School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at East Barnet School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 42 families who named East Barnet School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 200 and 213 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

213 first preferences for 200 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at East Barnet School

There is no published appeal success rate for East Barnet 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 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

East Barnet 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 East Barnet 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 1.29 per place 263 first choices 204 places 2016/17 1.25 per place 248 first choices 199 places 2017/18 1.17 per place 274 first choices 235 places 2018/19 1.14 per place 271 first choices 238 places 2019/20 1.07 per place 224 first choices 210 places 2020/21 1.04 per place 211 first choices 203 places 2021/22 0.73 per place 161 first choices 221 places 2022/23 1.01 per place 219 first choices 217 places 2023/24 0.96 per place 210 first choices 218 places 2024/25 0.96 per place 220 first choices 230 places 2025/26 1.14 per place 228 first choices 200 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 213 first choices 200 places
First preferences per place at East Barnet School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 213 first preferences for 200 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at East Barnet School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 204 263 182 1.29
2016/17 199 248 178 1.25
2017/18 235 274 206 1.17
2018/19 238 271 212 1.14
2019/20 210 224 175 1.07
2020/21 203 211 177 1.04
2021/22 221 161 158 0.73
2022/23 217 219 184 1.01
2023/24 218 210 183 0.96
2024/25 230 220 192 0.96
2025/26 200 228 175 1.14
2026/27 200 213 171 1.06

Places offered

200

in 2026/27

Named first choice

213

786 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

80.3%

171 of 213

Offers to families outside the council

20%

39 of 200 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

1,145

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,121

97.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

24

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

300

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 East Barnet 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 East Barnet School reported 24 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.9% 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 East Barnet School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,406 places 1,302 on roll 2011/12 1,350 places 1,317 on roll 2012/13 1,350 places 1,309 on roll 2013/14 1,445 places 1,336 on roll 2014/15 1,445 places 1,341 on roll 2015/16 1,445 places 1,333 on roll 2016/17 1,405 places 1,395 on roll 2017/18 1,445 places 1,395 on roll 2018/19 1,445 places 1,392 on roll 2020/21 1,445 places 1,428 on roll 2021/22 1,445 places 1,453 on roll 2022/23 1,445 places 1,454 on roll 2023/24 1,445 places 1,405 on roll 2024/25 1,445 places 1,431 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 EN4 8PU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136658).

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.