School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ashmole Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 121 families who named Ashmole Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 252 and 347 put it first.

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

1.38

first choices for every place available

347 first preferences for 252 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ashmole Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Ashmole Academy, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Barnet 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 Barnet, 15.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 61 of 405 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 Barnet.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Barnet 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

Ashmole Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Ashmole Academy, 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 1.37 per place 312 first choices 228 places 2016/17 1.2 per place 307 first choices 256 places 2017/18 1.53 per place 395 first choices 258 places 2018/19 1.41 per place 363 first choices 257 places 2019/20 1.78 per place 460 first choices 258 places 2020/21 1.44 per place 367 first choices 254 places 2021/22 1.55 per place 394 first choices 255 places 2022/23 1.47 per place 373 first choices 254 places 2023/24 1.47 per place 378 first choices 258 places 2024/25 1.37 per place 351 first choices 256 places 2025/26 1.31 per place 336 first choices 256 places 2026/27 1.38 per place 347 first choices 252 places
First preferences per place at Ashmole Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 347 first preferences for 252 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ashmole Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 228 312 201 1.37
2016/17 256 307 228 1.2
2017/18 258 395 244 1.53
2018/19 257 363 231 1.41
2019/20 258 460 242 1.78
2020/21 254 367 236 1.44
2021/22 255 394 236 1.55
2022/23 254 373 244 1.47
2023/24 258 378 243 1.47
2024/25 256 351 237 1.37
2025/26 256 336 229 1.31
2026/27 252 347 226 1.38

Places offered

252

in 2026/27

Named first choice

347

1,189 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.1%

226 of 347

Offers to families outside the council

61%

153 of 252 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

1,446

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,303

90.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

143

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

410

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 Ashmole Academy 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 Ashmole Academy reported 143 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 90.1% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ashmole Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,452 places 1,484 on roll 2011/12 1,452 places 1,478 on roll 2012/13 1,452 places 1,493 on roll 2013/14 1,452 places 1,457 on roll 2014/15 1,452 places 1,484 on roll 2015/16 1,452 places 1,511 on roll 2016/17 1,452 places 1,558 on roll 2017/18 1,452 places 1,530 on roll 2018/19 1,512 places 1,568 on roll 2020/21 1,551 places 1,773 on roll 2021/22 1,551 places 1,848 on roll 2022/23 1,551 places 1,890 on roll 2023/24 1,551 places 1,874 on roll 2024/25 1,856 places 1,822 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
Barnet

Postcode N14 5RJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136308).

Other contested secondary schools in Barnet

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.