School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Mossbourne Community Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 183 families who named Mossbourne Community Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 204 and 358 put it first.

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

1.75

first choices for every place available

358 first preferences for 204 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Mossbourne Community Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Mossbourne Community 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

Mossbourne Community Academy 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 Mossbourne Community Academy, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.73 per place 508 first choices 186 places 2016/17 2.81 per place 517 first choices 184 places 2017/18 2.7 per place 565 first choices 209 places 2018/19 2.8 per place 579 first choices 207 places 2019/20 2.53 per place 519 first choices 205 places 2020/21 2.43 per place 486 first choices 200 places 2021/22 2.49 per place 500 first choices 201 places 2022/23 2.57 per place 545 first choices 212 places 2023/24 2.48 per place 504 first choices 203 places 2024/25 2.17 per place 443 first choices 204 places 2025/26 2.08 per place 425 first choices 204 places 2026/27 1.75 per place 358 first choices 204 places
First preferences per place at Mossbourne Community Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 358 first preferences for 204 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Mossbourne Community Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 186 508 161 2.73
2016/17 184 517 161 2.81
2017/18 209 565 179 2.7
2018/19 207 579 174 2.8
2019/20 205 519 178 2.53
2020/21 200 486 173 2.43
2021/22 201 500 161 2.49
2022/23 212 545 178 2.57
2023/24 203 504 177 2.48
2024/25 204 443 175 2.17
2025/26 204 425 184 2.08
2026/27 204 358 175 1.75

Places offered

204

in 2026/27

Named first choice

358

1,089 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

48.9%

175 of 358

Offers to families outside the council

12%

24 of 204 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

1,085

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,057

97.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

28

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

400

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 Mossbourne Community 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 Mossbourne Community Academy reported 28 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.4% 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 Mossbourne Community Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,000 places 1,069 on roll 2010/11 1,475 places 1,184 on roll 2011/12 1,450 places 1,253 on roll 2012/13 1,400 places 1,350 on roll 2013/14 1,450 places 1,313 on roll 2014/15 1,400 places 1,288 on roll 2015/16 1,400 places 1,287 on roll 2016/17 1,400 places 1,319 on roll 2017/18 1,400 places 1,328 on roll 2018/19 1,400 places 1,333 on roll 2020/21 1,400 places 1,455 on roll 2021/22 1,400 places 1,443 on roll 2022/23 1,480 places 1,439 on roll 2023/24 1,480 places 1,430 on roll 2024/25 1,485 places 1,433 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Hackney

Postcode E5 8JY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 134693).

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.