School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Moulsham High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 65 families who named Moulsham High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 265 and 299 put it first.

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

1.13

first choices for every place available

299 first preferences for 265 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Moulsham High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Moulsham 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

Moulsham High School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 of those years. In the other 4 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 Moulsham 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 0.95 per place 239 first choices 251 places 2016/17 0.82 per place 199 first choices 243 places 2017/18 0.99 per place 240 first choices 242 places 2018/19 0.98 per place 259 first choices 265 places 2019/20 1.24 per place 326 first choices 263 places 2020/21 1.03 per place 278 first choices 270 places 2021/22 0.92 per place 246 first choices 268 places 2022/23 1.12 per place 303 first choices 270 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 294 first choices 266 places 2024/25 0.95 per place 255 first choices 268 places 2025/26 1.08 per place 285 first choices 265 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 299 first choices 265 places
First preferences per place at Moulsham High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 299 first preferences for 265 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Moulsham 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
2015/16 251 239 224 0.95
2016/17 243 199 197 0.82
2017/18 242 240 205 0.99
2018/19 265 259 223 0.98
2019/20 263 326 241 1.24
2020/21 270 278 234 1.03
2021/22 268 246 217 0.92
2022/23 270 303 240 1.12
2023/24 266 294 222 1.11
2024/25 268 255 212 0.95
2025/26 265 285 225 1.08
2026/27 265 299 234 1.13

Places offered

265

in 2026/27

Named first choice

299

1,119 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.3%

234 of 299

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 265 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

1,378

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,341

97.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

37

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

353

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 Moulsham 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 Moulsham High School reported 37 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.3% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Moulsham High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,613 places 1,520 on roll 2012/13 1,613 places 1,471 on roll 2013/14 1,613 places 1,509 on roll 2014/15 1,613 places 1,497 on roll 2015/16 1,613 places 1,465 on roll 2016/17 1,613 places 1,462 on roll 2017/18 1,613 places 1,504 on roll 2018/19 1,613 places 1,532 on roll 2020/21 1,613 places 1,577 on roll 2021/22 1,613 places 1,572 on roll 2022/23 1,613 places 1,616 on roll 2023/24 1,731 places 1,661 on roll 2024/25 1,731 places 1,664 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 CM2 9ES. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136863).

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.