School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Bullers Wood School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 37 families who named Bullers Wood School as their first choice did not get a place: 210 put it first and 173 of them were offered one.

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

37

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

210 first preferences for 224 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Bullers Wood School

There is no published appeal success rate for Bullers Wood 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 Bromley 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 Bromley, 5.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 21 of 390 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 Bromley.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Bromley 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

Bullers Wood School 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 Bullers Wood 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 1.2 per place 278 first choices 231 places 2016/17 1.18 per place 274 first choices 232 places 2017/18 1.03 per place 250 first choices 242 places 2018/19 1.13 per place 273 first choices 241 places 2019/20 1.18 per place 273 first choices 232 places 2020/21 1.14 per place 266 first choices 233 places 2021/22 1.34 per place 311 first choices 232 places 2022/23 1.36 per place 311 first choices 228 places 2023/24 1.3 per place 296 first choices 228 places 2024/25 1.1 per place 249 first choices 227 places 2025/26 1.02 per place 231 first choices 227 places 2026/27 0.94 per place 210 first choices 224 places
First preferences per place at Bullers Wood School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 210 first preferences for 224 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Bullers Wood School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 231 278 193 1.2
2016/17 232 274 198 1.18
2017/18 242 250 192 1.03
2018/19 241 273 195 1.13
2019/20 232 273 198 1.18
2020/21 233 266 208 1.14
2021/22 232 311 201 1.34
2022/23 228 311 199 1.36
2023/24 228 296 203 1.3
2024/25 227 249 185 1.1
2025/26 227 231 185 1.02
2026/27 224 210 173 0.94

Places offered

224

in 2026/27

Named first choice

210

757 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

82.4%

173 of 210

Offers to families outside the council

5%

12 of 224 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

1,239

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,157

93.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

82

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

350

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 Bullers Wood 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 Bullers Wood School reported 82 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 93.4% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Bullers Wood School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,341 places 1,448 on roll 2011/12 1,479 places 1,513 on roll 2012/13 1,479 places 1,517 on roll 2013/14 1,479 places 1,508 on roll 2014/15 1,479 places 1,466 on roll 2015/16 1,479 places 1,524 on roll 2016/17 1,479 places 1,577 on roll 2017/18 1,479 places 1,543 on roll 2018/19 1,479 places 1,574 on roll 2020/21 1,479 places 1,574 on roll 2021/22 1,479 places 1,575 on roll 2022/23 1,479 places 1,574 on roll 2023/24 1,510 places 1,563 on roll 2024/25 1,589 places 1,574 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bromley

Postcode BR7 5LJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136709).

Other contested secondary schools in Bromley

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.