School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 64 families who named St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 116 and 164 put it first.

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

1.41

first choices for every place available

164 first preferences for 116 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive 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

St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School, 2015/16 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 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.53 per place 182 first choices 119 places 2016/17 1.8 per place 219 first choices 122 places 2017/18 1.73 per place 202 first choices 117 places 2018/19 2.1 per place 258 first choices 123 places 2019/20 2.07 per place 254 first choices 123 places 2020/21 1.86 per place 223 first choices 120 places 2021/22 1.81 per place 221 first choices 122 places 2022/23 2.06 per place 247 first choices 120 places 2023/24 1.61 per place 184 first choices 114 places 2024/25 1.29 per place 147 first choices 114 places 2025/26 1.64 per place 187 first choices 114 places 2026/27 1.41 per place 164 first choices 116 places
First preferences per place at St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 164 first preferences for 116 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 119 182 116 1.53
2016/17 122 219 117 1.8
2017/18 117 202 107 1.73
2018/19 123 258 115 2.1
2019/20 123 254 115 2.07
2020/21 120 223 109 1.86
2021/22 122 221 106 1.81
2022/23 120 247 118 2.06
2023/24 114 184 106 1.61
2024/25 114 147 99 1.29
2025/26 114 187 108 1.64
2026/27 116 164 100 1.41

Places offered

116

in 2026/27

Named first choice

164

544 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

61%

100 of 164

Offers to families outside the council

24%

28 of 116 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 100196.

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

708

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

641

90.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

67

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 St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive 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 St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School reported 67 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 90.5% 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 St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 613 places 613 on roll 2010/11 613 places 623 on roll 2011/12 613 places 619 on roll 2012/13 613 places 621 on roll 2013/14 613 places 617 on roll 2014/15 613 places 629 on roll 2015/16 613 places 610 on roll 2016/17 613 places 615 on roll 2017/18 613 places 622 on roll 2018/19 613 places 626 on roll 2020/21 613 places 639 on roll 2021/22 613 places 637 on roll 2022/23 613 places 639 on roll 2023/24 613 places 633 on roll 2024/25 708 places 641 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Greenwich

Postcode SE9 2SU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141716).

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.