School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Harris City Academy Crystal Palace?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 65 families who named Harris City Academy Crystal Palace as their first choice did not get a place: 177 put it first and 112 of them were offered one.

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

65

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

177 first preferences for 210 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Harris City Academy Crystal Palace

There is no published appeal success rate for Harris City Academy Crystal Palace, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Croydon 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 Croydon, 8.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 13 of 160 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 Croydon.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Croydon 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

Harris City Academy Crystal Palace turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 10 of those years. In the other 2 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 Harris City Academy Crystal Palace, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.9 1.8 2.6 3.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.93 per place 501 first choices 171 places 2016/17 3.04 per place 542 first choices 178 places 2017/18 2.51 per place 437 first choices 174 places 2018/19 2.41 per place 424 first choices 176 places 2019/20 2.1 per place 378 first choices 180 places 2020/21 1.74 per place 313 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.79 per place 323 first choices 180 places 2022/23 1.37 per place 248 first choices 181 places 2023/24 1.49 per place 269 first choices 180 places 2024/25 1.44 per place 258 first choices 179 places 2025/26 1 per place 205 first choices 205 places 2026/27 0.84 per place 177 first choices 210 places
First preferences per place at Harris City Academy Crystal Palace. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 177 first preferences for 210 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Harris City Academy Crystal Palace, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 171 501 125 2.93
2016/17 178 542 134 3.04
2017/18 174 437 129 2.51
2018/19 176 424 112 2.41
2019/20 180 378 112 2.1
2020/21 180 313 101 1.74
2021/22 180 323 107 1.79
2022/23 181 248 100 1.37
2023/24 180 269 99 1.49
2024/25 179 258 114 1.44
2025/26 205 205 137 1
2026/27 210 177 112 0.84

Places offered

210

in 2026/27

Named first choice

177

938 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

63.3%

112 of 177

Offers to families outside the council

36%

76 of 210 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

1,005

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

863

85.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

142

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

295

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 Harris City Academy Crystal Palace 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 Harris City Academy Crystal Palace reported 142 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 85.9% 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 Harris City Academy Crystal Palace 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 1,230 places 1,212 on roll 2010/11 1,230 places 1,247 on roll 2011/12 1,255 places 1,303 on roll 2012/13 1,200 places 1,306 on roll 2013/14 1,195 places 1,232 on roll 2014/15 1,195 places 1,223 on roll 2015/16 1,195 places 1,238 on roll 2016/17 1,195 places 1,218 on roll 2017/18 1,195 places 1,231 on roll 2018/19 1,195 places 1,270 on roll 2020/21 1,195 places 1,286 on roll 2021/22 1,195 places 1,282 on roll 2022/23 1,195 places 1,280 on roll 2023/24 1,195 places 1,245 on roll 2024/25 1,300 places 1,160 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Croydon

Postcode SE19 2JH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135311).

Other contested secondary schools in Croydon

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.