School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Mark's Catholic School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 158 families who named St Mark's Catholic School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 176 and 325 put it first.

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

1.85

first choices for every place available

325 first preferences for 176 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Mark's Catholic School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Mark's 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 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

St Mark's Catholic School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at St Mark's Catholic School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.6 per place 301 first choices 188 places 2016/17 1.61 per place 291 first choices 181 places 2017/18 2.03 per place 372 first choices 183 places 2018/19 1.85 per place 335 first choices 181 places 2019/20 1.83 per place 338 first choices 185 places 2020/21 1.98 per place 361 first choices 182 places 2021/22 2.09 per place 388 first choices 186 places 2022/23 1.84 per place 333 first choices 181 places 2023/24 1.98 per place 354 first choices 179 places 2024/25 1.85 per place 339 first choices 183 places 2025/26 1.96 per place 353 first choices 180 places 2026/27 1.85 per place 325 first choices 176 places
First preferences per place at St Mark's Catholic School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 325 first preferences for 176 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Mark's 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
2015/16 188 301 160 1.6
2016/17 181 291 152 1.61
2017/18 183 372 168 2.03
2018/19 181 335 163 1.85
2019/20 185 338 161 1.83
2020/21 182 361 153 1.98
2021/22 186 388 168 2.09
2022/23 181 333 160 1.84
2023/24 179 354 167 1.98
2024/25 183 339 172 1.85
2025/26 180 353 168 1.96
2026/27 176 325 167 1.85

Places offered

176

in 2026/27

Named first choice

325

1,032 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

51.4%

167 of 325

Offers to families outside the council

27%

48 of 176 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

930

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

933

100.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

3

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

285

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 St Mark's 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 St Mark's Catholic School 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 St Mark's Catholic School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,127 places 1,225 on roll 2012/13 1,215 places 1,169 on roll 2013/14 1,215 places 1,163 on roll 2014/15 1,215 places 1,172 on roll 2015/16 1,215 places 1,178 on roll 2016/17 1,215 places 1,165 on roll 2017/18 1,215 places 1,187 on roll 2018/19 1,215 places 1,209 on roll 2020/21 1,215 places 1,216 on roll 2021/22 1,215 places 1,207 on roll 2022/23 1,215 places 1,204 on roll 2023/24 1,215 places 1,213 on roll 2024/25 1,215 places 1,215 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
Hounslow

Postcode TW3 3EJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137995).

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.