School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Haberdashers' Crayford Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 25 families who named Haberdashers' Crayford Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 168 put it first and 143 of them were offered one.

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

25

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

168 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Haberdashers' Crayford Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Haberdashers' Crayford 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 Bexley 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 Bexley, 12.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 55 of 449 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 Bexley.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Bexley 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

Haberdashers' Crayford Academy turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 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 Haberdashers' Crayford Academy, 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 1.91 per place 166 first choices 87 places 2016/17 2.42 per place 189 first choices 78 places 2017/18 1.28 per place 128 first choices 100 places 2018/19 1.12 per place 141 first choices 126 places 2019/20 0.97 per place 116 first choices 120 places 2020/21 0.83 per place 148 first choices 179 places 2021/22 0.73 per place 131 first choices 179 places 2022/23 1.02 per place 184 first choices 180 places 2023/24 0.75 per place 134 first choices 179 places 2024/25 1.02 per place 193 first choices 190 places 2025/26 1.06 per place 191 first choices 180 places 2026/27 0.93 per place 168 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at Haberdashers' Crayford Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 168 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Haberdashers' Crayford 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 87 166 75 1.91
2016/17 78 189 71 2.42
2017/18 100 128 82 1.28
2018/19 126 141 105 1.12
2019/20 120 116 91 0.97
2020/21 179 148 148 0.83
2021/22 179 131 131 0.73
2022/23 180 184 165 1.02
2023/24 179 134 134 0.75
2024/25 190 193 152 1.02
2025/26 180 191 154 1.06
2026/27 180 168 143 0.93

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

168

570 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

85.1%

143 of 168

Offers to families outside the council

6%

11 of 180 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

810

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

857

105.8% of capacity

Over its capacity by

47

reported as full or beyond

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 Haberdashers' Crayford 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 Haberdashers' Crayford Academy 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Haberdashers' Crayford Academy 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 1,312 places 248 on roll 2010/11 1,386 places 440 on roll 2011/12 1,360 places 571 on roll 2012/13 1,360 places 750 on roll 2013/14 1,780 places 1,183 on roll 2014/15 1,780 places 1,374 on roll 2015/16 1,780 places 1,473 on roll 2016/17 1,780 places 1,547 on roll 2017/18 1,780 places 1,561 on roll 2018/19 1,780 places 1,567 on roll 2020/21 1,150 places 1,051 on roll 2021/22 1,150 places 1,051 on roll 2022/23 1,150 places 1,036 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 1,065 on roll 2024/25 1,060 places 1,073 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bexley

Postcode DA1 4RS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135951).

Other contested secondary schools in Bexley

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.