School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Haberdashers' Hatcham College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 35 families who named Haberdashers' Hatcham College as their first choice did not get a place: 210 put it first and 175 of them were offered one.

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

35

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

210 first preferences for 218 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Haberdashers' Hatcham College

There is no published appeal success rate for Haberdashers' Hatcham College, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Lewisham 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 Lewisham, 11.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 15 of 133 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 Lewisham.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Lewisham 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

Haberdashers' Hatcham College turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 10 of those years. In the other 2 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 Haberdashers' Hatcham College, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.57 per place 385 first choices 150 places 2016/17 2.24 per place 318 first choices 142 places 2017/18 2.24 per place 327 first choices 146 places 2018/19 1.79 per place 290 first choices 162 places 2019/20 1.52 per place 244 first choices 160 places 2020/21 1.31 per place 282 first choices 216 places 2021/22 1.36 per place 294 first choices 216 places 2022/23 1.18 per place 259 first choices 220 places 2023/24 0.95 per place 208 first choices 218 places 2024/25 1.18 per place 258 first choices 219 places 2025/26 1.11 per place 246 first choices 221 places 2026/27 0.96 per place 210 first choices 218 places
First preferences per place at Haberdashers' Hatcham College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 210 first preferences for 218 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Haberdashers' Hatcham College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 150 385 130 2.57
2016/17 142 318 109 2.24
2017/18 146 327 120 2.24
2018/19 162 290 134 1.79
2019/20 160 244 110 1.52
2020/21 216 282 172 1.31
2021/22 216 294 181 1.36
2022/23 220 259 179 1.18
2023/24 218 208 168 0.95
2024/25 219 258 173 1.18
2025/26 221 246 184 1.11
2026/27 218 210 175 0.96

Places offered

218

in 2026/27

Named first choice

210

774 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

83.3%

175 of 210

Offers to families outside the council

12%

26 of 218 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

1,120

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,112

99.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

8

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

320

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 Haberdashers' Hatcham College 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 Haberdashers' Hatcham College reported 8 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 Haberdashers' Hatcham College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,760 places 1,766 on roll 2010/11 1,785 places 1,726 on roll 2011/12 1,824 places 1,778 on roll 2012/13 1,824 places 1,765 on roll 2013/14 1,885 places 1,741 on roll 2014/15 1,460 places 1,784 on roll 2015/16 1,460 places 1,733 on roll 2016/17 1,460 places 1,798 on roll 2017/18 1,760 places 1,781 on roll 2018/19 1,760 places 1,783 on roll 2020/21 1,440 places 1,378 on roll 2021/22 1,440 places 1,418 on roll 2022/23 1,440 places 1,384 on roll 2023/24 1,440 places 1,382 on roll 2024/25 1,440 places 1,401 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lewisham

Postcode SE14 5SF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135073).

Other contested secondary schools in Lewisham

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.