School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Northwood School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 72 families who named Northwood School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 167 and 193 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

193 first preferences for 167 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Northwood School

There is no published appeal success rate for Northwood 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 Hillingdon 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 Hillingdon, 8.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 28 of 326 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 Hillingdon.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Hillingdon 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

Northwood School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 1 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 Northwood 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 0.6 per place 70 first choices 117 places 2016/17 0.66 per place 119 first choices 179 places 2017/18 0.82 per place 146 first choices 177 places 2018/19 1.05 per place 175 first choices 167 places 2019/20 1.18 per place 206 first choices 175 places 2020/21 1.46 per place 231 first choices 158 places 2021/22 1.32 per place 233 first choices 177 places 2022/23 1.46 per place 216 first choices 148 places 2023/24 1.49 per place 254 first choices 170 places 2024/25 1.27 per place 214 first choices 168 places 2025/26 1.18 per place 203 first choices 172 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 193 first choices 167 places
First preferences per place at Northwood School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 193 first preferences for 167 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Northwood School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 117 70 70 0.6
2016/17 179 119 118 0.66
2017/18 177 146 131 0.82
2018/19 167 175 130 1.05
2019/20 175 206 137 1.18
2020/21 158 231 129 1.46
2021/22 177 233 139 1.32
2022/23 148 216 126 1.46
2023/24 170 254 145 1.49
2024/25 168 214 139 1.27
2025/26 172 203 137 1.18
2026/27 167 193 121 1.16

Places offered

167

in 2026/27

Named first choice

193

811 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

62.7%

121 of 193

Offers to families outside the council

29%

48 of 167 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

886

98.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

14

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

335

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 Northwood 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 Northwood School reported 14 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.4% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Northwood School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 912 places 374 on roll 2012/13 1,476 places 374 on roll 2013/14 1,476 places 393 on roll 2014/15 900 places 446 on roll 2015/16 900 places 463 on roll 2016/17 900 places 575 on roll 2017/18 1,080 places 668 on roll 2018/19 1,080 places 795 on roll 2020/21 1,080 places 955 on roll 2021/22 1,080 places 983 on roll 2022/23 1,080 places 1,002 on roll 2023/24 1,080 places 1,004 on roll 2024/25 1,235 places 1,023 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
Hillingdon

Postcode HA6 1QN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137829).

Other contested secondary schools in Hillingdon

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.