School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Mary Magdalene Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 275 families who named St Mary Magdalene Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 434 put it first.

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

2.54

first choices for every place available

434 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Mary Magdalene Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for St Mary Magdalene Academy, 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

St Mary Magdalene Academy 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 Mary Magdalene Academy, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.38 per place 211 first choices 153 places 2016/17 1.39 per place 248 first choices 178 places 2017/18 1.86 per place 348 first choices 187 places 2018/19 1.88 per place 331 first choices 176 places 2019/20 1.79 per place 370 first choices 207 places 2020/21 2.06 per place 421 first choices 204 places 2021/22 1.92 per place 389 first choices 203 places 2022/23 2.06 per place 414 first choices 201 places 2023/24 2.37 per place 471 first choices 199 places 2024/25 2.27 per place 453 first choices 200 places 2025/26 2.52 per place 415 first choices 165 places 2026/27 2.54 per place 434 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at St Mary Magdalene Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 434 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Mary Magdalene Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 153 211 129 1.38
2016/17 178 248 156 1.39
2017/18 187 348 174 1.86
2018/19 176 331 143 1.88
2019/20 207 370 181 1.79
2020/21 204 421 183 2.06
2021/22 203 389 176 1.92
2022/23 201 414 179 2.06
2023/24 199 471 182 2.37
2024/25 200 453 181 2.27
2025/26 165 415 159 2.52
2026/27 171 434 159 2.54

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

434

1,087 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

36.6%

159 of 434

Offers to families outside the council

9%

16 of 171 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

1,387

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,236

89.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

151

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

300

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 Mary Magdalene Academy 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 Mary Magdalene Academy reported 151 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 89.1% 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 St Mary Magdalene Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 960 places 759 on roll 2010/11 1,390 places 995 on roll 2011/12 1,360 places 1,099 on roll 2012/13 1,360 places 1,136 on roll 2013/14 1,360 places 1,173 on roll 2014/15 1,110 places 1,153 on roll 2015/16 1,241 places 1,177 on roll 2016/17 1,310 places 1,255 on roll 2017/18 1,310 places 1,271 on roll 2018/19 1,322 places 1,313 on roll 2020/21 1,412 places 1,400 on roll 2021/22 1,412 places 1,447 on roll 2022/23 1,530 places 1,532 on roll 2023/24 1,560 places 1,550 on roll 2024/25 1,687 places 1,545 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Islington

Postcode N7 8PG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 134314).

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.