School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Purbrook Park School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 25 families who named Purbrook Park School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 191 and 194 put it first.

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

1.02

first choices for every place available

194 first preferences for 191 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Purbrook Park School

There is no published appeal success rate for Purbrook Park 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

Purbrook Park School turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 of those years. In the other 1 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 Purbrook Park 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 0.86 per place 89 first choices 104 places 2016/17 0.81 per place 98 first choices 121 places 2017/18 0.99 per place 132 first choices 133 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 158 first choices 164 places 2019/20 1.26 per place 216 first choices 171 places 2020/21 1.15 per place 202 first choices 175 places 2021/22 0.92 per place 147 first choices 159 places 2022/23 1.44 per place 243 first choices 169 places 2023/24 1.47 per place 244 first choices 166 places 2024/25 0.98 per place 180 first choices 184 places 2025/26 1.13 per place 217 first choices 192 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 194 first choices 191 places
First preferences per place at Purbrook Park School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 194 first preferences for 191 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Purbrook Park School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 104 89 89 0.86
2016/17 121 98 98 0.81
2017/18 133 132 132 0.99
2018/19 164 158 158 0.96
2019/20 171 216 166 1.26
2020/21 175 202 174 1.15
2021/22 159 147 147 0.92
2022/23 169 243 160 1.44
2023/24 166 244 161 1.47
2024/25 184 180 157 0.98
2025/26 192 217 167 1.13
2026/27 191 194 169 1.02

Places offered

191

in 2026/27

Named first choice

194

479 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

87.1%

169 of 194

Offers to families outside the council

29%

55 of 191 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

840

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

905

107.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

65

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 Purbrook Park 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 Purbrook Park 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 Purbrook Park 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 2009/10 848 places 853 on roll 2010/11 840 places 848 on roll 2011/12 840 places 850 on roll 2012/13 840 places 793 on roll 2013/14 840 places 733 on roll 2014/15 840 places 676 on roll 2015/16 840 places 632 on roll 2016/17 840 places 633 on roll 2017/18 840 places 673 on roll 2018/19 840 places 747 on roll 2020/21 840 places 847 on roll 2021/22 840 places 866 on roll 2022/23 840 places 874 on roll 2023/24 840 places 900 on roll 2024/25 840 places 905 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 5DS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 116506).

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.