School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The City Academy, Hackney?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 36 families who named The City Academy, Hackney as their first choice did not get a place: 165 put it first and 129 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.

36

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

165 first preferences for 173 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The City Academy, Hackney

There is no published appeal success rate for The City Academy, Hackney, 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

The City Academy, Hackney turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 10 of those years. In the other 2 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 The City Academy, Hackney, 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 1.71 per place 289 first choices 169 places 2016/17 1.77 per place 327 first choices 185 places 2017/18 1.84 per place 331 first choices 180 places 2018/19 1.88 per place 348 first choices 185 places 2019/20 1.87 per place 316 first choices 169 places 2020/21 1.63 per place 277 first choices 170 places 2021/22 1.38 per place 252 first choices 182 places 2022/23 1.31 per place 254 first choices 194 places 2023/24 1.12 per place 198 first choices 177 places 2024/25 1.1 per place 203 first choices 184 places 2025/26 0.99 per place 169 first choices 170 places 2026/27 0.95 per place 165 first choices 173 places
First preferences per place at The City Academy, Hackney. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 165 first preferences for 173 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The City Academy, Hackney, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 169 289 143 1.71
2016/17 185 327 154 1.77
2017/18 180 331 152 1.84
2018/19 185 348 154 1.88
2019/20 169 316 142 1.87
2020/21 170 277 139 1.63
2021/22 182 252 136 1.38
2022/23 194 254 144 1.31
2023/24 177 198 115 1.12
2024/25 184 203 136 1.1
2025/26 170 169 131 0.99
2026/27 173 165 129 0.95

Places offered

173

in 2026/27

Named first choice

165

779 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.2%

129 of 165

Offers to families outside the council

4%

7 of 173 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

950

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

941

99.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

9

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

240

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 The City Academy, Hackney 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 The City Academy, Hackney reported 9 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.1% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The City Academy, Hackney from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,140 places 387 on roll 2011/12 1,140 places 553 on roll 2012/13 1,140 places 728 on roll 2013/14 1,170 places 893 on roll 2014/15 1,170 places 975 on roll 2015/16 1,170 places 1,034 on roll 2016/17 1,170 places 1,086 on roll 2017/18 1,170 places 1,135 on roll 2018/19 1,170 places 1,140 on roll 2020/21 1,170 places 1,154 on roll 2021/22 1,200 places 1,158 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 1,133 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 1,148 on roll 2024/25 1,190 places 1,151 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 6EA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135835).

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.