School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Debden Park High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 25 families who named Debden Park High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 179 and 184 put it first.

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

1.03

first choices for every place available

184 first preferences for 179 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Debden Park High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Debden Park 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 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

Debden Park High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 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 Debden Park 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 0.99 per place 178 first choices 179 places 2016/17 1.24 per place 216 first choices 174 places 2017/18 1.05 per place 181 first choices 172 places 2018/19 1.41 per place 247 first choices 175 places 2019/20 1.62 per place 278 first choices 172 places 2020/21 1.22 per place 213 first choices 175 places 2021/22 1.34 per place 238 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.13 per place 203 first choices 179 places 2023/24 1.01 per place 176 first choices 174 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 225 first choices 178 places 2025/26 1.02 per place 183 first choices 180 places 2026/27 1.03 per place 184 first choices 179 places
First preferences per place at Debden Park High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 184 first preferences for 179 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Debden Park 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
2015/16 179 178 156 0.99
2016/17 174 216 154 1.24
2017/18 172 181 149 1.05
2018/19 175 247 163 1.41
2019/20 172 278 159 1.62
2020/21 175 213 162 1.22
2021/22 178 238 169 1.34
2022/23 179 203 166 1.13
2023/24 174 176 155 1.01
2024/25 178 225 170 1.26
2025/26 180 183 163 1.02
2026/27 179 184 159 1.03

Places offered

179

in 2026/27

Named first choice

184

584 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.4%

159 of 184

Offers to families outside the council

2%

3 of 179 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

880

97.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

20

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

187

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 Debden Park 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 Debden Park High School reported 20 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.8% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Debden Park High School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 900 places 817 on roll 2011/12 900 places 833 on roll 2012/13 900 places 880 on roll 2013/14 900 places 874 on roll 2014/15 900 places 876 on roll 2015/16 900 places 928 on roll 2016/17 900 places 970 on roll 2017/18 1,100 places 1,015 on roll 2018/19 1,100 places 1,030 on roll 2020/21 1,100 places 1,067 on roll 2021/22 1,100 places 1,036 on roll 2022/23 1,120 places 1,046 on roll 2023/24 1,120 places 1,061 on roll 2024/25 1,087 places 1,051 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
Essex

Postcode IG10 2BQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136555).

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.