School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Harrow Way Community School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 44 families who named Harrow Way Community School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 183 and 214 put it first.

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

1.17

first choices for every place available

214 first preferences for 183 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Harrow Way Community School

There is no published appeal success rate for Harrow Way Community 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

Harrow Way Community School turned first-choice families away in 10 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 Harrow Way Community 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 0.98 per place 174 first choices 178 places 2016/17 1.23 per place 221 first choices 180 places 2017/18 1.09 per place 229 first choices 210 places 2018/19 1.2 per place 227 first choices 189 places 2019/20 1.25 per place 221 first choices 177 places 2020/21 1.14 per place 216 first choices 190 places 2021/22 1.16 per place 238 first choices 206 places 2022/23 1.09 per place 220 first choices 202 places 2023/24 1.1 per place 204 first choices 186 places 2024/25 1.1 per place 224 first choices 203 places 2025/26 0.98 per place 166 first choices 169 places 2026/27 1.17 per place 214 first choices 183 places
First preferences per place at Harrow Way Community School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 214 first preferences for 183 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Harrow Way Community School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 178 174 174 0.98
2016/17 180 221 180 1.23
2017/18 210 229 209 1.09
2018/19 189 227 185 1.2
2019/20 177 221 168 1.25
2020/21 190 216 188 1.14
2021/22 206 238 199 1.16
2022/23 202 220 193 1.09
2023/24 186 204 169 1.1
2024/25 203 224 198 1.1
2025/26 169 166 159 0.98
2026/27 183 214 170 1.17

Places offered

183

in 2026/27

Named first choice

214

428 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

79.4%

170 of 214

Offers to families outside the council

4%

8 of 183 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

977

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

995

101.8% of capacity

Over its capacity by

18

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 Harrow Way Community 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 Harrow Way Community School 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 Harrow Way Community School 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 2009/10 890 places 826 on roll 2010/11 900 places 857 on roll 2011/12 900 places 869 on roll 2012/13 900 places 866 on roll 2013/14 900 places 854 on roll 2014/15 900 places 869 on roll 2015/16 900 places 895 on roll 2016/17 900 places 888 on roll 2017/18 915 places 904 on roll 2018/19 915 places 920 on roll 2020/21 915 places 948 on roll 2021/22 915 places 975 on roll 2022/23 915 places 982 on roll 2023/24 977 places 970 on roll 2024/25 977 places 995 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
Hampshire

Postcode SP10 3RH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 116431).

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.