School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at John F Kennedy Catholic School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 18 families who named John F Kennedy Catholic School as their first choice did not get a place: 169 put it first and 151 of them were offered one.

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

18

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

169 first preferences for 174 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at John F Kennedy Catholic School

There is no published appeal success rate for John F Kennedy Catholic 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

John F Kennedy Catholic School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 of those years. In the other 4 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 John F Kennedy Catholic 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 1.28 per place 194 first choices 152 places 2016/17 1.24 per place 189 first choices 153 places 2017/18 1.22 per place 189 first choices 155 places 2018/19 1.16 per place 170 first choices 146 places 2019/20 1.15 per place 179 first choices 155 places 2020/21 1.13 per place 177 first choices 157 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 156 first choices 160 places 2022/23 0.98 per place 155 first choices 158 places 2023/24 0.9 per place 142 first choices 158 places 2024/25 1.12 per place 169 first choices 151 places 2025/26 0.97 per place 154 first choices 158 places 2026/27 0.97 per place 169 first choices 174 places
First preferences per place at John F Kennedy Catholic School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 169 first preferences for 174 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at John F Kennedy Catholic School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 152 194 142 1.28
2016/17 153 189 147 1.24
2017/18 155 189 140 1.22
2018/19 146 170 134 1.16
2019/20 155 179 139 1.15
2020/21 157 177 149 1.13
2021/22 160 156 140 0.97
2022/23 158 155 143 0.98
2023/24 158 142 127 0.9
2024/25 151 169 141 1.12
2025/26 158 154 136 0.97
2026/27 174 169 151 0.97

Places offered

174

in 2026/27

Named first choice

169

452 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.3%

151 of 169

Offers to families outside the council

11%

20 of 174 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 117557.

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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

895

99.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

5

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

428

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 John F Kennedy Catholic 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 John F Kennedy Catholic School reported 5 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.4% 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 John F Kennedy Catholic School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,243 places 1,140 on roll 2010/11 1,243 places 1,141 on roll 2011/12 1,260 places 1,139 on roll 2012/13 1,276 places 1,109 on roll 2013/14 1,279 places 1,105 on roll 2014/15 1,298 places 1,101 on roll 2015/16 1,193 places 1,083 on roll 2016/17 1,298 places 1,070 on roll 2017/18 1,298 places 1,058 on roll 2018/19 1,298 places 1,095 on roll 2020/21 1,298 places 1,069 on roll 2021/22 1,298 places 1,089 on roll 2022/23 1,298 places 1,121 on roll 2023/24 1,298 places 1,093 on roll 2024/25 1,328 places 1,074 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
Hertfordshire

Postcode HP1 2PH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149743).

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.