School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The James Hornsby School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 73 families who named The James Hornsby School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 202 and 259 put it first.

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

1.28

first choices for every place available

259 first preferences for 202 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The James Hornsby School

There is no published appeal success rate for The James Hornsby 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

The James Hornsby School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 of those years. In the other 3 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 The James Hornsby 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 0.63 per place 107 first choices 170 places 2016/17 0.78 per place 129 first choices 165 places 2017/18 0.99 per place 178 first choices 180 places 2018/19 1.1 per place 195 first choices 177 places 2019/20 1.23 per place 212 first choices 173 places 2020/21 1 per place 205 first choices 205 places 2021/22 0.94 per place 197 first choices 209 places 2022/23 1.12 per place 230 first choices 205 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 245 first choices 207 places 2024/25 1.28 per place 269 first choices 210 places 2025/26 1.2 per place 245 first choices 205 places 2026/27 1.28 per place 259 first choices 202 places
First preferences per place at The James Hornsby School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 259 first preferences for 202 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The James Hornsby School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 170 107 107 0.63
2016/17 165 129 129 0.78
2017/18 180 178 151 0.99
2018/19 177 195 165 1.1
2019/20 173 212 154 1.23
2020/21 205 205 178 1
2021/22 209 197 174 0.94
2022/23 205 230 191 1.12
2023/24 207 245 181 1.18
2024/25 210 269 189 1.28
2025/26 205 245 188 1.2
2026/27 202 259 186 1.28

Places offered

202

in 2026/27

Named first choice

259

804 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

71.8%

186 of 259

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 202 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,033

98.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

17

across Years 7 to 11

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 The James Hornsby 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 The James Hornsby School reported 17 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.4% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The James Hornsby School from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 900 places 757 on roll 2013/14 900 places 746 on roll 2014/15 900 places 767 on roll 2015/16 900 places 779 on roll 2016/17 900 places 817 on roll 2017/18 900 places 854 on roll 2018/19 900 places 877 on roll 2020/21 900 places 910 on roll 2021/22 900 places 942 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 972 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 999 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,033 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Essex

Postcode SS15 5NX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138865).

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.