School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Putteridge High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 53 families who named Putteridge High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 234 and 274 put it first.

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

1.17

first choices for every place available

274 first preferences for 234 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Putteridge High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Putteridge High 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 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

Putteridge High School turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Putteridge High 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 0.67 per place 103 first choices 153 places 2016/17 0.49 per place 87 first choices 177 places 2017/18 0.74 per place 132 first choices 178 places 2018/19 0.83 per place 137 first choices 166 places 2019/20 0.81 per place 188 first choices 232 places 2020/21 0.78 per place 186 first choices 238 places 2021/22 0.86 per place 203 first choices 236 places 2022/23 1.07 per place 252 first choices 236 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 252 first choices 240 places 2024/25 1.03 per place 244 first choices 238 places 2025/26 1.14 per place 268 first choices 235 places 2026/27 1.17 per place 274 first choices 234 places
First preferences per place at Putteridge High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 274 first preferences for 234 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Putteridge High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 153 103 103 0.67
2016/17 177 87 87 0.49
2017/18 178 132 131 0.74
2018/19 166 137 137 0.83
2019/20 232 188 188 0.81
2020/21 238 186 181 0.78
2021/22 236 203 203 0.86
2022/23 236 252 218 1.07
2023/24 240 252 219 1.05
2024/25 238 244 222 1.03
2025/26 235 268 220 1.14
2026/27 234 274 221 1.17

Places offered

234

in 2026/27

Named first choice

274

503 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

80.7%

221 of 274

Offers to families outside the council

2%

5 of 234 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 109685.

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

1,215

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,191

98% of capacity

Unfilled places

24

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 Putteridge High 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 Putteridge High School reported 24 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98% 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 Putteridge High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,215 places 894 on roll 2010/11 1,215 places 865 on roll 2011/12 1,215 places 771 on roll 2012/13 1,215 places 689 on roll 2013/14 1,215 places 627 on roll 2014/15 1,215 places 588 on roll 2015/16 1,215 places 637 on roll 2016/17 1,215 places 736 on roll 2017/18 1,215 places 762 on roll 2018/19 1,215 places 815 on roll 2020/21 1,215 places 1,019 on roll 2021/22 1,215 places 1,076 on roll 2022/23 1,215 places 1,124 on roll 2023/24 1,215 places 1,201 on roll 2024/25 1,215 places 1,191 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
Luton

Postcode LU2 8HJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144311).

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.