School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Crofton School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 23 families who named Crofton School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 204 and 219 put it first.

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

1.07

first choices for every place available

219 first preferences for 204 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Crofton School

There is no published appeal success rate for Crofton School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Hampshire 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 Hampshire, 34.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 310 of 903 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 Hampshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Hampshire 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

Crofton School 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 Crofton School, 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 1.3 per place 280 first choices 216 places 2016/17 1.07 per place 229 first choices 214 places 2017/18 1.16 per place 249 first choices 214 places 2018/19 1.18 per place 253 first choices 215 places 2019/20 1.14 per place 246 first choices 215 places 2020/21 1.09 per place 238 first choices 218 places 2021/22 1.15 per place 248 first choices 215 places 2022/23 1.07 per place 232 first choices 217 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 243 first choices 213 places 2024/25 1.24 per place 261 first choices 210 places 2025/26 1.07 per place 227 first choices 213 places 2026/27 1.07 per place 219 first choices 204 places
First preferences per place at Crofton School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 219 first preferences for 204 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Crofton School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 216 280 215 1.3
2016/17 214 229 206 1.07
2017/18 214 249 211 1.16
2018/19 215 253 214 1.18
2019/20 215 246 214 1.14
2020/21 218 238 211 1.09
2021/22 215 248 215 1.15
2022/23 217 232 211 1.07
2023/24 213 243 211 1.14
2024/25 210 261 207 1.24
2025/26 213 227 210 1.07
2026/27 204 219 196 1.07

Places offered

204

in 2026/27

Named first choice

219

443 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.5%

196 of 219

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 204 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 116498.

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

1,123

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,099

97.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

24

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 Crofton School 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 Crofton School reported 24 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Crofton School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,080 places 1,085 on roll 2010/11 1,080 places 1,077 on roll 2011/12 1,080 places 1,085 on roll 2012/13 1,080 places 1,087 on roll 2013/14 1,080 places 1,091 on roll 2014/15 1,080 places 1,096 on roll 2015/16 1,090 places 1,080 on roll 2016/17 1,090 places 1,083 on roll 2017/18 1,188 places 1,075 on roll 2018/19 1,123 places 1,079 on roll 2020/21 1,123 places 1,081 on roll 2021/22 1,178 places 1,087 on roll 2022/23 1,178 places 1,093 on roll 2023/24 1,178 places 1,100 on roll 2024/25 1,123 places 1,099 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
Hampshire

Postcode PO14 2AT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149621).

Other contested secondary schools in Hampshire

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.