School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 243 families who named Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 192 and 432 put it first.

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

2.25

first choices for every place available

432 first preferences for 192 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet

There is no published appeal success rate for Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet, 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

Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet 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 Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.9 1.8 2.6 3.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.49 per place 441 first choices 177 places 2016/17 2.7 per place 467 first choices 173 places 2017/18 2.77 per place 493 first choices 178 places 2018/19 2.62 per place 492 first choices 188 places 2019/20 3.1 per place 592 first choices 191 places 2020/21 2.88 per place 550 first choices 191 places 2021/22 2.79 per place 535 first choices 192 places 2022/23 2.96 per place 557 first choices 188 places 2023/24 2.76 per place 525 first choices 190 places 2024/25 2.51 per place 476 first choices 190 places 2025/26 2.42 per place 462 first choices 191 places 2026/27 2.25 per place 432 first choices 192 places
First preferences per place at Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 432 first preferences for 192 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 177 441 171 2.49
2016/17 173 467 166 2.7
2017/18 178 493 175 2.77
2018/19 188 492 177 2.62
2019/20 191 592 186 3.1
2020/21 191 550 183 2.88
2021/22 192 535 188 2.79
2022/23 188 557 184 2.96
2023/24 190 525 187 2.76
2024/25 190 476 188 2.51
2025/26 191 462 185 2.42
2026/27 192 432 189 2.25

Places offered

192

in 2026/27

Named first choice

432

763 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

43.8%

189 of 432

Offers to families outside the council

91%

175 of 192 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

960

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

961

100.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

1

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

340

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 Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet 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 Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,620 places 1,180 on roll 2011/12 1,190 places 1,181 on roll 2012/13 1,190 places 1,179 on roll 2013/14 1,190 places 1,178 on roll 2014/15 1,190 places 1,190 on roll 2015/16 1,190 places 1,191 on roll 2016/17 1,190 places 1,200 on roll 2017/18 1,190 places 1,234 on roll 2018/19 1,190 places 1,243 on roll 2020/21 1,190 places 1,282 on roll 2021/22 1,300 places 1,291 on roll 2022/23 1,300 places 1,295 on roll 2023/24 1,300 places 1,304 on roll 2024/25 1,300 places 1,314 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Barnet

Postcode EN5 4DQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136290).

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.