School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Redden Court School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 242 families who named Redden Court School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 197 and 427 put it first.

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

2.17

first choices for every place available

427 first preferences for 197 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Redden Court School

There is no published appeal success rate for Redden Court 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 Havering 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 Havering, 7.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 30 of 404 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 Havering.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Havering 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

Redden Court School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Redden Court School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.4 per place 210 first choices 150 places 2016/17 1.39 per place 208 first choices 150 places 2017/18 1.67 per place 242 first choices 145 places 2018/19 1.56 per place 272 first choices 174 places 2019/20 1.54 per place 311 first choices 202 places 2020/21 1.33 per place 262 first choices 197 places 2021/22 1.39 per place 277 first choices 199 places 2022/23 1.44 per place 291 first choices 202 places 2023/24 1.41 per place 279 first choices 198 places 2024/25 2.04 per place 410 first choices 201 places 2025/26 1.95 per place 388 first choices 199 places 2026/27 2.17 per place 427 first choices 197 places
First preferences per place at Redden Court School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 427 first preferences for 197 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Redden Court School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 150 210 137 1.4
2016/17 150 208 140 1.39
2017/18 145 242 139 1.67
2018/19 174 272 162 1.56
2019/20 202 311 179 1.54
2020/21 197 262 174 1.33
2021/22 199 277 182 1.39
2022/23 202 291 192 1.44
2023/24 198 279 182 1.41
2024/25 201 410 189 2.04
2025/26 199 388 182 1.95
2026/27 197 427 185 2.17

Places offered

197

in 2026/27

Named first choice

427

1,160 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

43.3%

185 of 427

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 197 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,062

101.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

12

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 Redden Court 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 Redden Court 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Redden Court School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 750 places 653 on roll 2012/13 750 places 671 on roll 2013/14 750 places 703 on roll 2014/15 750 places 730 on roll 2015/16 750 places 759 on roll 2016/17 750 places 750 on roll 2017/18 750 places 776 on roll 2018/19 750 places 799 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 918 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 972 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,023 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,053 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,062 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
Academy converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Havering

Postcode RM3 0TS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137396).

Other contested secondary schools in Havering

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.