School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ranelagh School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 78 families who named Ranelagh School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 174 and 240 put it first.

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

1.38

first choices for every place available

240 first preferences for 174 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ranelagh School

There is no published appeal success rate for Ranelagh 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 Bracknell Forest 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 Bracknell Forest, 11.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 11 of 99 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 Bracknell Forest.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Bracknell Forest 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

Ranelagh School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Ranelagh 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 1.25 per place 187 first choices 150 places 2016/17 1.59 per place 249 first choices 157 places 2017/18 1.4 per place 227 first choices 162 places 2018/19 1.52 per place 243 first choices 160 places 2019/20 1.41 per place 242 first choices 172 places 2020/21 1.16 per place 188 first choices 162 places 2021/22 1.23 per place 206 first choices 168 places 2022/23 1.39 per place 235 first choices 169 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 190 first choices 171 places 2024/25 1.36 per place 224 first choices 165 places 2025/26 1.44 per place 251 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.38 per place 240 first choices 174 places
First preferences per place at Ranelagh School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 240 first preferences for 174 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ranelagh School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 150 187 147 1.25
2016/17 157 249 148 1.59
2017/18 162 227 161 1.4
2018/19 160 243 157 1.52
2019/20 172 242 167 1.41
2020/21 162 188 152 1.16
2021/22 168 206 160 1.23
2022/23 169 235 161 1.39
2023/24 171 190 155 1.11
2024/25 165 224 158 1.36
2025/26 174 251 168 1.44
2026/27 174 240 162 1.38

Places offered

174

in 2026/27

Named first choice

240

458 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

67.5%

162 of 240

Offers to families outside the council

5%

8 of 174 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

852

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

889

104.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

37

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

210

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 Ranelagh 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 Ranelagh School 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ranelagh School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,010 places 958 on roll 2012/13 1,010 places 972 on roll 2013/14 1,010 places 993 on roll 2014/15 1,010 places 983 on roll 2015/16 1,010 places 990 on roll 2016/17 1,155 places 990 on roll 2017/18 1,155 places 995 on roll 2018/19 1,010 places 987 on roll 2020/21 1,062 places 1,064 on roll 2021/22 1,062 places 1,083 on roll 2022/23 1,062 places 1,075 on roll 2023/24 1,062 places 1,063 on roll 2024/25 1,062 places 1,099 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
Bracknell Forest

Postcode RG12 9DA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137267).

Other contested secondary schools in Bracknell Forest

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.