School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Highcrest Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 64 families who named The Highcrest Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 172 and 187 put it first.

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

1.09

first choices for every place available

187 first preferences for 172 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Highcrest Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for The Highcrest Academy, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Buckinghamshire 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 Buckinghamshire, 12% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 182 of 1,519 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 Buckinghamshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Buckinghamshire 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

The Highcrest Academy turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 of those years. In the other 5 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 The Highcrest Academy, 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 per place 153 first choices 153 places 2016/17 0.78 per place 138 first choices 176 places 2017/18 1 per place 149 first choices 149 places 2018/19 0.81 per place 152 first choices 187 places 2019/20 0.9 per place 157 first choices 175 places 2020/21 0.92 per place 164 first choices 178 places 2021/22 0.71 per place 125 first choices 177 places 2022/23 1.09 per place 183 first choices 168 places 2023/24 1.16 per place 201 first choices 173 places 2024/25 1.32 per place 221 first choices 168 places 2025/26 1.15 per place 194 first choices 169 places 2026/27 1.09 per place 187 first choices 172 places
First preferences per place at The Highcrest Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 187 first preferences for 172 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Highcrest Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 153 153 107 1
2016/17 176 138 133 0.78
2017/18 149 149 110 1
2018/19 187 152 142 0.81
2019/20 175 157 127 0.9
2020/21 178 164 133 0.92
2021/22 177 125 110 0.71
2022/23 168 183 130 1.09
2023/24 173 201 140 1.16
2024/25 168 221 131 1.32
2025/26 169 194 129 1.15
2026/27 172 187 123 1.09

Places offered

172

in 2026/27

Named first choice

187

463 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.8%

123 of 187

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 172 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

896

99.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

4

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

167

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 The Highcrest Academy 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 The Highcrest Academy reported 4 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.6% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The Highcrest Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 840 places 792 on roll 2012/13 840 places 821 on roll 2013/14 840 places 803 on roll 2014/15 891 places 844 on roll 2015/16 891 places 856 on roll 2016/17 921 places 881 on roll 2017/18 918 places 876 on roll 2018/19 1,069 places 960 on roll 2020/21 1,069 places 1,011 on roll 2021/22 1,069 places 1,029 on roll 2022/23 1,069 places 1,058 on roll 2023/24 1,069 places 1,066 on roll 2024/25 1,067 places 1,064 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
Buckinghamshire

Postcode HP13 7NQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136858).

Other contested secondary schools in Buckinghamshire

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.