School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Crookhorn College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 73 families who named Crookhorn College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 165 and 227 put it first.

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

1.38

first choices for every place available

227 first preferences for 165 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Crookhorn College

There is no published appeal success rate for Crookhorn College, 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

Crookhorn College turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Crookhorn College, 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 0.94 per place 130 first choices 139 places 2016/17 1.01 per place 180 first choices 179 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 161 first choices 165 places 2018/19 1.05 per place 186 first choices 177 places 2019/20 0.95 per place 171 first choices 180 places 2020/21 1.08 per place 195 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.21 per place 215 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.14 per place 202 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.41 per place 236 first choices 167 places 2024/25 1.49 per place 254 first choices 170 places 2025/26 1.5 per place 258 first choices 172 places 2026/27 1.38 per place 227 first choices 165 places
First preferences per place at Crookhorn College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 227 first preferences for 165 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Crookhorn College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 139 130 130 0.94
2016/17 179 180 174 1.01
2017/18 165 161 161 0.98
2018/19 177 186 177 1.05
2019/20 180 171 171 0.95
2020/21 180 195 176 1.08
2021/22 178 215 175 1.21
2022/23 177 202 167 1.14
2023/24 167 236 163 1.41
2024/25 170 254 165 1.49
2025/26 172 258 159 1.5
2026/27 165 227 154 1.38

Places offered

165

in 2026/27

Named first choice

227

565 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

67.8%

154 of 227

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 165 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

912

101.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

12

reported as full or beyond

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 Crookhorn College 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 Crookhorn College 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 Crookhorn College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 958 places 782 on roll 2010/11 958 places 776 on roll 2011/12 958 places 754 on roll 2012/13 958 places 748 on roll 2013/14 979 places 725 on roll 2014/15 979 places 710 on roll 2015/16 979 places 695 on roll 2016/17 979 places 761 on roll 2017/18 979 places 752 on roll 2018/19 979 places 774 on roll 2020/21 979 places 871 on roll 2021/22 979 places 875 on roll 2022/23 979 places 887 on roll 2023/24 900 places 895 on roll 2024/25 900 places 912 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
Foundation school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Hampshire

Postcode PO7 5UD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 116428).

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.