School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Leventhorpe?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 34 families who named Leventhorpe as their first choice did not get a place: 220 put it first and 186 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.

34

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

220 first preferences for 233 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Leventhorpe

There is no published appeal success rate for Leventhorpe, 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

Leventhorpe turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 9 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 Leventhorpe, 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 229 first choices 177 places 2016/17 0.95 per place 168 first choices 176 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 233 first choices 239 places 2018/19 1.14 per place 271 first choices 237 places 2019/20 1.04 per place 244 first choices 235 places 2020/21 1.21 per place 286 first choices 237 places 2021/22 1.14 per place 267 first choices 235 places 2022/23 1.1 per place 262 first choices 239 places 2023/24 1.01 per place 238 first choices 235 places 2024/25 1.15 per place 268 first choices 233 places 2025/26 1.19 per place 269 first choices 227 places 2026/27 0.94 per place 220 first choices 233 places
First preferences per place at Leventhorpe. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 220 first preferences for 233 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Leventhorpe, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 177 229 158 1.29
2016/17 176 168 145 0.95
2017/18 239 233 205 0.97
2018/19 237 271 214 1.14
2019/20 235 244 197 1.04
2020/21 237 286 216 1.21
2021/22 235 267 203 1.14
2022/23 239 262 217 1.1
2023/24 235 238 211 1.01
2024/25 233 268 206 1.15
2025/26 227 269 187 1.19
2026/27 233 220 186 0.94

Places offered

233

in 2026/27

Named first choice

220

659 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.5%

186 of 220

Offers to families outside the council

44%

102 of 233 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

1,200

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,187

98.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

13

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

380

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 Leventhorpe 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 Leventhorpe reported 13 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.9% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Leventhorpe from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,202 places 1,157 on roll 2012/13 1,202 places 1,188 on roll 2013/14 1,202 places 1,190 on roll 2014/15 1,202 places 1,161 on roll 2015/16 1,202 places 1,161 on roll 2016/17 1,202 places 1,198 on roll 2017/18 1,264 places 1,234 on roll 2018/19 1,320 places 1,266 on roll 2020/21 1,580 places 1,367 on roll 2021/22 1,580 places 1,422 on roll 2022/23 1,580 places 1,473 on roll 2023/24 1,580 places 1,539 on roll 2024/25 1,580 places 1,463 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 CM21 9BY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137156).

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.