School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ravens Wood School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 44 families who named Ravens Wood School as their first choice did not get a place: 193 put it first and 149 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.

44

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

193 first preferences for 228 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ravens Wood School

There is no published appeal success rate for Ravens 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

Ravens Wood School turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 1 of those years. In the other 8 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 Ravens 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 0.68 per place 156 first choices 229 places 2016/17 0.86 per place 199 first choices 232 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 230 first choices 237 places 2018/19 0.9 per place 234 first choices 260 places 2019/20 0.69 per place 175 first choices 253 places 2020/21 0.86 per place 206 first choices 239 places 2021/22 0.66 per place 160 first choices 242 places 2022/23 1.06 per place 232 first choices 219 places 2023/24 0.92 per place 201 first choices 219 places 2024/25 0.92 per place 201 first choices 218 places 2025/26 1 per place 216 first choices 216 places 2026/27 0.85 per place 193 first choices 228 places
First preferences per place at Ravens Wood School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 193 first preferences for 228 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ravens 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
2015/16 229 156 151 0.68
2016/17 232 199 158 0.86
2017/18 237 230 183 0.97
2018/19 260 234 176 0.9
2019/20 253 175 162 0.69
2020/21 239 206 174 0.86
2021/22 242 160 155 0.66
2022/23 219 232 168 1.06
2023/24 219 201 150 0.92
2024/25 218 201 158 0.92
2025/26 216 216 145 1
2026/27 228 193 149 0.85

Places offered

228

in 2026/27

Named first choice

193

828 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

77.2%

149 of 193

Offers to families outside the council

4%

8 of 228 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

1,212

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,132

93.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

80

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

433

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 Ravens 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 Ravens Wood School reported 80 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 Ravens Wood School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,439 places 1,491 on roll 2011/12 1,439 places 1,488 on roll 2012/13 1,439 places 1,481 on roll 2013/14 1,439 places 1,507 on roll 2014/15 1,439 places 1,433 on roll 2015/16 1,439 places 1,416 on roll 2016/17 1,439 places 1,488 on roll 2017/18 1,439 places 1,530 on roll 2018/19 1,439 places 1,561 on roll 2020/21 1,617 places 1,605 on roll 2021/22 1,617 places 1,608 on roll 2022/23 1,617 places 1,607 on roll 2023/24 1,633 places 1,605 on roll 2024/25 1,645 places 1,591 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 BR2 8HP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136517).

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.