School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chiltern Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 68 families who named Chiltern Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 228 and 272 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Luton actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 8 years of official figures.

1.19

first choices for every place available

272 first preferences for 228 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chiltern Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Chiltern Academy, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Luton 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 Luton, 10.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 63 of 579 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 Luton.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Luton 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

Chiltern Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 8 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 Chiltern Academy, 2019/20 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 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2019/20 1.1 per place 259 first choices 236 places 2020/21 1.62 per place 369 first choices 228 places 2021/22 1.42 per place 336 first choices 236 places 2022/23 1.57 per place 364 first choices 232 places 2023/24 1.36 per place 319 first choices 235 places 2024/25 1.56 per place 363 first choices 232 places 2025/26 1.31 per place 305 first choices 233 places 2026/27 1.19 per place 272 first choices 228 places
First preferences per place at Chiltern Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 272 first preferences for 228 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chiltern Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2019/20 236 259 189 1.1
2020/21 228 369 208 1.62
2021/22 236 336 213 1.42
2022/23 232 364 208 1.57
2023/24 235 319 206 1.36
2024/25 232 363 224 1.56
2025/26 233 305 209 1.31
2026/27 228 272 204 1.19

Places offered

228

in 2026/27

Named first choice

272

652 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

75%

204 of 272

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 228 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

1,200

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,180

98.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

20

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 Chiltern Academy 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 Chiltern Academy reported 20 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.3% 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, 2018/19 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Chiltern Academy from 2018/19 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2018/19 1,200 places 211 on roll 2020/21 1,200 places 688 on roll 2021/22 1,200 places 920 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 1,157 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 1,193 on roll 2024/25 1,200 places 1,180 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Luton

Postcode LU1 3GF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145872).

Other contested secondary schools in Luton

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.