School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ark Greenwich Free School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 262 families who named Ark Greenwich Free School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 115 and 357 put it first.

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

3.10

first choices for every place available

357 first preferences for 115 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ark Greenwich Free School

There is no published appeal success rate for Ark Greenwich Free 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 Greenwich 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 Greenwich, 6.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 39 of 617 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 Greenwich.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Greenwich 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

Ark Greenwich Free School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 9 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 Ark Greenwich Free School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.9 1.8 2.6 3.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 0.98 per place 95 first choices 97 places 2016/17 0.68 per place 80 first choices 118 places 2017/18 0.85 per place 101 first choices 119 places 2018/19 1.17 per place 137 first choices 117 places 2019/20 1.05 per place 124 first choices 118 places 2020/21 1.12 per place 130 first choices 116 places 2021/22 1.2 per place 139 first choices 116 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 138 first choices 118 places 2023/24 1.37 per place 157 first choices 115 places 2024/25 2.07 per place 254 first choices 123 places 2025/26 2.59 per place 293 first choices 113 places 2026/27 3.1 per place 357 first choices 115 places
First preferences per place at Ark Greenwich Free School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 357 first preferences for 115 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ark Greenwich Free 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 97 95 64 0.98
2016/17 118 80 59 0.68
2017/18 119 101 75 0.85
2018/19 117 137 80 1.17
2019/20 118 124 78 1.05
2020/21 116 130 82 1.12
2021/22 116 139 66 1.2
2022/23 118 138 77 1.17
2023/24 115 157 79 1.37
2024/25 123 254 91 2.07
2025/26 113 293 90 2.59
2026/27 115 357 95 3.1

Places offered

115

in 2026/27

Named first choice

357

1,188 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

26.6%

95 of 357

Offers to families outside the council

3%

3 of 115 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

700

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

600

85.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

100

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 Ark Greenwich Free 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 Ark Greenwich Free School reported 100 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 85.7% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ark Greenwich Free School from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 350 700 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 500 places 99 on roll 2013/14 700 places 196 on roll 2014/15 700 places 293 on roll 2015/16 700 places 395 on roll 2016/17 700 places 493 on roll 2017/18 700 places 523 on roll 2018/19 700 places 552 on roll 2020/21 700 places 600 on roll 2021/22 700 places 600 on roll 2022/23 700 places 602 on roll 2023/24 700 places 598 on roll 2024/25 700 places 600 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Greenwich

Postcode SE18 4LH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138245).

Other contested secondary schools in Greenwich

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.