School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 51 families who named Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School as their first choice did not get a place: 166 put it first and 115 of them were offered one.

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

51

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

166 first preferences for 178 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School

There is no published appeal success rate for Elizabeth Garrett Anderson 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

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 of those years. In the other 3 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 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson 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 0.79 per place 123 first choices 156 places 2016/17 1.03 per place 185 first choices 180 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 191 first choices 179 places 2018/19 1.08 per place 192 first choices 178 places 2019/20 1.05 per place 186 first choices 177 places 2020/21 1.05 per place 181 first choices 173 places 2021/22 0.94 per place 163 first choices 173 places 2022/23 1.03 per place 180 first choices 174 places 2023/24 0.79 per place 142 first choices 180 places 2024/25 1.01 per place 179 first choices 178 places 2025/26 0.97 per place 168 first choices 174 places 2026/27 0.93 per place 166 first choices 178 places
First preferences per place at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 166 first preferences for 178 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 156 123 117 0.79
2016/17 180 185 139 1.03
2017/18 179 191 141 1.07
2018/19 178 192 127 1.08
2019/20 177 186 136 1.05
2020/21 173 181 129 1.05
2021/22 173 163 124 0.94
2022/23 174 180 133 1.03
2023/24 180 142 129 0.79
2024/25 178 179 138 1.01
2025/26 174 168 137 0.97
2026/27 178 166 115 0.93

Places offered

178

in 2026/27

Named first choice

166

500 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

69.3%

115 of 166

Offers to families outside the council

22%

39 of 178 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

1,088

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

880

80.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

208

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson 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 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School reported 208 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 80.9% 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 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,320 places 911 on roll 2010/11 1,320 places 851 on roll 2011/12 1,320 places 792 on roll 2012/13 900 places 810 on roll 2013/14 900 places 825 on roll 2014/15 900 places 810 on roll 2015/16 900 places 845 on roll 2016/17 900 places 874 on roll 2017/18 900 places 890 on roll 2018/19 900 places 892 on roll 2020/21 900 places 889 on roll 2021/22 900 places 877 on roll 2022/23 900 places 872 on roll 2023/24 900 places 868 on roll 2024/25 1,088 places 880 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Islington

Postcode N1 9QG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100457).

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.