School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 59 families who named Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 119 and 170 put it first.

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

1.43

first choices for every place available

170 first preferences for 119 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' School

There is no published appeal success rate for Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' 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

Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' 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 Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' 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 1.29 per place 154 first choices 119 places 2016/17 1.49 per place 179 first choices 120 places 2017/18 1.38 per place 166 first choices 120 places 2018/19 1.4 per place 165 first choices 118 places 2019/20 1.5 per place 174 first choices 116 places 2020/21 1.28 per place 152 first choices 119 places 2021/22 1.25 per place 149 first choices 119 places 2022/23 1.28 per place 152 first choices 119 places 2023/24 1.33 per place 160 first choices 120 places 2024/25 1.47 per place 175 first choices 119 places 2025/26 1.22 per place 145 first choices 119 places 2026/27 1.43 per place 170 first choices 119 places
First preferences per place at Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 170 first preferences for 119 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 119 154 109 1.29
2016/17 120 179 111 1.49
2017/18 120 166 109 1.38
2018/19 118 165 111 1.4
2019/20 116 174 105 1.5
2020/21 119 152 103 1.28
2021/22 119 149 109 1.25
2022/23 119 152 107 1.28
2023/24 120 160 112 1.33
2024/25 119 175 112 1.47
2025/26 119 145 113 1.22
2026/27 119 170 111 1.43

Places offered

119

in 2026/27

Named first choice

170

475 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.3%

111 of 170

Offers to families outside the council

3%

3 of 119 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

572

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

606

105.9% of capacity

Over its capacity by

34

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

270

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 Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' 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 Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' 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 Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 840 places 816 on roll 2012/13 842 places 828 on roll 2013/14 881 places 822 on roll 2014/15 881 places 811 on roll 2015/16 881 places 792 on roll 2016/17 881 places 824 on roll 2017/18 881 places 826 on roll 2018/19 881 places 796 on roll 2020/21 881 places 825 on roll 2021/22 881 places 839 on roll 2022/23 842 places 831 on roll 2023/24 842 places 821 on roll 2024/25 842 places 830 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Havering

Postcode RM14 2QR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137233).

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.