School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sydenham School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 38 families who named Sydenham School as their first choice did not get a place: 217 put it first and 179 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.

38

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

217 first preferences for 235 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sydenham School

There is no published appeal success rate for Sydenham 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

Sydenham 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 Sydenham 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 152 first choices 238 places 2016/17 0.83 per place 195 first choices 235 places 2017/18 1.19 per place 286 first choices 240 places 2018/19 1.23 per place 293 first choices 238 places 2019/20 1.12 per place 265 first choices 237 places 2020/21 0.71 per place 168 first choices 237 places 2021/22 0.79 per place 188 first choices 237 places 2022/23 0.94 per place 222 first choices 235 places 2023/24 1 per place 239 first choices 238 places 2024/25 0.83 per place 197 first choices 238 places 2025/26 0.99 per place 228 first choices 231 places 2026/27 0.92 per place 217 first choices 235 places
First preferences per place at Sydenham School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 217 first preferences for 235 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sydenham School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 238 152 130 0.64
2016/17 235 195 153 0.83
2017/18 240 286 182 1.19
2018/19 238 293 172 1.23
2019/20 237 265 183 1.12
2020/21 237 168 148 0.71
2021/22 237 188 159 0.79
2022/23 235 222 172 0.94
2023/24 238 239 181 1
2024/25 238 197 167 0.83
2025/26 231 228 177 0.99
2026/27 235 217 179 0.92

Places offered

235

in 2026/27

Named first choice

217

681 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

82.5%

179 of 217

Offers to families outside the council

21%

50 of 235 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

1,238

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,173

94.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

65

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

280

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 Sydenham 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 Sydenham School reported 65 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.7% 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 Sydenham School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,478 places 1,447 on roll 2010/11 1,435 places 1,422 on roll 2011/12 1,435 places 1,380 on roll 2012/13 1,435 places 1,357 on roll 2013/14 1,435 places 1,311 on roll 2014/15 1,435 places 1,320 on roll 2015/16 1,518 places 1,309 on roll 2016/17 1,518 places 1,334 on roll 2017/18 1,518 places 1,384 on roll 2018/19 1,518 places 1,403 on roll 2020/21 1,518 places 1,446 on roll 2021/22 1,518 places 1,454 on roll 2022/23 1,518 places 1,433 on roll 2023/24 1,518 places 1,435 on roll 2024/25 1,518 places 1,498 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
Lewisham

Postcode SE26 4RD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100741).

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.