School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Epping St John's Church of England School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 35 families who named Epping St John's Church of England School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 175 and 194 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Essex actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 9 years of official figures.

1.11

first choices for every place available

194 first preferences for 175 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Epping St John's Church of England School

There is no published appeal success rate for Epping St John's Church of England 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

Epping St John's Church of England School turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 9 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 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 Epping St John's Church of England School, 2018/19 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 18/19 20/21 22/23 24/25 26/27 2018/19 1.04 per place 186 first choices 178 places 2019/20 0.86 per place 154 first choices 179 places 2020/21 0.82 per place 146 first choices 178 places 2021/22 0.79 per place 137 first choices 174 places 2022/23 0.82 per place 143 first choices 175 places 2023/24 1.07 per place 192 first choices 179 places 2024/25 1.04 per place 191 first choices 184 places 2025/26 1.02 per place 189 first choices 185 places 2026/27 1.11 per place 194 first choices 175 places
First preferences per place at Epping St John's Church of England School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 194 first preferences for 175 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Epping St John's Church of England School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2018/19 178 186 161 1.04
2019/20 179 154 134 0.86
2020/21 178 146 146 0.82
2021/22 174 137 137 0.79
2022/23 175 143 143 0.82
2023/24 179 192 162 1.07
2024/25 184 191 163 1.04
2025/26 185 189 176 1.02
2026/27 175 194 159 1.11

Places offered

175

in 2026/27

Named first choice

194

407 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

82%

159 of 194

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 175 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

852

94.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

48

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

120

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 Epping St John's Church of England 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 Epping St John's Church of England School reported 48 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.7% 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, 2017/18 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Epping St John's Church of England School from 2017/18 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 17/18 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2017/18 1,020 places 855 on roll 2018/19 1,020 places 915 on roll 2020/21 1,020 places 977 on roll 2021/22 1,020 places 1,003 on roll 2022/23 1,020 places 1,023 on roll 2023/24 1,020 places 1,048 on roll 2024/25 1,020 places 1,020 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Essex

Postcode CM16 5JB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145050).

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.