School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Oasis Academy Coulsdon?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 33 families who named Oasis Academy Coulsdon as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 163 and 176 put it first.

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

1.08

first choices for every place available

176 first preferences for 163 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Oasis Academy Coulsdon

There is no published appeal success rate for Oasis Academy Coulsdon, 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

Oasis Academy Coulsdon turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 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 Oasis Academy Coulsdon, 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 0.73 per place 114 first choices 156 places 2016/17 0.77 per place 137 first choices 178 places 2017/18 0.84 per place 151 first choices 179 places 2018/19 1.03 per place 179 first choices 174 places 2019/20 0.97 per place 171 first choices 176 places 2020/21 1.02 per place 182 first choices 178 places 2021/22 0.81 per place 143 first choices 176 places 2022/23 1.02 per place 180 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.21 per place 206 first choices 170 places 2024/25 1.12 per place 192 first choices 172 places 2025/26 1.22 per place 207 first choices 170 places 2026/27 1.08 per place 176 first choices 163 places
First preferences per place at Oasis Academy Coulsdon. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 176 first preferences for 163 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Oasis Academy Coulsdon, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 156 114 114 0.73
2016/17 178 137 137 0.77
2017/18 179 151 142 0.84
2018/19 174 179 144 1.03
2019/20 176 171 132 0.97
2020/21 178 182 139 1.02
2021/22 176 143 130 0.81
2022/23 177 180 138 1.02
2023/24 170 206 147 1.21
2024/25 172 192 153 1.12
2025/26 170 207 159 1.22
2026/27 163 176 143 1.08

Places offered

163

in 2026/27

Named first choice

176

588 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.2%

143 of 176

Offers to families outside the council

20%

32 of 163 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

940

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

927

98.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

13

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Oasis Academy Coulsdon 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 Oasis Academy Coulsdon reported 13 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.6% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Oasis Academy Coulsdon from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,150 places 610 on roll 2010/11 1,200 places 557 on roll 2011/12 1,150 places 629 on roll 2012/13 1,150 places 648 on roll 2013/14 1,150 places 694 on roll 2014/15 1,150 places 663 on roll 2015/16 900 places 721 on roll 2016/17 900 places 749 on roll 2017/18 900 places 801 on roll 2018/19 900 places 844 on roll 2020/21 900 places 920 on roll 2021/22 900 places 930 on roll 2022/23 900 places 924 on roll 2023/24 900 places 920 on roll 2024/25 940 places 927 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 CR5 1ES. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135654).

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.