School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Harris Academy Falconwood?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 65 families who named Harris Academy Falconwood as their first choice did not get a place: 197 put it first and 132 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.

65

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

197 first preferences for 206 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Harris Academy Falconwood

There is no published appeal success rate for Harris Academy Falconwood, 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

Harris Academy Falconwood turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 of those years. In the other 1 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 Harris Academy Falconwood, 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 1.47 per place 257 first choices 175 places 2016/17 1.68 per place 329 first choices 196 places 2017/18 1.62 per place 320 first choices 198 places 2018/19 1.7 per place 336 first choices 198 places 2019/20 2.19 per place 437 first choices 200 places 2020/21 1.64 per place 328 first choices 200 places 2021/22 1.15 per place 234 first choices 203 places 2022/23 1.49 per place 300 first choices 202 places 2023/24 1.69 per place 323 first choices 191 places 2024/25 1.62 per place 311 first choices 192 places 2025/26 1.37 per place 275 first choices 201 places 2026/27 0.96 per place 197 first choices 206 places
First preferences per place at Harris Academy Falconwood. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 197 first preferences for 206 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Harris Academy Falconwood, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 175 257 143 1.47
2016/17 196 329 167 1.68
2017/18 198 320 149 1.62
2018/19 198 336 145 1.7
2019/20 200 437 162 2.19
2020/21 200 328 163 1.64
2021/22 203 234 134 1.15
2022/23 202 300 152 1.49
2023/24 191 323 153 1.69
2024/25 192 311 148 1.62
2025/26 201 275 147 1.37
2026/27 206 197 132 0.96

Places offered

206

in 2026/27

Named first choice

197

1,120 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

67%

132 of 197

Offers to families outside the council

28%

57 of 206 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

1,000

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

999

99.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

1

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 Harris Academy Falconwood 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 Harris Academy Falconwood reported 1 unfilled place across Years 7 to 11, at 99.9% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Harris Academy Falconwood from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,150 places 750 on roll 2010/11 1,150 places 814 on roll 2011/12 1,150 places 895 on roll 2012/13 1,150 places 987 on roll 2013/14 1,150 places 1,035 on roll 2014/15 1,150 places 1,057 on roll 2015/16 1,150 places 1,069 on roll 2016/17 1,150 places 1,079 on roll 2017/18 1,150 places 1,106 on roll 2018/19 1,150 places 1,169 on roll 2020/21 1,150 places 1,188 on roll 2021/22 1,150 places 1,217 on roll 2022/23 1,150 places 1,289 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 1,302 on roll 2024/25 1,250 places 1,277 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 DA16 2PE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135677).

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.