School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 68 families who named City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 170 and 205 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Hackney actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 9 years of official figures.

1.21

first choices for every place available

205 first preferences for 170 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park

There is no published appeal success rate for City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Hackney 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 Hackney, 8% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 25 of 311 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 Hackney.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Hackney 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

City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 9 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park, 2018/19 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 18/19 20/21 22/23 24/25 26/27 2018/19 0.55 per place 103 first choices 188 places 2019/20 1.1 per place 108 first choices 98 places 2020/21 1.53 per place 144 first choices 94 places 2021/22 1.04 per place 181 first choices 174 places 2022/23 1.1 per place 207 first choices 189 places 2023/24 1.17 per place 202 first choices 172 places 2024/25 0.77 per place 134 first choices 175 places 2025/26 0.8 per place 135 first choices 169 places 2026/27 1.21 per place 205 first choices 170 places
First preferences per place at City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 205 first preferences for 170 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2018/19 188 103 96 0.55
2019/20 98 108 58 1.1
2020/21 94 144 73 1.53
2021/22 174 181 142 1.04
2022/23 189 207 150 1.1
2023/24 172 202 147 1.17
2024/25 175 134 130 0.77
2025/26 169 135 130 0.8
2026/27 170 205 137 1.21

Places offered

170

in 2026/27

Named first choice

205

714 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

66.8%

137 of 205

Offers to families outside the council

14%

24 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

1,062

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

800

75.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

262

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

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 City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park 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 City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park reported 262 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 75.3% 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, 2017/18 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at City of London Academy, Shoreditch Park from 2017/18 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 17/18 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2017/18 1,140 places 183 on roll 2018/19 1,140 places 363 on roll 2020/21 1,140 places 528 on roll 2021/22 1,140 places 691 on roll 2022/23 1,140 places 731 on roll 2023/24 1,140 places 788 on roll 2024/25 1,262 places 865 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
Hackney

Postcode N1 5JU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 143756).

Other contested secondary schools in Hackney

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.