School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Riddlesdown Collegiate?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 193 families who named Riddlesdown Collegiate as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 299 and 480 put it first.

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

1.61

first choices for every place available

480 first preferences for 299 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Riddlesdown Collegiate

There is no published appeal success rate for Riddlesdown Collegiate, 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

Riddlesdown Collegiate turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 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 Riddlesdown Collegiate, 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 0.98 per place 309 first choices 315 places 2016/17 1.1 per place 356 first choices 325 places 2017/18 1.4 per place 448 first choices 320 places 2018/19 1.49 per place 483 first choices 325 places 2019/20 1.58 per place 497 first choices 314 places 2020/21 1.42 per place 456 first choices 321 places 2021/22 1.45 per place 461 first choices 319 places 2022/23 1.4 per place 444 first choices 317 places 2023/24 1.51 per place 477 first choices 316 places 2024/25 1.5 per place 468 first choices 312 places 2025/26 1.55 per place 484 first choices 312 places 2026/27 1.61 per place 480 first choices 299 places
First preferences per place at Riddlesdown Collegiate. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 480 first preferences for 299 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Riddlesdown Collegiate, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 315 309 264 0.98
2016/17 325 356 281 1.1
2017/18 320 448 291 1.4
2018/19 325 483 295 1.49
2019/20 314 497 288 1.58
2020/21 321 456 301 1.42
2021/22 319 461 273 1.45
2022/23 317 444 286 1.4
2023/24 316 477 299 1.51
2024/25 312 468 299 1.5
2025/26 312 484 302 1.55
2026/27 299 480 287 1.61

Places offered

299

in 2026/27

Named first choice

480

1,321 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

59.8%

287 of 480

Offers to families outside the council

4%

13 of 299 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

1,542

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,629

105.6% of capacity

Over its capacity by

87

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

400

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 Riddlesdown Collegiate 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 Riddlesdown Collegiate was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Riddlesdown Collegiate from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,050 2,100 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,952 places 1,884 on roll 2013/14 1,952 places 1,877 on roll 2014/15 2,014 places 1,890 on roll 2015/16 2,014 places 1,924 on roll 2016/17 2,014 places 1,924 on roll 2017/18 2,040 places 1,891 on roll 2018/19 2,040 places 1,897 on roll 2020/21 2,040 places 1,990 on roll 2021/22 2,040 places 2,052 on roll 2022/23 2,040 places 2,057 on roll 2023/24 2,040 places 2,052 on roll 2024/25 1,942 places 2,068 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
Croydon

Postcode CR8 1EX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138178).

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.