School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Parliament Hill School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 59 families who named Parliament Hill School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 179 and 183 put it first.

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

1.02

first choices for every place available

183 first preferences for 179 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Parliament Hill School

There is no published appeal success rate for Parliament Hill 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

Parliament Hill School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 7 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 Parliament Hill 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 0.93 per place 154 first choices 166 places 2016/17 0.73 per place 130 first choices 178 places 2017/18 0.76 per place 134 first choices 176 places 2018/19 0.74 per place 131 first choices 178 places 2019/20 0.97 per place 173 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.24 per place 220 first choices 178 places 2021/22 1.09 per place 190 first choices 174 places 2022/23 1.22 per place 217 first choices 178 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 206 first choices 180 places 2024/25 1.25 per place 218 first choices 174 places 2025/26 1.23 per place 217 first choices 176 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 183 first choices 179 places
First preferences per place at Parliament Hill School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 183 first preferences for 179 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Parliament Hill School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 166 154 117 0.93
2016/17 178 130 117 0.73
2017/18 176 134 101 0.76
2018/19 178 131 104 0.74
2019/20 178 173 119 0.97
2020/21 178 220 138 1.24
2021/22 174 190 122 1.09
2022/23 178 217 137 1.22
2023/24 180 206 146 1.14
2024/25 174 218 136 1.25
2025/26 176 217 133 1.23
2026/27 179 183 124 1.02

Places offered

179

in 2026/27

Named first choice

183

642 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

67.8%

124 of 183

Offers to families outside the council

36%

64 of 179 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

967

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

890

92% of capacity

Unfilled places

77

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

271

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 Parliament Hill 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 Parliament Hill School reported 77 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 92% 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 Parliament Hill School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,163 places 1,230 on roll 2010/11 1,265 places 1,229 on roll 2011/12 1,264 places 1,230 on roll 2012/13 1,267 places 1,236 on roll 2013/14 1,262 places 1,220 on roll 2014/15 1,262 places 1,159 on roll 2015/16 1,262 places 1,111 on roll 2016/17 1,260 places 1,096 on roll 2017/18 1,260 places 1,116 on roll 2018/19 1,260 places 1,163 on roll 2020/21 1,260 places 1,174 on roll 2021/22 1,260 places 1,209 on roll 2022/23 1,256 places 1,246 on roll 2023/24 1,380 places 1,217 on roll 2024/25 1,238 places 1,217 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 1RL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100050).

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.