School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Harris Garrard Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 67 families who named Harris Garrard Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 150 and 192 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Bexley actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 9 years of official figures.

1.28

first choices for every place available

192 first preferences for 150 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Harris Garrard Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Harris Garrard 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

Harris Garrard Academy turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 9 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 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 Garrard Academy, 2018/19 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 18/19 20/21 22/23 24/25 26/27 2018/19 0.66 per place 99 first choices 151 places 2019/20 0.63 per place 132 first choices 209 places 2020/21 0.71 per place 134 first choices 190 places 2021/22 0.77 per place 146 first choices 190 places 2022/23 1.01 per place 171 first choices 170 places 2023/24 1.26 per place 185 first choices 147 places 2024/25 0.86 per place 133 first choices 155 places 2025/26 1.23 per place 188 first choices 153 places 2026/27 1.28 per place 192 first choices 150 places
First preferences per place at Harris Garrard Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 192 first preferences for 150 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Harris Garrard Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2018/19 151 99 99 0.66
2019/20 209 132 132 0.63
2020/21 190 134 134 0.71
2021/22 190 146 128 0.77
2022/23 170 171 139 1.01
2023/24 147 185 120 1.26
2024/25 155 133 120 0.86
2025/26 153 188 130 1.23
2026/27 150 192 125 1.28

Places offered

150

in 2026/27

Named first choice

192

552 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.1%

125 of 192

Offers to families outside the council

45%

68 of 150 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

1,530

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,358

88.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

172

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 Garrard 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 Harris Garrard Academy reported 172 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 88.8% 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, 2017/18 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Harris Garrard Academy from 2017/18 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,000 2,000 places on roll 17/18 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2017/18 1,980 places 1,111 on roll 2018/19 1,980 places 1,226 on roll 2020/21 1,980 places 1,386 on roll 2021/22 1,980 places 1,418 on roll 2022/23 1,980 places 1,470 on roll 2023/24 1,980 places 1,502 on roll 2024/25 1,780 places 1,514 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 DA18 4DW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145140).

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.