School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Thomas Tallis School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 146 families who named Thomas Tallis School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 249 and 344 put it first.

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

1.38

first choices for every place available

344 first preferences for 249 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Thomas Tallis School

There is no published appeal success rate for Thomas Tallis 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

Thomas Tallis 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 Thomas Tallis 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 1.04 per place 298 first choices 286 places 2016/17 1.23 per place 307 first choices 250 places 2017/18 1.3 per place 334 first choices 257 places 2018/19 1.4 per place 368 first choices 262 places 2019/20 1.3 per place 328 first choices 253 places 2020/21 1.31 per place 326 first choices 248 places 2021/22 1.18 per place 297 first choices 251 places 2022/23 1.3 per place 335 first choices 257 places 2023/24 1.59 per place 384 first choices 242 places 2024/25 1.33 per place 331 first choices 249 places 2025/26 1.22 per place 305 first choices 250 places 2026/27 1.38 per place 344 first choices 249 places
First preferences per place at Thomas Tallis School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 344 first preferences for 249 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Thomas Tallis School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 286 298 228 1.04
2016/17 250 307 187 1.23
2017/18 257 334 204 1.3
2018/19 262 368 205 1.4
2019/20 253 328 202 1.3
2020/21 248 326 204 1.31
2021/22 251 297 188 1.18
2022/23 257 335 198 1.3
2023/24 242 384 205 1.59
2024/25 249 331 198 1.33
2025/26 250 305 184 1.22
2026/27 249 344 198 1.38

Places offered

249

in 2026/27

Named first choice

344

1,198 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

57.6%

198 of 344

Offers to families outside the council

19%

48 of 249 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

1,350

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,331

98.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

19

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

558

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 Thomas Tallis 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 Thomas Tallis School reported 19 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.6% 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 Thomas Tallis School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,050 2,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,509 places 1,618 on roll 2010/11 1,509 places 1,605 on roll 2011/12 1,650 places 1,622 on roll 2012/13 1,650 places 1,644 on roll 2013/14 1,950 places 1,667 on roll 2014/15 1,950 places 1,742 on roll 2015/16 1,950 places 1,788 on roll 2016/17 1,950 places 1,832 on roll 2017/18 1,908 places 1,872 on roll 2018/19 1,908 places 1,882 on roll 2020/21 1,908 places 2,009 on roll 2021/22 1,908 places 2,062 on roll 2022/23 1,908 places 2,088 on roll 2023/24 1,908 places 2,064 on roll 2024/25 1,908 places 2,049 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Greenwich

Postcode SE3 9PX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100190).

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.