School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Marlborough Science Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 20 families who named The Marlborough Science Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 182 put it first and 162 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.

20

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

182 first preferences for 235 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Marlborough Science Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for The Marlborough Science Academy, 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

The Marlborough Science Academy turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 1 of those years. In the other 8 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 Marlborough Science Academy, 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 0.63 per place 129 first choices 205 places 2016/17 0.8 per place 169 first choices 212 places 2017/18 0.76 per place 167 first choices 220 places 2018/19 0.8 per place 167 first choices 209 places 2019/20 1.01 per place 211 first choices 208 places 2020/21 0.76 per place 182 first choices 238 places 2021/22 0.82 per place 168 first choices 206 places 2022/23 0.85 per place 200 first choices 235 places 2023/24 0.82 per place 192 first choices 234 places 2024/25 0.8 per place 186 first choices 233 places 2025/26 0.81 per place 189 first choices 233 places 2026/27 0.77 per place 182 first choices 235 places
First preferences per place at The Marlborough Science Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 182 first preferences for 235 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Marlborough Science Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 205 129 105 0.63
2016/17 212 169 140 0.8
2017/18 220 167 125 0.76
2018/19 209 167 128 0.8
2019/20 208 211 151 1.01
2020/21 238 182 165 0.76
2021/22 206 168 158 0.82
2022/23 235 200 181 0.85
2023/24 234 192 154 0.82
2024/25 233 186 164 0.8
2025/26 233 189 160 0.81
2026/27 235 182 162 0.77

Places offered

235

in 2026/27

Named first choice

182

621 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89%

162 of 182

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 235 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

1,058

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,104

104.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

46

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

250

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 Marlborough Science Academy 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 Marlborough Science Academy 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 Marlborough Science Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,325 places 1,178 on roll 2012/13 1,325 places 1,178 on roll 2013/14 1,250 places 1,116 on roll 2014/15 1,250 places 1,124 on roll 2015/16 1,250 places 1,131 on roll 2016/17 1,250 places 1,135 on roll 2017/18 1,250 places 1,153 on roll 2018/19 1,308 places 1,222 on roll 2020/21 1,308 places 1,280 on roll 2021/22 1,308 places 1,276 on roll 2022/23 1,308 places 1,278 on roll 2023/24 1,308 places 1,309 on roll 2024/25 1,308 places 1,327 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 AL1 2QA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138042).

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.