School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Central Foundation Boys' School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 91 families who named Central Foundation Boys' School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 173 and 235 put it first.

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

1.36

first choices for every place available

235 first preferences for 173 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Central Foundation Boys' School

There is no published appeal success rate for Central Foundation Boys' 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 Islington 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 Islington, 13% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 23 of 177 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 Islington.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Islington 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

Central Foundation Boys' 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 Central Foundation Boys' 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 1.32 per place 184 first choices 139 places 2016/17 1.37 per place 202 first choices 147 places 2017/18 1.31 per place 189 first choices 144 places 2018/19 1.23 per place 218 first choices 177 places 2019/20 1.34 per place 238 first choices 177 places 2020/21 1.2 per place 209 first choices 174 places 2021/22 1.14 per place 201 first choices 176 places 2022/23 1.16 per place 199 first choices 171 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 196 first choices 172 places 2024/25 1.09 per place 191 first choices 176 places 2025/26 1.32 per place 225 first choices 171 places 2026/27 1.36 per place 235 first choices 173 places
First preferences per place at Central Foundation Boys' School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 235 first preferences for 173 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Central Foundation Boys' School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 139 184 116 1.32
2016/17 147 202 123 1.37
2017/18 144 189 120 1.31
2018/19 177 218 141 1.23
2019/20 177 238 145 1.34
2020/21 174 209 143 1.2
2021/22 176 201 139 1.14
2022/23 171 199 142 1.16
2023/24 172 196 139 1.14
2024/25 176 191 144 1.09
2025/26 171 225 142 1.32
2026/27 173 235 144 1.36

Places offered

173

in 2026/27

Named first choice

235

559 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

61.3%

144 of 235

Offers to families outside the council

43%

74 of 173 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

998

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

873

87.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

125

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

265

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 Central Foundation Boys' 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 Central Foundation Boys' School reported 125 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87.5% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Central Foundation Boys' School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 828 places 875 on roll 2010/11 828 places 959 on roll 2011/12 828 places 996 on roll 2012/13 828 places 892 on roll 2013/14 828 places 897 on roll 2014/15 933 places 902 on roll 2015/16 940 places 918 on roll 2016/17 828 places 916 on roll 2017/18 1,000 places 934 on roll 2018/19 1,150 places 961 on roll 2020/21 1,090 places 1,029 on roll 2021/22 1,090 places 1,040 on roll 2022/23 1,150 places 1,103 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 1,120 on roll 2024/25 1,263 places 1,135 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Islington

Postcode EC2A 4SH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100458).

Other contested secondary schools in Islington

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.