School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 57 families who named The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 193 and 202 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.

1.05

first choices for every place available

202 first preferences for 193 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre

There is no published appeal success rate for The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre, 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

The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 3 of those years. In the other 5 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 The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre, 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 0.85 per place 150 first choices 176 places 2016/17 0.79 per place 140 first choices 178 places 2017/18 0.63 per place 110 first choices 175 places 2018/19 1.19 per place 211 first choices 177 places 2019/20 0.93 per place 187 first choices 202 places 2020/21 0.81 per place 165 first choices 204 places 2021/22 1.11 per place 196 first choices 176 places 2022/23 0.85 per place 168 first choices 197 places 2023/24 0.94 per place 184 first choices 196 places 2024/25 0.84 per place 167 first choices 199 places 2025/26 0.76 per place 151 first choices 200 places 2026/27 1.05 per place 202 first choices 193 places
First preferences per place at The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 202 first preferences for 193 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 176 150 133 0.85
2016/17 178 140 129 0.79
2017/18 175 110 110 0.63
2018/19 177 211 141 1.19
2019/20 202 187 144 0.93
2020/21 204 165 145 0.81
2021/22 176 196 131 1.11
2022/23 197 168 143 0.85
2023/24 196 184 148 0.94
2024/25 199 167 153 0.84
2025/26 200 151 140 0.76
2026/27 193 202 145 1.05

Places offered

193

in 2026/27

Named first choice

202

881 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

71.8%

145 of 202

Offers to families outside the council

2%

3 of 193 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

937

104.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

37

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

280

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 The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre 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 The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre 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 The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,052 places 1,102 on roll 2012/13 1,052 places 1,114 on roll 2013/14 1,052 places 1,117 on roll 2014/15 1,150 places 1,064 on roll 2015/16 1,150 places 1,045 on roll 2016/17 1,150 places 1,011 on roll 2017/18 1,150 places 1,053 on roll 2018/19 1,150 places 1,056 on roll 2020/21 1,180 places 1,133 on roll 2021/22 1,180 places 1,159 on roll 2022/23 1,180 places 1,206 on roll 2023/24 1,180 places 1,201 on roll 2024/25 1,180 places 1,201 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 converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kingston upon Thames

Postcode KT6 4TU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137678).

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.