School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Madani Boys School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 113 families who named Madani Boys School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 90 and 202 put it first.

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

2.24

first choices for every place available

202 first preferences for 90 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Madani Boys School

There is no published appeal success rate for Madani Boys 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 Leicester 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 Leicester, 5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 50 of 1,003 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 Leicester.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Leicester 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

Madani Boys 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 Madani Boys School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.68 per place 101 first choices 60 places 2016/17 2.08 per place 125 first choices 60 places 2017/18 1.83 per place 110 first choices 60 places 2018/19 1.95 per place 117 first choices 60 places 2019/20 2.3 per place 138 first choices 60 places 2020/21 1.68 per place 151 first choices 90 places 2021/22 1.63 per place 147 first choices 90 places 2022/23 1.91 per place 172 first choices 90 places 2023/24 2.14 per place 193 first choices 90 places 2024/25 2.38 per place 214 first choices 90 places 2025/26 2.47 per place 222 first choices 90 places 2026/27 2.24 per place 202 first choices 90 places
First preferences per place at Madani Boys School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 202 first preferences for 90 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Madani Boys 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 60 101 60 1.68
2016/17 60 125 60 2.08
2017/18 60 110 59 1.83
2018/19 60 117 59 1.95
2019/20 60 138 60 2.3
2020/21 90 151 85 1.68
2021/22 90 147 89 1.63
2022/23 90 172 90 1.91
2023/24 90 193 90 2.14
2024/25 90 214 89 2.38
2025/26 90 222 90 2.47
2026/27 90 202 89 2.24

Places offered

90

in 2026/27

Named first choice

202

354 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

44.1%

89 of 202

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 90 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

450

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

449

99.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

1

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Madani Boys 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 Madani Boys School reported 1 unfilled place across Years 7 to 11, at 99.8% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Madani Boys School from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 250 500 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 300 places 305 on roll 2013/14 300 places 298 on roll 2014/15 300 places 303 on roll 2015/16 300 places 304 on roll 2016/17 300 places 306 on roll 2017/18 300 places 305 on roll 2018/19 300 places 305 on roll 2020/21 330 places 335 on roll 2021/22 360 places 366 on roll 2022/23 390 places 393 on roll 2023/24 420 places 425 on roll 2024/25 450 places 449 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Leicester

Postcode LE5 5LL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138869).

Other contested secondary schools in Leicester

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.