School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at William Perkin Church of England High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 186 families who named William Perkin Church of England High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 199 and 375 put it first.

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

1.88

first choices for every place available

375 first preferences for 199 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at William Perkin Church of England High School

There is no published appeal success rate for William Perkin 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

William Perkin Church of England High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 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 William Perkin Church of England High School, 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 1.62 per place 310 first choices 191 places 2016/17 1.8 per place 340 first choices 189 places 2017/18 1.76 per place 352 first choices 200 places 2018/19 1.94 per place 376 first choices 194 places 2019/20 1.65 per place 327 first choices 198 places 2020/21 1.82 per place 361 first choices 198 places 2021/22 1.82 per place 360 first choices 198 places 2022/23 1.51 per place 302 first choices 200 places 2023/24 1.54 per place 308 first choices 200 places 2024/25 1.75 per place 349 first choices 200 places 2025/26 1.75 per place 350 first choices 200 places 2026/27 1.88 per place 375 first choices 199 places
First preferences per place at William Perkin Church of England High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 375 first preferences for 199 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at William Perkin 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
2015/16 191 310 169 1.62
2016/17 189 340 169 1.8
2017/18 200 352 178 1.76
2018/19 194 376 176 1.94
2019/20 198 327 177 1.65
2020/21 198 361 167 1.82
2021/22 198 360 176 1.82
2022/23 200 302 181 1.51
2023/24 200 308 177 1.54
2024/25 200 349 179 1.75
2025/26 200 350 189 1.75
2026/27 199 375 189 1.88

Places offered

199

in 2026/27

Named first choice

375

1,074 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

50.4%

189 of 375

Offers to families outside the council

3%

5 of 199 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

1,170

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,029

87.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

141

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

250

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 William Perkin 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 William Perkin Church of England High School reported 141 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87.9% 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at William Perkin Church of England High School from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 1,450 places 183 on roll 2014/15 1,450 places 381 on roll 2015/16 1,450 places 577 on roll 2016/17 1,450 places 782 on roll 2017/18 1,420 places 984 on roll 2018/19 1,420 places 1,135 on roll 2020/21 1,420 places 1,342 on roll 2021/22 1,420 places 1,356 on roll 2022/23 1,420 places 1,372 on roll 2023/24 1,420 places 1,377 on roll 2024/25 1,420 places 1,388 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 UB6 8PR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 139725).

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.