School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Norwood School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 75 families who named The Norwood School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 174 and 199 put it first.

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

1.14

first choices for every place available

199 first preferences for 174 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Norwood School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Norwood 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

The Norwood School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 5 of those years. In the other 7 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 Norwood 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 0.64 per place 94 first choices 148 places 2016/17 0.67 per place 100 first choices 149 places 2017/18 0.73 per place 130 first choices 179 places 2018/19 0.8 per place 140 first choices 174 places 2019/20 0.82 per place 140 first choices 171 places 2020/21 0.72 per place 125 first choices 174 places 2021/22 0.96 per place 165 first choices 171 places 2022/23 1.35 per place 223 first choices 165 places 2023/24 1.39 per place 223 first choices 160 places 2024/25 1.22 per place 213 first choices 175 places 2025/26 1.4 per place 232 first choices 166 places 2026/27 1.14 per place 199 first choices 174 places
First preferences per place at The Norwood School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 199 first preferences for 174 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Norwood School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 148 94 84 0.64
2016/17 149 100 73 0.67
2017/18 179 130 107 0.73
2018/19 174 140 87 0.8
2019/20 171 140 73 0.82
2020/21 174 125 86 0.72
2021/22 171 165 99 0.96
2022/23 165 223 110 1.35
2023/24 160 223 110 1.39
2024/25 175 213 112 1.22
2025/26 166 232 122 1.4
2026/27 174 199 124 1.14

Places offered

174

in 2026/27

Named first choice

199

851 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

62.3%

124 of 199

Offers to families outside the council

46%

80 of 174 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

901

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

895

99.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

6

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

190

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 Norwood 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 The Norwood School reported 6 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.3% 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 The Norwood School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 756 places 712 on roll 2010/11 756 places 749 on roll 2011/12 756 places 785 on roll 2012/13 756 places 796 on roll 2013/14 850 places 808 on roll 2014/15 950 places 847 on roll 2015/16 950 places 839 on roll 2016/17 833 places 846 on roll 2017/18 1,076 places 879 on roll 2018/19 1,091 places 932 on roll 2020/21 1,091 places 1,038 on roll 2021/22 1,091 places 1,083 on roll 2022/23 1,091 places 1,068 on roll 2023/24 1,091 places 1,051 on roll 2024/25 1,091 places 1,077 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 SE19 3NY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100624).

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.