School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Woodlands School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 150 families who named Woodlands School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 287 and 399 put it first.

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

1.39

first choices for every place available

399 first preferences for 287 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Woodlands School

There is no published appeal success rate for Woodlands 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

Woodlands School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Woodlands 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 0.75 per place 207 first choices 275 places 2016/17 1.04 per place 299 first choices 288 places 2017/18 1.1 per place 350 first choices 317 places 2018/19 1.24 per place 388 first choices 314 places 2019/20 1.52 per place 488 first choices 320 places 2020/21 1.44 per place 455 first choices 317 places 2021/22 1.63 per place 480 first choices 295 places 2022/23 1.37 per place 407 first choices 298 places 2023/24 1.52 per place 446 first choices 293 places 2024/25 1.45 per place 431 first choices 298 places 2025/26 1.35 per place 389 first choices 289 places 2026/27 1.39 per place 399 first choices 287 places
First preferences per place at Woodlands School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 399 first preferences for 287 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Woodlands School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 275 207 207 0.75
2016/17 288 299 258 1.04
2017/18 317 350 297 1.1
2018/19 314 388 296 1.24
2019/20 320 488 292 1.52
2020/21 317 455 297 1.44
2021/22 295 480 272 1.63
2022/23 298 407 290 1.37
2023/24 293 446 264 1.52
2024/25 298 431 257 1.45
2025/26 289 389 249 1.35
2026/27 287 399 249 1.39

Places offered

287

in 2026/27

Named first choice

399

1,095 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

62.4%

249 of 399

Offers to families outside the council

3%

8 of 287 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 115228.

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

1,558

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,484

95.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

74

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 Woodlands 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 Woodlands School reported 74 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 95.3% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Woodlands School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,500 places 1,479 on roll 2010/11 1,500 places 1,494 on roll 2011/12 1,500 places 1,494 on roll 2012/13 1,500 places 1,483 on roll 2013/14 1,500 places 1,473 on roll 2014/15 1,500 places 1,446 on roll 2015/16 1,500 places 1,465 on roll 2016/17 1,500 places 1,455 on roll 2017/18 1,500 places 1,492 on roll 2018/19 1,500 places 1,530 on roll 2020/21 1,500 places 1,545 on roll 2021/22 1,500 places 1,508 on roll 2022/23 1,500 places 1,493 on roll 2023/24 1,500 places 1,497 on roll 2024/25 1,558 places 1,484 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 SS16 5BA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141214).

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.