School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at De La Salle School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 87 families who named De La Salle School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 147 and 215 put it first.

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

1.46

first choices for every place available

215 first preferences for 147 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at De La Salle School

There is no published appeal success rate for De La Salle 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

De La Salle School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 8 of those years. In the other 2 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 De La Salle 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 1.07 per place 152 first choices 142 places 2016/17 0.96 per place 134 first choices 139 places 2017/18 0.93 per place 135 first choices 145 places 2018/19 0.87 per place 126 first choices 145 places 2019/20 0.93 per place 137 first choices 148 places 2020/21 1.02 per place 151 first choices 148 places 2021/22 1.09 per place 164 first choices 150 places 2022/23 1.13 per place 170 first choices 150 places 2023/24 1.56 per place 218 first choices 140 places 2024/25 1.72 per place 257 first choices 149 places 2025/26 1.74 per place 245 first choices 141 places 2026/27 1.46 per place 215 first choices 147 places
First preferences per place at De La Salle School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 215 first preferences for 147 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at De La Salle School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 142 152 132 1.07
2016/17 139 134 124 0.96
2017/18 145 135 115 0.93
2018/19 145 126 115 0.87
2019/20 148 137 117 0.93
2020/21 148 151 119 1.02
2021/22 150 164 130 1.09
2022/23 150 170 137 1.13
2023/24 140 218 118 1.56
2024/25 149 257 142 1.72
2025/26 141 245 129 1.74
2026/27 147 215 128 1.46

Places offered

147

in 2026/27

Named first choice

215

763 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

59.5%

128 of 215

Offers to families outside the council

2%

3 of 147 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

761

101.5% of capacity

Over its capacity by

11

reported as full or beyond

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 De La Salle 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 De La Salle 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at De La Salle School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 750 places 747 on roll 2010/11 750 places 746 on roll 2011/12 750 places 752 on roll 2012/13 750 places 752 on roll 2013/14 750 places 748 on roll 2014/15 750 places 734 on roll 2015/16 750 places 737 on roll 2016/17 750 places 734 on roll 2017/18 750 places 734 on roll 2018/19 750 places 738 on roll 2020/21 750 places 747 on roll 2021/22 750 places 753 on roll 2022/23 750 places 760 on roll 2023/24 750 places 756 on roll 2024/25 750 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Essex

Postcode SS14 2LA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 115237).

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.