School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Mary's and St John's CofE School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 95 families who named St Mary's and St John's CofE School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 81 and 164 put it first.

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

2.02

first choices for every place available

164 first preferences for 81 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Mary's and St John's CofE School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Mary's and St John's CofE 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

St Mary's and St John's CofE School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 of those years. In the other 4 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 St Mary's and St John's CofE School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 0.96 per place 108 first choices 113 places 2016/17 0.82 per place 98 first choices 119 places 2017/18 0.71 per place 121 first choices 171 places 2018/19 0.87 per place 153 first choices 176 places 2019/20 0.91 per place 149 first choices 164 places 2020/21 1.3 per place 225 first choices 173 places 2021/22 1.2 per place 208 first choices 173 places 2022/23 1.27 per place 210 first choices 165 places 2023/24 1.2 per place 201 first choices 167 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 200 first choices 159 places 2025/26 1.46 per place 227 first choices 156 places 2026/27 2.02 per place 164 first choices 81 places
First preferences per place at St Mary's and St John's CofE School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 164 first preferences for 81 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Mary's and St John's CofE School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 113 108 86 0.96
2016/17 119 98 82 0.82
2017/18 171 121 110 0.71
2018/19 176 153 132 0.87
2019/20 164 149 110 0.91
2020/21 173 225 149 1.3
2021/22 173 208 150 1.2
2022/23 165 210 143 1.27
2023/24 167 201 134 1.2
2024/25 159 200 120 1.26
2025/26 156 227 136 1.46
2026/27 81 164 69 2.02

Places offered

81

in 2026/27

Named first choice

164

541 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

42.1%

69 of 164

Offers to families outside the council

16%

13 of 81 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 103119.

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

1,530

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,494

97.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

36

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

250

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 St Mary's and St John's CofE 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 St Mary's and St John's CofE School reported 36 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.6% 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 St Mary's and St John's CofE School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 420 places 407 on roll 2010/11 420 places 414 on roll 2011/12 420 places 416 on roll 2012/13 450 places 447 on roll 2013/14 509 places 471 on roll 2014/15 1,230 places 630 on roll 2015/16 1,230 places 777 on roll 2016/17 1,230 places 912 on roll 2017/18 1,230 places 1,119 on roll 2018/19 1,500 places 1,320 on roll 2020/21 1,780 places 1,492 on roll 2021/22 1,780 places 1,569 on roll 2022/23 1,780 places 1,622 on roll 2023/24 1,780 places 1,626 on roll 2024/25 1,780 places 1,619 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Barnet

Postcode NW4 4QR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 151504).

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.