School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 38 families who named Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form as their first choice did not get a place: 210 put it first and 172 of them were offered one.

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

38

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

210 first preferences for 247 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form

There is no published appeal success rate for Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form, 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

Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 7 of those years. In the other 5 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 Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form, 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 1.11 per place 271 first choices 244 places 2016/17 1.15 per place 286 first choices 249 places 2017/18 1.21 per place 291 first choices 241 places 2018/19 1.2 per place 289 first choices 240 places 2019/20 1.12 per place 277 first choices 247 places 2020/21 1.15 per place 283 first choices 246 places 2021/22 1.11 per place 274 first choices 246 places 2022/23 0.95 per place 242 first choices 256 places 2023/24 0.91 per place 220 first choices 241 places 2024/25 0.91 per place 227 first choices 249 places 2025/26 0.8 per place 195 first choices 245 places 2026/27 0.85 per place 210 first choices 247 places
First preferences per place at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 210 first preferences for 247 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 244 271 189 1.11
2016/17 249 286 204 1.15
2017/18 241 291 195 1.21
2018/19 240 289 179 1.2
2019/20 247 277 195 1.12
2020/21 246 283 197 1.15
2021/22 246 274 178 1.11
2022/23 256 242 181 0.95
2023/24 241 220 175 0.91
2024/25 249 227 183 0.91
2025/26 245 195 175 0.8
2026/27 247 210 172 0.85

Places offered

247

in 2026/27

Named first choice

210

757 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.9%

172 of 210

Offers to families outside the council

17%

43 of 247 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

1,252

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,271

101.5% of capacity

Over its capacity by

19

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

431

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 Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form 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 Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,268 places 1,305 on roll 2010/11 1,417 places 1,329 on roll 2011/12 1,417 places 1,356 on roll 2012/13 1,520 places 1,428 on roll 2013/14 1,573 places 1,491 on roll 2014/15 1,573 places 1,541 on roll 2015/16 1,601 places 1,577 on roll 2016/17 1,637 places 1,606 on roll 2017/18 1,640 places 1,629 on roll 2018/19 1,635 places 1,622 on roll 2020/21 1,679 places 1,659 on roll 2021/22 1,679 places 1,688 on roll 2022/23 1,679 places 1,707 on roll 2023/24 1,706 places 1,665 on roll 2024/25 1,683 places 1,642 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
Hackney

Postcode N16 9EX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100279).

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.