School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Cranford Community College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 47 families who named Cranford Community College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 202 and 223 put it first.

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

1.10

first choices for every place available

223 first preferences for 202 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Cranford Community College

There is no published appeal success rate for Cranford Community College, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Hounslow 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 Hounslow, 6.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 25 of 401 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 Hounslow.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Hounslow 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

Cranford Community College 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 Cranford Community College, 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 1.01 per place 215 first choices 213 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 192 first choices 206 places 2017/18 1.1 per place 227 first choices 207 places 2018/19 1.05 per place 210 first choices 200 places 2019/20 1.2 per place 245 first choices 204 places 2020/21 1.19 per place 237 first choices 199 places 2021/22 1.11 per place 225 first choices 202 places 2022/23 1.38 per place 267 first choices 194 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 231 first choices 202 places 2024/25 0.86 per place 173 first choices 201 places 2025/26 1.05 per place 211 first choices 200 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 223 first choices 202 places
First preferences per place at Cranford Community College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 223 first preferences for 202 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Cranford Community College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 213 215 173 1.01
2016/17 206 192 146 0.93
2017/18 207 227 149 1.1
2018/19 200 210 161 1.05
2019/20 204 245 173 1.2
2020/21 199 237 160 1.19
2021/22 202 225 161 1.11
2022/23 194 267 179 1.38
2023/24 202 231 158 1.14
2024/25 201 173 155 0.86
2025/26 200 211 169 1.05
2026/27 202 223 176 1.1

Places offered

202

in 2026/27

Named first choice

223

633 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.9%

176 of 223

Offers to families outside the council

20%

40 of 202 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

1,346

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,043

77.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

303

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

329

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 Cranford Community College 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 Cranford Community College reported 303 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 77.5% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Cranford Community College from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,346 places 1,336 on roll 2011/12 1,361 places 1,335 on roll 2012/13 1,361 places 1,397 on roll 2013/14 1,380 places 1,451 on roll 2014/15 1,380 places 1,428 on roll 2015/16 1,380 places 1,421 on roll 2016/17 1,380 places 1,401 on roll 2017/18 1,380 places 1,430 on roll 2018/19 1,380 places 1,430 on roll 2020/21 1,380 places 1,488 on roll 2021/22 1,380 places 1,530 on roll 2022/23 1,380 places 1,482 on roll 2023/24 1,380 places 1,477 on roll 2024/25 1,675 places 1,544 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
Hounslow

Postcode TW5 9PD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136522).

Other contested secondary schools in Hounslow

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.