School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Acland Burghley School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 61 families who named Acland Burghley School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 213 put it first.

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

1.25

first choices for every place available

213 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Acland Burghley School

There is no published appeal success rate for Acland Burghley 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 Camden 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 Camden, 16.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 13 of 78 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 Camden.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Camden 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

Acland Burghley School turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 8 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 Acland Burghley 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 0.59 per place 86 first choices 145 places 2016/17 0.82 per place 141 first choices 173 places 2017/18 0.73 per place 126 first choices 172 places 2018/19 0.98 per place 165 first choices 169 places 2019/20 1.31 per place 226 first choices 172 places 2020/21 1.2 per place 203 first choices 169 places 2021/22 1.51 per place 250 first choices 166 places 2022/23 1.36 per place 225 first choices 166 places 2023/24 1.19 per place 210 first choices 176 places 2024/25 1.02 per place 170 first choices 166 places 2025/26 1.25 per place 218 first choices 175 places 2026/27 1.25 per place 213 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at Acland Burghley School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 213 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Acland Burghley School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 145 86 86 0.59
2016/17 173 141 140 0.82
2017/18 172 126 122 0.73
2018/19 169 165 135 0.98
2019/20 172 226 151 1.31
2020/21 169 203 150 1.2
2021/22 166 250 150 1.51
2022/23 166 225 150 1.36
2023/24 176 210 155 1.19
2024/25 166 170 140 1.02
2025/26 175 218 156 1.25
2026/27 171 213 152 1.25

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

213

647 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

71.4%

152 of 213

Offers to families outside the council

47%

81 of 171 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

1,271

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

903

71% of capacity

Unfilled places

368

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

224

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 Acland Burghley 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 Acland Burghley School reported 368 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 71% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Acland Burghley School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,273 places 1,235 on roll 2010/11 1,273 places 1,245 on roll 2011/12 1,367 places 1,226 on roll 2012/13 1,367 places 1,224 on roll 2013/14 1,367 places 1,156 on roll 2014/15 1,367 places 1,044 on roll 2015/16 1,367 places 980 on roll 2016/17 1,367 places 966 on roll 2017/18 1,381 places 951 on roll 2018/19 1,381 places 1,008 on roll 2020/21 1,381 places 1,140 on roll 2021/22 1,381 places 1,152 on roll 2022/23 1,381 places 1,165 on roll 2023/24 1,381 places 1,162 on roll 2024/25 1,495 places 1,211 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Camden

Postcode NW5 1UJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100053).

Other contested secondary schools in Camden

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.