School Admission Appeals

School admission appeals in Haringey

Haringey heard 80 school admission appeals in 2025, and 3 of them were upheld. The figures below come from the Department for Education and cover every state-funded school in the authority — they describe Haringey as a whole, not any single school.

Over the last three years the Haringey success rate has run 11.6 percentage points lower than the England average of 19.8%.

8.2%

of appeals heard in Haringey were upheld

31 of 376 appeals heard in 2023–2025

2025 at a glance

Appeals lodged

115

by parents in Haringey

Appeals heard by a panel

80

70% of those lodged

Appeals upheld

3

3.8% of those heard

England, same year

19.4%

7,498 of 38,639 heard

If your child is going into Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, read this first

86.1% of the primary appeals heard in Haringey were infant class size appeals. These are a different kind of appeal with a much narrower test. A panel can only uphold one if the admission arrangements were unlawful, they were applied incorrectly, or the decision to refuse was one no reasonable authority would have made. How much your child wants the place, or how strong the school is, cannot come into it.

In Haringey, 0% of infant class size appeals were upheld (0 of 31 appeals heard in 2023–2025) against 9.8% across England. That is far lower than other appeals, and it is the single most important thing to establish before you spend time on a case.

Which appeals succeed in Haringey

Secondary and primary appeals are judged on different tests, and the gap between them is usually wide. Pooling three years gives a steadier picture than any single year.

Appeals upheld by phase, three-year pooled rate
0% 15% 30% Secondary 8.8% England 20.5% Primary 2.8% England 17.4% Infant class size 0% England 9.8%

Vertical marker shows the England figure for the same phase.

View as a table
Appeals heard and upheld by phase, pooled across three years.
Phase Heard Upheld Rate England
Secondary 340 30 8.8% 20.5%
Primary 36 1 2.8% 17.4%
Infant class size 31 0 0% 9.8%

Infant class size appeals are counted within the primary figures, not added to them.

Ten years of appeals in Haringey

Appeals upheld, Haringey and England, 2016–2025
0% 7.5% 15% 22.5% 30% 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 2025 19.4% 3.8% 2016 10.3% 22.3% 2017 7.1% 21.8% 2018 10% 21.8% 2019 10.9% 22.2% 2020 7.8% 21.2% 2021 9.4% 19% 2022 6.2% 20.1% 2023 11.7% 19.8% 2024 6.8% 20% 2025 3.8% 19.4%
View as a table
Appeals heard and upheld in Haringey, by year. A rate is shown only where at least 10 appeals were heard.
Year Heard Upheld Haringey England
2016 165 17 10.3% 22.3%
2017 98 7 7.1% 21.8%
2018 100 10 10% 21.8%
2019 119 13 10.9% 22.2%
2020 180 14 7.8% 21.2%
2021 160 15 9.4% 19%
2022 144 9 6.2% 20.1%
2023 163 19 11.7% 19.8%
2024 133 9 6.8% 20%
2025 80 3 3.8% 19.4%

How Haringey compares

Success rate ranking

133 of 151

English councils, ranked on the pooled 3-year success rate, LAs with 10+ appeals heard. Position 1 is the highest rate.

Appeal volume ranking

101 of 151

by number of appeals heard over the same period — 376 in total.

Success rates vary enormously between councils, from under 5% to over 50%. Some of that is real difference in how panels and admission authorities operate; some of it reflects which schools are oversubscribed and how many hopeless cases get lodged. A high local rate is not a prediction about your appeal.

Schools in Haringey

Haringey has 72 state-funded mainstream schools — 60 primary, 11 secondary and 1 all-through. The largest concentrations are in London, Wood Green and LONDON.

What we can't tell you

Nobody publishes appeal outcomes school by school — the Department for Education collects returns from individual schools but only releases them added up to council level. Any site claiming to know your school's appeal odds is guessing. What matters far more than a local average is whether your particular grounds are ones a panel is allowed to act on.

Other councils in London