School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Leigh Academy Blackheath?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 200 families who named Leigh Academy Blackheath as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 170 and 333 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Greenwich actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 8 years of official figures.

1.96

first choices for every place available

333 first preferences for 170 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Leigh Academy Blackheath

There is no published appeal success rate for Leigh Academy Blackheath, 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

Leigh Academy Blackheath turned first-choice families away in every one of the 8 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 7 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 Leigh Academy Blackheath, 2019/20 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2019/20 0.84 per place 149 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.53 per place 274 first choices 179 places 2021/22 1.44 per place 253 first choices 176 places 2022/23 1.69 per place 299 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.94 per place 336 first choices 173 places 2024/25 2.26 per place 389 first choices 172 places 2025/26 2.13 per place 362 first choices 170 places 2026/27 1.96 per place 333 first choices 170 places
First preferences per place at Leigh Academy Blackheath. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 333 first preferences for 170 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Leigh Academy Blackheath, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2019/20 178 149 100 0.84
2020/21 179 274 138 1.53
2021/22 176 253 124 1.44
2022/23 177 299 140 1.69
2023/24 173 336 148 1.94
2024/25 172 389 145 2.26
2025/26 170 362 138 2.13
2026/27 170 333 133 1.96

Places offered

170

in 2026/27

Named first choice

333

1,214 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

39.9%

133 of 333

Offers to families outside the council

6%

10 of 170 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

893

99.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

7

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

250

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 Leigh Academy Blackheath 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 Leigh Academy Blackheath reported 7 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.2% 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, 2018/19 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Leigh Academy Blackheath from 2018/19 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2018/19 1,150 places 180 on roll 2020/21 1,150 places 541 on roll 2021/22 1,150 places 719 on roll 2022/23 1,150 places 895 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 950 on roll 2024/25 1,150 places 1,030 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 SE3 8SY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145895).

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.