School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Highbury Fields School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 22 families who named Highbury Fields School as their first choice did not get a place: 98 put it first and 76 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.

22

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

98 first preferences for 136 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Highbury Fields School

There is no published appeal success rate for Highbury Fields 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

Highbury Fields School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 7 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 Highbury Fields 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 0.74 per place 93 first choices 125 places 2016/17 0.72 per place 100 first choices 138 places 2017/18 0.67 per place 94 first choices 140 places 2018/19 1.21 per place 168 first choices 139 places 2019/20 1.14 per place 158 first choices 139 places 2020/21 1.29 per place 180 first choices 139 places 2021/22 0.83 per place 116 first choices 139 places 2022/23 0.9 per place 124 first choices 138 places 2023/24 1.04 per place 144 first choices 138 places 2024/25 0.89 per place 125 first choices 140 places 2025/26 0.96 per place 131 first choices 137 places 2026/27 0.72 per place 98 first choices 136 places
First preferences per place at Highbury Fields School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 98 first preferences for 136 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Highbury Fields School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 125 93 86 0.74
2016/17 138 100 89 0.72
2017/18 140 94 83 0.67
2018/19 139 168 100 1.21
2019/20 139 158 99 1.14
2020/21 139 180 98 1.29
2021/22 139 116 82 0.83
2022/23 138 124 93 0.9
2023/24 138 144 105 1.04
2024/25 140 125 96 0.89
2025/26 137 131 90 0.96
2026/27 136 98 76 0.72

Places offered

136

in 2026/27

Named first choice

98

442 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

77.6%

76 of 98

Offers to families outside the council

9%

12 of 136 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

700

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

687

98.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

13

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

150

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 Highbury Fields 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 Highbury Fields School reported 13 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.1% 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 Highbury Fields School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 746 places 829 on roll 2010/11 746 places 826 on roll 2011/12 746 places 835 on roll 2012/13 746 places 740 on roll 2013/14 746 places 729 on roll 2014/15 793 places 752 on roll 2015/16 800 places 747 on roll 2016/17 900 places 769 on roll 2017/18 750 places 770 on roll 2018/19 750 places 765 on roll 2020/21 850 places 769 on roll 2021/22 850 places 773 on roll 2022/23 850 places 765 on roll 2023/24 850 places 747 on roll 2024/25 850 places 734 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 N5 1AR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100455).

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.