School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Newstead Wood School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 149 families who named Newstead Wood School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 190 and 322 put it first.

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

1.69

first choices for every place available

322 first preferences for 190 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Newstead Wood School

There is no published appeal success rate for Newstead 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

Newstead Wood 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 Newstead Wood School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.07 per place 333 first choices 161 places 2016/17 1.77 per place 281 first choices 159 places 2017/18 1.9 per place 304 first choices 160 places 2018/19 1.97 per place 317 first choices 161 places 2019/20 1.97 per place 311 first choices 158 places 2020/21 1.6 per place 280 first choices 175 places 2021/22 2.03 per place 358 first choices 176 places 2022/23 2.01 per place 337 first choices 168 places 2023/24 1.69 per place 300 first choices 178 places 2024/25 1.9 per place 338 first choices 178 places 2025/26 1.67 per place 296 first choices 177 places 2026/27 1.69 per place 322 first choices 190 places
First preferences per place at Newstead Wood School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 322 first preferences for 190 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Newstead 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
2015/16 161 333 153 2.07
2016/17 159 281 144 1.77
2017/18 160 304 151 1.9
2018/19 161 317 147 1.97
2019/20 158 311 144 1.97
2020/21 175 280 160 1.6
2021/22 176 358 156 2.03
2022/23 168 337 156 2.01
2023/24 178 300 166 1.69
2024/25 178 338 163 1.9
2025/26 177 296 164 1.67
2026/27 190 322 173 1.69

Places offered

190

in 2026/27

Named first choice

322

636 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

53.7%

173 of 322

Offers to families outside the council

43%

81 of 190 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

849

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

827

97.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

22

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

360

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 Newstead 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 Newstead Wood School reported 22 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.4% 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 Newstead Wood School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 955 places 1,015 on roll 2011/12 955 places 1,022 on roll 2012/13 955 places 1,033 on roll 2013/14 955 places 1,039 on roll 2014/15 955 places 1,004 on roll 2015/16 955 places 974 on roll 2016/17 955 places 1,011 on roll 2017/18 955 places 1,067 on roll 2018/19 955 places 1,079 on roll 2020/21 1,160 places 1,162 on roll 2021/22 1,160 places 1,239 on roll 2022/23 1,160 places 1,264 on roll 2023/24 1,160 places 1,260 on roll 2024/25 1,209 places 1,260 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bromley

Postcode BR6 9SA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136551).

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.