School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Prendergast School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 62 families who named Prendergast School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 115 and 159 put it first.

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

1.38

first choices for every place available

159 first preferences for 115 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Prendergast School

There is no published appeal success rate for Prendergast 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 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

Prendergast 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 Prendergast 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 2.13 per place 245 first choices 115 places 2016/17 1.66 per place 242 first choices 146 places 2017/18 1.99 per place 239 first choices 120 places 2018/19 1.6 per place 193 first choices 121 places 2019/20 2.07 per place 240 first choices 116 places 2020/21 1.47 per place 174 first choices 118 places 2021/22 1.14 per place 167 first choices 147 places 2022/23 1.47 per place 172 first choices 117 places 2023/24 1.41 per place 168 first choices 119 places 2024/25 1.39 per place 164 first choices 118 places 2025/26 1.47 per place 173 first choices 118 places 2026/27 1.38 per place 159 first choices 115 places
First preferences per place at Prendergast School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 159 first preferences for 115 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Prendergast School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 115 245 102 2.13
2016/17 146 242 128 1.66
2017/18 120 239 104 1.99
2018/19 121 193 100 1.6
2019/20 116 240 98 2.07
2020/21 118 174 98 1.47
2021/22 147 167 121 1.14
2022/23 117 172 94 1.47
2023/24 119 168 98 1.41
2024/25 118 164 104 1.39
2025/26 118 173 108 1.47
2026/27 115 159 97 1.38

Places offered

115

in 2026/27

Named first choice

159

555 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

61%

97 of 159

Offers to families outside the council

2%

2 of 115 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 100750.

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

627

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

623

99.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

4

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

400

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 Prendergast 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 Prendergast School reported 4 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.4% 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 Prendergast 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 2009/10 739 places 789 on roll 2010/11 705 places 819 on roll 2011/12 885 places 854 on roll 2012/13 885 places 862 on roll 2013/14 900 places 860 on roll 2014/15 900 places 881 on roll 2015/16 1,072 places 878 on roll 2016/17 1,027 places 902 on roll 2017/18 1,027 places 938 on roll 2018/19 1,027 places 918 on roll 2020/21 1,027 places 906 on roll 2021/22 1,027 places 995 on roll 2022/23 1,027 places 955 on roll 2023/24 1,027 places 947 on roll 2024/25 1,027 places 1,024 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
Lewisham

Postcode SE4 1LE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 150319).

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.