School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Campion School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 41 families who named The Campion School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 147 and 162 put it first.

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

1.10

first choices for every place available

162 first preferences for 147 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Campion School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Campion 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

The Campion School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 8 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 The Campion 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 1.15 per place 172 first choices 149 places 2016/17 1.27 per place 190 first choices 150 places 2017/18 1.09 per place 163 first choices 150 places 2018/19 1.13 per place 169 first choices 149 places 2019/20 1.18 per place 173 first choices 146 places 2020/21 1.19 per place 179 first choices 150 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 142 first choices 146 places 2022/23 0.78 per place 117 first choices 150 places 2023/24 0.99 per place 146 first choices 148 places 2024/25 1.18 per place 177 first choices 150 places 2025/26 0.98 per place 147 first choices 150 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 162 first choices 147 places
First preferences per place at The Campion School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 162 first preferences for 147 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Campion School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 149 172 135 1.15
2016/17 150 190 142 1.27
2017/18 150 163 132 1.09
2018/19 149 169 134 1.13
2019/20 146 173 124 1.18
2020/21 150 179 132 1.19
2021/22 146 142 121 0.97
2022/23 150 117 116 0.78
2023/24 148 146 123 0.99
2024/25 150 177 142 1.18
2025/26 150 147 128 0.98
2026/27 147 162 121 1.1

Places offered

147

in 2026/27

Named first choice

162

453 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

74.7%

121 of 162

Offers to families outside the council

28%

41 of 147 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

758

101.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

8

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

420

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 The Campion 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 The Campion 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 The Campion School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,050 places 1,036 on roll 2012/13 1,050 places 1,019 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 1,074 on roll 2014/15 1,050 places 1,077 on roll 2015/16 1,050 places 1,054 on roll 2016/17 1,050 places 1,089 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 1,109 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 1,111 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 1,154 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 1,205 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,172 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,196 on roll 2024/25 1,170 places 1,243 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 RM11 3BX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137040).

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.