School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Fortismere School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 38 families who named Fortismere School as their first choice did not get a place: 178 put it first and 140 of them were offered one.

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

38

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

178 first preferences for 257 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Fortismere School

There is no published appeal success rate for Fortismere 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 Haringey 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 Haringey, 4.8% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 12 of 250 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 Haringey.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Haringey 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

Fortismere School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 3 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 Fortismere 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 1.35 per place 314 first choices 232 places 2016/17 1.1 per place 288 first choices 262 places 2017/18 1.19 per place 313 first choices 262 places 2018/19 1.37 per place 364 first choices 266 places 2019/20 1.5 per place 390 first choices 260 places 2020/21 1.3 per place 340 first choices 261 places 2021/22 1.18 per place 309 first choices 261 places 2022/23 1.55 per place 388 first choices 251 places 2023/24 1.16 per place 297 first choices 257 places 2024/25 0.84 per place 220 first choices 261 places 2025/26 0.88 per place 232 first choices 263 places 2026/27 0.69 per place 178 first choices 257 places
First preferences per place at Fortismere School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 178 first preferences for 257 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Fortismere School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 232 314 205 1.35
2016/17 262 288 222 1.1
2017/18 262 313 204 1.19
2018/19 266 364 208 1.37
2019/20 260 390 227 1.5
2020/21 261 340 226 1.3
2021/22 261 309 207 1.18
2022/23 251 388 224 1.55
2023/24 257 297 211 1.16
2024/25 261 220 180 0.84
2025/26 263 232 180 0.88
2026/27 257 178 140 0.69

Places offered

257

in 2026/27

Named first choice

178

1,175 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.7%

140 of 178

Offers to families outside the council

19%

48 of 257 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

1,383

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,337

96.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

46

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

450

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 Fortismere 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 Fortismere School reported 46 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.7% 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 Fortismere School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,655 places 1,628 on roll 2010/11 1,655 places 1,640 on roll 2011/12 1,655 places 1,639 on roll 2012/13 1,655 places 1,652 on roll 2013/14 1,655 places 1,678 on roll 2014/15 1,655 places 1,657 on roll 2015/16 1,665 places 1,638 on roll 2016/17 1,692 places 1,717 on roll 2017/18 1,692 places 1,771 on roll 2018/19 1,804 places 1,771 on roll 2020/21 1,804 places 1,827 on roll 2021/22 1,804 places 1,828 on roll 2022/23 1,804 places 1,823 on roll 2023/24 1,804 places 1,807 on roll 2024/25 1,833 places 1,763 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
Haringey

Postcode N10 1NE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 102156).

Other contested secondary schools in Haringey

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.