650 places 2,604 on roll 2024/25 2,650 places 2,633 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
Academy converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Barking and Dagenham

Postcode RM9 5QT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141683).

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.