School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Richard Challoner School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 96 families who named Richard Challoner School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 150 and 234 put it first.

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

1.56

first choices for every place available

234 first preferences for 150 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Richard Challoner School

There is no published appeal success rate for Richard Challoner 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 Kingston upon Thames 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 Kingston upon Thames, 16.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 18 of 111 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 Kingston upon Thames.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Kingston upon Thames 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

Richard Challoner 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 Richard Challoner 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 1.33 per place 181 first choices 136 places 2016/17 1.39 per place 198 first choices 142 places 2017/18 1.55 per place 233 first choices 150 places 2018/19 1.41 per place 211 first choices 150 places 2019/20 1.43 per place 215 first choices 150 places 2020/21 1.47 per place 221 first choices 150 places 2021/22 1.28 per place 192 first choices 150 places 2022/23 1.49 per place 224 first choices 150 places 2023/24 1.57 per place 236 first choices 150 places 2024/25 1.49 per place 224 first choices 150 places 2025/26 1.31 per place 196 first choices 150 places 2026/27 1.56 per place 234 first choices 150 places
First preferences per place at Richard Challoner School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 234 first preferences for 150 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Richard Challoner School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 136 181 128 1.33
2016/17 142 198 138 1.39
2017/18 150 233 145 1.55
2018/19 150 211 145 1.41
2019/20 150 215 141 1.43
2020/21 150 221 137 1.47
2021/22 150 192 127 1.28
2022/23 150 224 139 1.49
2023/24 150 236 141 1.57
2024/25 150 224 143 1.49
2025/26 150 196 136 1.31
2026/27 150 234 138 1.56

Places offered

150

in 2026/27

Named first choice

234

646 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

59%

138 of 234

Offers to families outside the council

41%

61 of 150 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

791

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

795

100.5% of capacity

Over its capacity by

4

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

259

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 Richard Challoner 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 Richard Challoner School 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Richard Challoner School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 966 places 932 on roll 2012/13 966 places 966 on roll 2013/14 966 places 981 on roll 2014/15 975 places 975 on roll 2015/16 975 places 948 on roll 2016/17 1,050 places 991 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 1,018 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 1,025 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 1,065 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 1,069 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,080 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,073 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,075 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.

This school's admission rules have been challenged

Separately from appeals, anyone can object that a school's admission arrangements break the School Admissions Code. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator decides those objections and publishes a determination naming the school. Richard Challoner School has been the subject of one such determination. The adjudicator found its arrangements did not comply with the Code.

Adjudicator determinations naming Richard Challoner School. Each links to the full determination on GOV.UK.
Determined Outcome Determination
19 March 2021 Arrangements did not comply ADA3750

This is not a prediction about your appeal. An objection is about the rules the school admits by; an appeal is your case about your child. No school-level appeal figures are published for any school in England, and a determination does not create any. An upheld objection also requires the school to revise its arrangements, so a finding from an earlier year describes rules that had to change — what matters for your appeal is the arrangements for the year you applied under, and whether they were applied to you correctly.

When a mistake in the process is a ground for appeal →

Office of the Schools Adjudicator, published determinations.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Academy converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kingston upon Thames

Postcode KT3 5PE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137299).

Other contested secondary schools in Kingston upon Thames

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.