School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Clapton Girls' Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 104 families who named Clapton Girls' Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 258 put it first.

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

1.51

first choices for every place available

258 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Clapton Girls' Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Clapton Girls' Academy, 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

Clapton Girls' Academy turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 10 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 Clapton Girls' Academy, 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 1.12 per place 194 first choices 173 places 2016/17 0.81 per place 174 first choices 214 places 2017/18 0.92 per place 170 first choices 184 places 2018/19 1.12 per place 206 first choices 184 places 2019/20 1.29 per place 238 first choices 184 places 2020/21 1.19 per place 216 first choices 182 places 2021/22 1.22 per place 217 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.02 per place 183 first choices 179 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 198 first choices 174 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 223 first choices 177 places 2025/26 1.19 per place 207 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.51 per place 258 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at Clapton Girls' Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 258 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Clapton Girls' Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 173 194 125 1.12
2016/17 214 174 161 0.81
2017/18 184 170 126 0.92
2018/19 184 206 137 1.12
2019/20 184 238 135 1.29
2020/21 182 216 140 1.19
2021/22 178 217 136 1.22
2022/23 179 183 126 1.02
2023/24 174 198 141 1.14
2024/25 177 223 147 1.26
2025/26 174 207 143 1.19
2026/27 171 258 154 1.51

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

258

559 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

59.7%

154 of 258

Offers to families outside the council

2%

3 of 171 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

840

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

896

106.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

56

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

285

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 Clapton Girls' Academy 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 Clapton Girls' Academy was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Clapton Girls' Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,185 places 1,026 on roll 2012/13 1,200 places 1,065 on roll 2013/14 1,185 places 1,117 on roll 2014/15 1,185 places 1,125 on roll 2015/16 1,185 places 1,104 on roll 2016/17 1,185 places 1,142 on roll 2017/18 1,185 places 1,165 on roll 2018/19 1,185 places 1,176 on roll 2020/21 1,185 places 1,208 on roll 2021/22 1,185 places 1,190 on roll 2022/23 1,185 places 1,169 on roll 2023/24 1,185 places 1,192 on roll 2024/25 1,125 places 1,194 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Hackney

Postcode E5 0RB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137442).

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.