School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chancellor's School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 59 families who named Chancellor's School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 206 and 222 put it first.

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

1.08

first choices for every place available

222 first preferences for 206 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chancellor's School

There is no published appeal success rate for Chancellor's 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 Hertfordshire 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 Hertfordshire, 21% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 314 of 1,496 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 Hertfordshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Hertfordshire 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

Chancellor's School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 10 of those years. In the other 2 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 Chancellor's 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 0.93 per place 168 first choices 180 places 2016/17 1.08 per place 194 first choices 179 places 2017/18 1.08 per place 193 first choices 179 places 2018/19 1.06 per place 188 first choices 177 places 2019/20 0.97 per place 203 first choices 209 places 2020/21 1.03 per place 215 first choices 209 places 2021/22 1.02 per place 209 first choices 204 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 238 first choices 204 places 2023/24 1.21 per place 246 first choices 204 places 2024/25 1.2 per place 243 first choices 202 places 2025/26 1.17 per place 236 first choices 202 places 2026/27 1.08 per place 222 first choices 206 places
First preferences per place at Chancellor's School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 222 first preferences for 206 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chancellor's School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 180 168 140 0.93
2016/17 179 194 150 1.08
2017/18 179 193 145 1.08
2018/19 177 188 144 1.06
2019/20 209 203 143 0.97
2020/21 209 215 163 1.03
2021/22 204 209 157 1.02
2022/23 204 238 167 1.17
2023/24 204 246 177 1.21
2024/25 202 243 171 1.2
2025/26 202 236 164 1.17
2026/27 206 222 163 1.08

Places offered

206

in 2026/27

Named first choice

222

636 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

73.4%

163 of 222

Offers to families outside the council

2%

4 of 206 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 117591.

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

1,350

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,039

77% of capacity

Unfilled places

311

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

120

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 Chancellor's 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 Chancellor's School reported 311 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 77% 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 Chancellor's School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,069 places 1,039 on roll 2010/11 1,069 places 1,051 on roll 2011/12 1,078 places 1,030 on roll 2012/13 1,085 places 1,066 on roll 2013/14 1,089 places 1,068 on roll 2014/15 1,065 places 1,075 on roll 2015/16 1,065 places 1,082 on roll 2016/17 1,065 places 1,081 on roll 2017/18 1,043 places 1,091 on roll 2018/19 1,043 places 1,098 on roll 2020/21 1,292 places 1,189 on roll 2021/22 1,292 places 1,209 on roll 2022/23 1,292 places 1,218 on roll 2023/24 1,292 places 1,240 on roll 2024/25 1,470 places 1,252 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
Hertfordshire

Postcode AL9 7BN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147246).

Other contested secondary schools in Hertfordshire

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.