School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 78 families who named Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 159 and 229 put it first.

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

1.44

first choices for every place available

229 first preferences for 159 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Mossbourne Victoria Park 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 Victoria Park 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 Victoria Park 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 1.03 per place 136 first choices 132 places 2016/17 1.34 per place 211 first choices 158 places 2017/18 1.41 per place 233 first choices 165 places 2018/19 1.3 per place 221 first choices 170 places 2019/20 1.38 per place 227 first choices 164 places 2020/21 1.34 per place 223 first choices 166 places 2021/22 1.61 per place 258 first choices 160 places 2022/23 1.32 per place 220 first choices 167 places 2023/24 1.62 per place 264 first choices 163 places 2024/25 1.53 per place 245 first choices 160 places 2025/26 1.45 per place 239 first choices 165 places 2026/27 1.44 per place 229 first choices 159 places
First preferences per place at Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 229 first preferences for 159 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 132 136 97 1.03
2016/17 158 211 121 1.34
2017/18 165 233 144 1.41
2018/19 170 221 143 1.3
2019/20 164 227 140 1.38
2020/21 166 223 142 1.34
2021/22 160 258 141 1.61
2022/23 167 220 136 1.32
2023/24 163 264 148 1.62
2024/25 160 245 145 1.53
2025/26 165 239 146 1.45
2026/27 159 229 151 1.44

Places offered

159

in 2026/27

Named first choice

229

653 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.9%

151 of 229

Offers to families outside the council

20%

32 of 159 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

822

97.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

18

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 Mossbourne Victoria Park 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 Victoria Park Academy reported 18 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.9% 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 800 places 120 on roll 2015/16 800 places 263 on roll 2016/17 840 places 424 on roll 2017/18 840 places 591 on roll 2018/19 840 places 759 on roll 2020/21 840 places 830 on roll 2021/22 840 places 829 on roll 2022/23 840 places 835 on roll 2023/24 840 places 825 on roll 2024/25 840 places 822 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 E9 7HD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140210).

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.