School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Chalk Hills Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 31 families who named The Chalk Hills Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 290 and 308 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

308 first preferences for 290 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Chalk Hills Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for The Chalk Hills 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

The Chalk Hills Academy turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 1 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 The Chalk Hills Academy, 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 0.98 per place 252 first choices 256 places 2016/17 0.9 per place 209 first choices 233 places 2017/18 0.85 per place 211 first choices 248 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 217 first choices 227 places 2019/20 0.81 per place 217 first choices 267 places 2020/21 0.91 per place 239 first choices 262 places 2021/22 0.91 per place 232 first choices 256 places 2022/23 1.13 per place 278 first choices 245 places 2023/24 1.02 per place 255 first choices 250 places 2024/25 0.99 per place 239 first choices 242 places 2025/26 1.01 per place 249 first choices 247 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 308 first choices 290 places
First preferences per place at The Chalk Hills Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 308 first preferences for 290 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Chalk Hills Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 256 252 222 0.98
2016/17 233 209 200 0.9
2017/18 248 211 211 0.85
2018/19 227 217 201 0.96
2019/20 267 217 216 0.81
2020/21 262 239 230 0.91
2021/22 256 232 231 0.91
2022/23 245 278 231 1.13
2023/24 250 255 226 1.02
2024/25 242 239 216 0.99
2025/26 247 249 237 1.01
2026/27 290 308 277 1.06

Places offered

290

in 2026/27

Named first choice

308

569 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.9%

277 of 308

Offers to families outside the council

17%

50 of 290 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

1,500

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,492

99.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

8

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

250

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 The Chalk Hills 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 The Chalk Hills Academy reported 8 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.5% 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 The Chalk Hills Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,600 places 903 on roll 2010/11 1,450 places 1,009 on roll 2011/12 1,450 places 1,138 on roll 2012/13 1,450 places 1,266 on roll 2013/14 1,450 places 1,368 on roll 2014/15 1,450 places 1,390 on roll 2015/16 1,450 places 1,416 on roll 2016/17 1,450 places 1,419 on roll 2017/18 1,480 places 1,374 on roll 2018/19 1,480 places 1,339 on roll 2020/21 1,750 places 1,487 on roll 2021/22 1,750 places 1,541 on roll 2022/23 1,750 places 1,581 on roll 2023/24 1,750 places 1,614 on roll 2024/25 1,750 places 1,612 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
Luton

Postcode LU4 0NE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135337).

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.