School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ealing Fields Church of England High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 92 families who named Ealing Fields Church of England High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 169 and 243 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Ealing actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 10 years of official figures.

1.44

first choices for every place available

243 first preferences for 169 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ealing Fields Church of England High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Ealing Fields 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

Ealing Fields Church of England High School turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 10 years. More families named it first than it had places in 8 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 Ealing Fields Church of England High School, 2017/18 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 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2017/18 0.47 per place 57 first choices 120 places 2018/19 0.86 per place 103 first choices 120 places 2019/20 1.18 per place 141 first choices 120 places 2020/21 1.21 per place 181 first choices 150 places 2021/22 1.44 per place 214 first choices 149 places 2022/23 1.4 per place 215 first choices 154 places 2023/24 1.52 per place 225 first choices 148 places 2024/25 1.39 per place 211 first choices 152 places 2025/26 1.42 per place 213 first choices 150 places 2026/27 1.44 per place 243 first choices 169 places
First preferences per place at Ealing Fields Church of England High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 243 first preferences for 169 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ealing Fields 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
2017/18 120 57 56 0.47
2018/19 120 103 59 0.86
2019/20 120 141 80 1.18
2020/21 150 181 125 1.21
2021/22 149 214 124 1.44
2022/23 154 215 134 1.4
2023/24 148 225 127 1.52
2024/25 152 211 119 1.39
2025/26 150 213 124 1.42
2026/27 169 243 151 1.44

Places offered

169

in 2026/27

Named first choice

243

1,173 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

62.1%

151 of 243

Offers to families outside the council

29%

49 of 168 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

990

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

761

76.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

229

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 Ealing Fields 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 Ealing Fields Church of England High School reported 229 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 76.9% 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, 2016/17 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ealing Fields Church of England High School from 2016/17 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 16/17 17/18 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2016/17 840 places 119 on roll 2017/18 840 places 237 on roll 2018/19 840 places 363 on roll 2020/21 990 places 641 on roll 2021/22 990 places 665 on roll 2022/23 990 places 703 on roll 2023/24 990 places 736 on roll 2024/25 990 places 761 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 4EJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142654).

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.