School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ada Lovelace Church of England High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 145 families who named Ada Lovelace Church of England High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 199 and 305 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Ealing actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 8 years of official figures.

1.53

first choices for every place available

305 first preferences for 199 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ada Lovelace Church of England High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Ada Lovelace Church of England High 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 Ealing 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 Ealing, 18.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 110 of 587 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 Ealing.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Ealing 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

Ada Lovelace Church of England High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 8 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Ada Lovelace Church of England High School, 2019/20 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 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2019/20 1.46 per place 182 first choices 125 places 2020/21 1.43 per place 286 first choices 200 places 2021/22 1.58 per place 317 first choices 201 places 2022/23 1.75 per place 348 first choices 199 places 2023/24 1.69 per place 334 first choices 198 places 2024/25 1.42 per place 283 first choices 199 places 2025/26 1.48 per place 301 first choices 204 places 2026/27 1.53 per place 305 first choices 199 places
First preferences per place at Ada Lovelace Church of England High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 305 first preferences for 199 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ada Lovelace Church of England High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2019/20 125 182 92 1.46
2020/21 200 286 153 1.43
2021/22 201 317 170 1.58
2022/23 199 348 170 1.75
2023/24 198 334 174 1.69
2024/25 199 283 166 1.42
2025/26 204 301 169 1.48
2026/27 199 305 160 1.53

Places offered

199

in 2026/27

Named first choice

305

1,189 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

52.5%

160 of 305

Offers to families outside the council

3%

5 of 194 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

980

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,010

103.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

30

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

350

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 Ada Lovelace Church of England High 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 Ada Lovelace Church of England High School 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, 2018/19 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ada Lovelace Church of England High School from 2018/19 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2018/19 1,330 places 126 on roll 2020/21 1,330 places 462 on roll 2021/22 1,330 places 657 on roll 2022/23 1,330 places 850 on roll 2023/24 1,330 places 957 on roll 2024/25 1,330 places 1,047 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Ealing

Postcode W5 2JX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145724).

Other contested secondary schools in Ealing

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.