Contested schools in Brighton and Hove
These are the Brighton and Hove schools that turned first-choice families away in at least one of the last three years — either because more families named them first than they had places, or because they refused families who named them first anyway. Figures shown are for 2026/27. Demand is not a forecast: an oversubscribed school turns more families away, which is not the same as their appeals succeeding more often.
Appeal success rates for Brighton and Hove
Secondary schools (6)
Each has its own page with a 12-year demand history.
| School | Places | First choices | Per place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cardinal Newman Catholic School | 346 | 484 | 1.40 |
| Varndean School | 279 | 350 | 1.25 |
| King's School | 171 | 212 | 1.24 |
| Dorothy Stringer School | 319 | 290 | 0.91 |
| Blatchington Mill School | 323 | 252 | 0.78 |
| Patcham High School | 198 | 145 | 0.73 |
Primary schools (20)
Primary schools are listed here as figures rather than pages. Most refusals at the Reception intake are infant class size cases, where a panel can only act on three narrow grounds and fewer than one in ten appeals succeeds — so the honest thing to publish is the data, not a page inviting an appeal.
| School | Places | First choices | Per place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peter Gladwin Primary School | 30 | 40 | 1.33 |
| Balfour Primary School | 90 | 119 | 1.32 |
| Cottesmore St Mary's Catholic Primary School | 60 | 74 | 1.23 |
| Carlton Hill Primary School | 30 | 36 | 1.20 |
| St Bernadette's Catholic Primary School | 30 | 36 | 1.20 |
| Saltdean Primary School | 60 | 70 | 1.17 |
| St Andrew's CofE (Aided) Primary School | 89 | 99 | 1.11 |
| West Hove Infant School | 121 | 130 | 1.07 |
| Elm Grove Primary School | 60 | 63 | 1.05 |
| St Luke's Primary School | 90 | 94 | 1.04 |
| West Blatchington Primary and Nursery School | 15 | 15 | — |
| Bilingual Primary School - Brighton & Hove | 89 | 83 | 0.93 |
| Our Lady of Lourdes RC School | 30 | 28 | 0.93 |
| Rudyard Kipling Primary School & Nursery | 60 | 56 | 0.93 |
| Coombe Road Primary School | 26 | 24 | 0.92 |
| Westdene Primary School | 59 | 54 | 0.92 |
| Benfield Primary School | 10 | 9 | — |
| Downs Infant School | 90 | 80 | 0.89 |
| St Mary's Catholic Primary School | 28 | 25 | 0.89 |
| St John the Baptist Catholic Primary School | 17 | 14 | — |
Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal outcomes are not published for individual schools — how we source and calculate the figures.