School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Michaela Community School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 198 families who named Michaela Community School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 112 and 286 put it first.

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

2.55

first choices for every place available

286 first preferences for 112 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Michaela Community School

There is no published appeal success rate for Michaela Community 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 Brent 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 Brent, 4.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 17 of 382 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 Brent.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Brent 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

Michaela Community School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 9 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 Michaela Community School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 0.4 per place 46 first choices 116 places 2016/17 0.8 per place 95 first choices 119 places 2017/18 0.86 per place 102 first choices 119 places 2018/19 1.49 per place 174 first choices 117 places 2019/20 1.81 per place 213 first choices 118 places 2020/21 1.89 per place 225 first choices 119 places 2021/22 1.74 per place 204 first choices 117 places 2022/23 1.77 per place 213 first choices 120 places 2023/24 1.91 per place 225 first choices 118 places 2024/25 2.13 per place 245 first choices 115 places 2025/26 1.96 per place 231 first choices 118 places 2026/27 2.55 per place 286 first choices 112 places
First preferences per place at Michaela Community School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 286 first preferences for 112 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Michaela Community School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 116 46 46 0.4
2016/17 119 95 62 0.8
2017/18 119 102 63 0.86
2018/19 117 174 73 1.49
2019/20 118 213 81 1.81
2020/21 119 225 88 1.89
2021/22 117 204 81 1.74
2022/23 120 213 81 1.77
2023/24 118 225 77 1.91
2024/25 115 245 81 2.13
2025/26 118 231 79 1.96
2026/27 112 286 88 2.55

Places offered

112

in 2026/27

Named first choice

286

925 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

30.8%

88 of 286

Offers to families outside the council

14%

16 of 112 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

600

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

617

102.8% of capacity

Over its capacity by

17

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

240

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 Michaela Community 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 Michaela Community 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Michaela Community School from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 840 places 121 on roll 2015/16 840 places 238 on roll 2016/17 840 places 362 on roll 2017/18 840 places 481 on roll 2018/19 840 places 593 on roll 2020/21 840 places 710 on roll 2021/22 840 places 699 on roll 2022/23 840 places 699 on roll 2023/24 840 places 723 on roll 2024/25 840 places 744 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Brent

Postcode HA9 0UU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140862).

Other contested secondary schools in Brent

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.