School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Harris Academy Tottenham?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 63 families who named Harris Academy Tottenham as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 157 and 198 put it first.

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

1.26

first choices for every place available

198 first preferences for 157 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Harris Academy Tottenham

There is no published appeal success rate for Harris Academy Tottenham, 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

Harris Academy Tottenham turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 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 Harris Academy Tottenham, 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 0.31 per place 23 first choices 75 places 2016/17 0.5 per place 69 first choices 138 places 2017/18 0.61 per place 94 first choices 154 places 2018/19 1.1 per place 195 first choices 178 places 2019/20 0.95 per place 196 first choices 206 places 2020/21 0.96 per place 191 first choices 199 places 2021/22 1.07 per place 194 first choices 181 places 2022/23 1.06 per place 162 first choices 153 places 2023/24 0.99 per place 144 first choices 145 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 185 first choices 147 places 2025/26 1.17 per place 163 first choices 139 places 2026/27 1.26 per place 198 first choices 157 places
First preferences per place at Harris Academy Tottenham. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 198 first preferences for 157 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Harris Academy Tottenham, 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 75 23 23 0.31
2016/17 138 69 69 0.5
2017/18 154 94 94 0.61
2018/19 178 195 144 1.1
2019/20 206 196 163 0.95
2020/21 199 191 148 0.96
2021/22 181 194 134 1.07
2022/23 153 162 124 1.06
2023/24 145 144 111 0.99
2024/25 147 185 125 1.26
2025/26 139 163 126 1.17
2026/27 157 198 135 1.26

Places offered

157

in 2026/27

Named first choice

198

565 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

68.2%

135 of 198

Offers to families outside the council

14%

22 of 157 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

1,445

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,171

81% of capacity

Unfilled places

274

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

125

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 Harris Academy Tottenham 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 Harris Academy Tottenham reported 274 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 81% 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Harris Academy Tottenham from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 1,120 places 95 on roll 2015/16 1,570 places 221 on roll 2016/17 1,570 places 414 on roll 2017/18 1,570 places 604 on roll 2018/19 1,570 places 835 on roll 2020/21 1,570 places 1,190 on roll 2021/22 1,570 places 1,286 on roll 2022/23 1,570 places 1,307 on roll 2023/24 1,570 places 1,309 on roll 2024/25 1,570 places 1,329 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Haringey

Postcode N17 9LN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140935).

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.