School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Compton School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 64 families who named The Compton School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 204 and 204 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

first choices for every place available

204 first preferences for 204 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Compton School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Compton 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

The Compton School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 10 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 The Compton 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 1.03 per place 209 first choices 203 places 2016/17 1.14 per place 235 first choices 206 places 2017/18 1.15 per place 236 first choices 205 places 2018/19 1.44 per place 292 first choices 203 places 2019/20 1.29 per place 264 first choices 204 places 2020/21 1.12 per place 227 first choices 202 places 2021/22 1.05 per place 213 first choices 202 places 2022/23 1.05 per place 211 first choices 200 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 212 first choices 201 places 2024/25 0.84 per place 171 first choices 204 places 2025/26 1.08 per place 212 first choices 196 places 2026/27 1 per place 204 first choices 204 places
First preferences per place at The Compton School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 204 first preferences for 204 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Compton School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 203 209 133 1.03
2016/17 206 235 164 1.14
2017/18 205 236 158 1.15
2018/19 203 292 161 1.44
2019/20 204 264 160 1.29
2020/21 202 227 150 1.12
2021/22 202 213 142 1.05
2022/23 200 211 140 1.05
2023/24 201 212 143 1.05
2024/25 204 171 137 0.84
2025/26 196 212 146 1.08
2026/27 204 204 140 1

Places offered

204

in 2026/27

Named first choice

204

1,032 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

68.6%

140 of 204

Offers to families outside the council

2%

4 of 204 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,041

99.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

9

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 The Compton 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 Compton School reported 9 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.1% 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 The Compton School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 900 places 893 on roll 2011/12 900 places 892 on roll 2012/13 1,050 places 918 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 946 on roll 2014/15 1,050 places 981 on roll 2015/16 1,050 places 1,127 on roll 2016/17 1,350 places 1,252 on roll 2017/18 1,350 places 1,302 on roll 2018/19 1,350 places 1,338 on roll 2020/21 1,350 places 1,342 on roll 2021/22 1,350 places 1,322 on roll 2022/23 1,350 places 1,347 on roll 2023/24 1,350 places 1,343 on roll 2024/25 1,350 places 1,352 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 N12 0QG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136418).

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.