School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Peacehaven Community School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 7 families who named Peacehaven Community School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 176 and 176 put it first.

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

1

first choices for every place available

176 first preferences for 176 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Peacehaven Community School

There is no published appeal success rate for Peacehaven Community 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 East Sussex 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 East Sussex, 24.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 153 of 632 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 East Sussex.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not East Sussex 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

Peacehaven Community School turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Peacehaven Community 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 1.04 per place 176 first choices 170 places 2016/17 0.95 per place 149 first choices 157 places 2017/18 0.87 per place 123 first choices 142 places 2018/19 0.93 per place 131 first choices 141 places 2019/20 0.77 per place 129 first choices 168 places 2020/21 1.08 per place 189 first choices 175 places 2021/22 1.03 per place 177 first choices 172 places 2022/23 1.08 per place 185 first choices 172 places 2023/24 1.28 per place 223 first choices 174 places 2024/25 1.27 per place 218 first choices 171 places 2025/26 1.32 per place 229 first choices 173 places 2026/27 1 per place 176 first choices 176 places
First preferences per place at Peacehaven Community School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 176 first preferences for 176 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Peacehaven Community School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 170 176 164 1.04
2016/17 157 149 149 0.95
2017/18 142 123 123 0.87
2018/19 141 131 131 0.93
2019/20 168 129 129 0.77
2020/21 175 189 168 1.08
2021/22 172 177 163 1.03
2022/23 172 185 165 1.08
2023/24 174 223 170 1.28
2024/25 171 218 165 1.27
2025/26 173 229 170 1.32
2026/27 176 176 169 1

Places offered

176

in 2026/27

Named first choice

176

326 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

96%

169 of 176

Offers to families outside the council

5%

8 of 176 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 131601.

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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

897

99.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

3

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 Peacehaven Community 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 Peacehaven Community School reported 3 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.7% 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 Peacehaven Community School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 780 places 826 on roll 2010/11 900 places 849 on roll 2011/12 900 places 878 on roll 2012/13 900 places 887 on roll 2013/14 900 places 879 on roll 2014/15 900 places 892 on roll 2015/16 900 places 875 on roll 2016/17 900 places 847 on roll 2017/18 900 places 858 on roll 2018/19 900 places 851 on roll 2020/21 900 places 863 on roll 2021/22 900 places 874 on roll 2022/23 900 places 888 on roll 2023/24 900 places 913 on roll 2024/25 900 places 897 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
East Sussex

Postcode BN10 8RB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144661).

Other contested secondary schools in East Sussex

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.