School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Kensington Aldridge Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 20 families who named Kensington Aldridge Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 186 put it first and 166 of them were offered one.

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

20

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

186 first preferences for 210 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Kensington Aldridge Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Kensington Aldridge 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 Kensington and Chelsea 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 Kensington and Chelsea, 12.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 11 of 85 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 Kensington and Chelsea.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Kensington and Chelsea 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

Kensington Aldridge Academy turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 3 of those years. In the other 8 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 Kensington Aldridge Academy, 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 1.01 per place 176 first choices 175 places 2016/17 1.06 per place 186 first choices 175 places 2017/18 0.77 per place 138 first choices 180 places 2018/19 0.43 per place 90 first choices 208 places 2019/20 0.8 per place 167 first choices 210 places 2020/21 0.93 per place 194 first choices 208 places 2021/22 0.85 per place 175 first choices 205 places 2022/23 0.99 per place 208 first choices 210 places 2023/24 1.15 per place 196 first choices 170 places 2024/25 0.91 per place 191 first choices 210 places 2025/26 0.76 per place 160 first choices 210 places 2026/27 0.89 per place 186 first choices 210 places
First preferences per place at Kensington Aldridge Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 186 first preferences for 210 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Kensington Aldridge Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 175 176 120 1.01
2016/17 175 186 121 1.06
2017/18 180 138 111 0.77
2018/19 208 90 89 0.43
2019/20 210 167 135 0.8
2020/21 208 194 145 0.93
2021/22 205 175 137 0.85
2022/23 210 208 152 0.99
2023/24 170 196 137 1.15
2024/25 210 191 160 0.91
2025/26 210 160 143 0.76
2026/27 210 186 166 0.89

Places offered

210

in 2026/27

Named first choice

186

565 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.2%

166 of 186

Offers to families outside the council

39%

81 of 210 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

990

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,008

101.8% of capacity

Over its capacity by

18

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

240

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 Kensington Aldridge 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 Kensington Aldridge Academy 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Kensington Aldridge Academy from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 1,140 places 180 on roll 2015/16 1,140 places 360 on roll 2016/17 1,140 places 654 on roll 2017/18 1,140 places 897 on roll 2018/19 1,140 places 1,102 on roll 2020/21 1,140 places 1,213 on roll 2021/22 1,140 places 1,248 on roll 2022/23 1,230 places 1,263 on roll 2023/24 1,230 places 1,228 on roll 2024/25 1,230 places 1,233 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kensington and Chelsea

Postcode W10 6EX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140212).

Other contested secondary schools in Kensington and Chelsea

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.