School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Lilian Baylis Technology School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 25 families who named Lilian Baylis Technology School as their first choice did not get a place: 111 put it first and 86 of them were offered one.

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

25

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

111 first preferences for 119 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Lilian Baylis Technology School

There is no published appeal success rate for Lilian Baylis Technology 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 Lambeth 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 Lambeth, 13.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 38 of 279 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 Lambeth.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Lambeth 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

Lilian Baylis Technology School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 4 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 Lilian Baylis Technology 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 1.05 per place 123 first choices 117 places 2016/17 0.96 per place 116 first choices 121 places 2017/18 0.96 per place 113 first choices 118 places 2018/19 1.02 per place 120 first choices 118 places 2019/20 1.2 per place 140 first choices 117 places 2020/21 0.8 per place 94 first choices 117 places 2021/22 0.91 per place 110 first choices 121 places 2022/23 0.84 per place 102 first choices 121 places 2023/24 0.89 per place 107 first choices 120 places 2024/25 1.28 per place 152 first choices 119 places 2025/26 0.95 per place 109 first choices 115 places 2026/27 0.93 per place 111 first choices 119 places
First preferences per place at Lilian Baylis Technology School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 111 first preferences for 119 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Lilian Baylis Technology School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 117 123 92 1.05
2016/17 121 116 91 0.96
2017/18 118 113 85 0.96
2018/19 118 120 82 1.02
2019/20 117 140 88 1.2
2020/21 117 94 80 0.8
2021/22 121 110 85 0.91
2022/23 121 102 84 0.84
2023/24 120 107 85 0.89
2024/25 119 152 88 1.28
2025/26 115 109 81 0.95
2026/27 119 111 86 0.93

Places offered

119

in 2026/27

Named first choice

111

401 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

77.5%

86 of 111

Offers to families outside the council

23%

27 of 119 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

638

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

623

97.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

15

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

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 Lilian Baylis Technology 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 Lilian Baylis Technology School reported 15 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.6% 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 Lilian Baylis Technology 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 2009/10 612 places 619 on roll 2010/11 620 places 620 on roll 2011/12 620 places 632 on roll 2012/13 620 places 722 on roll 2013/14 820 places 795 on roll 2014/15 880 places 789 on roll 2015/16 880 places 798 on roll 2016/17 681 places 823 on roll 2017/18 838 places 805 on roll 2018/19 838 places 799 on roll 2020/21 838 places 836 on roll 2021/22 838 places 866 on roll 2022/23 838 places 836 on roll 2023/24 838 places 847 on roll 2024/25 838 places 835 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
Lambeth

Postcode SE11 5QY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100625).

Other contested secondary schools in Lambeth

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.