School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Becket Keys Church of England Free School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 108 families who named Becket Keys Church of England Free School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 176 and 274 put it first.

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

1.56

first choices for every place available

274 first preferences for 176 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Becket Keys Church of England Free School

There is no published appeal success rate for Becket Keys Church of England Free 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 Essex 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 Essex, 15.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 249 of 1,651 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 Essex.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Essex 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

Becket Keys Church of England Free 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 Becket Keys Church of England Free 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 1.48 per place 215 first choices 145 places 2016/17 1.26 per place 185 first choices 147 places 2017/18 1.15 per place 202 first choices 175 places 2018/19 1.2 per place 206 first choices 172 places 2019/20 1.55 per place 230 first choices 148 places 2020/21 1.51 per place 256 first choices 169 places 2021/22 1.66 per place 247 first choices 149 places 2022/23 1.36 per place 240 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.64 per place 291 first choices 177 places 2024/25 1.51 per place 269 first choices 178 places 2025/26 1.4 per place 247 first choices 176 places 2026/27 1.56 per place 274 first choices 176 places
First preferences per place at Becket Keys Church of England Free School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 274 first preferences for 176 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Becket Keys Church of England Free School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 145 215 126 1.48
2016/17 147 185 137 1.26
2017/18 175 202 170 1.15
2018/19 172 206 161 1.2
2019/20 148 230 140 1.55
2020/21 169 256 152 1.51
2021/22 149 247 139 1.66
2022/23 177 240 167 1.36
2023/24 177 291 166 1.64
2024/25 178 269 166 1.51
2025/26 176 247 162 1.4
2026/27 176 274 166 1.56

Places offered

176

in 2026/27

Named first choice

274

763 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

60.6%

166 of 274

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 176 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

860

114.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

110

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

300

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 Becket Keys Church of England Free 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 Becket Keys Church of England Free 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Becket Keys Church of England Free School from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,050 places 126 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 284 on roll 2014/15 1,050 places 445 on roll 2015/16 1,050 places 596 on roll 2016/17 1,050 places 740 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 864 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 941 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 1,061 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 1,040 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,047 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,103 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,135 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
Essex

Postcode CM15 9DA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138239).

Other contested secondary schools in Essex

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.