School admission appeals in Merton
Merton heard 43 school admission appeals in 2026, and 10 of them were upheld. The figures below come from the Department for Education and cover every state-funded school in the authority — they describe Merton as a whole, not any single school.
Over the last three years the Merton success rate has run 3.2 percentage points lower than the England average of 19.4%.
of appeals heard in Merton were upheld
26 of 160 appeals heard in 2024–2026
2026 at a glance
Appeals lodged
90
by parents in Merton
Appeals heard by a panel
43
48% of those lodged
Appeals upheld
10
23.3% of those heard
England, same year
18.5%
6,414 of 34,711 heard
If your child is going into Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, read this first
100% of the primary appeals heard in Merton were infant class size appeals. These are a different kind of appeal with a much narrower test. A panel can only uphold one if the admission arrangements were unlawful, they were applied incorrectly, or the decision to refuse was one no reasonable authority would have made. How much your child wants the place, or how strong the school is, cannot come into it.
In Merton, 4% of infant class size appeals were upheld (1 of 25 appeals heard in 2024–2026) against 9.4% across England. That is far lower than other appeals, and it is the single most important thing to establish before you spend time on a case.
The three grounds one can be upheld on, and how to tell if yours is even an infant class size case →
What counts as grounds in Merton
The rules are national, so this part does not vary by council: a panel works through two fixed stages, and the Merton rate above tells you nothing about which arguments it can act on. Most appeals fail because the case put to the panel answers neither stage.
- Infant class size
- A mistake in how the decision was made
- Distance and catchment
- Siblings
- Faith and religious criteria
- Medical and social need
- Special educational needs without an EHC plan
- A late application
- In-year admissions
- Grammar schools and the 11-plus
- Sixth form places
- Twins and multiple births
Which appeals succeed in Merton
Secondary and primary appeals are judged on different tests, and the gap between them is usually wide. Pooling three years gives a steadier picture than any single year.
Vertical marker shows the England figure for the same phase.
View as a table
| Phase | Heard | Upheld | Rate | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary | 135 | 25 | 18.5% | 20.1% |
| Primary | 25 | 1 | 4% | 17.1% |
| Infant class size | 25 | 1 | 4% | 9.4% |
Infant class size appeals are counted within the primary figures, not added to them.
Appeals in Merton, 2016–2026
View as a table
| Year | Heard | Upheld | Merton | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 96 | 9 | 9.4% | 22.3% |
| 2017 | 68 | 3 | 4.4% | 21.8% |
| 2018 | 63 | 7 | 11.1% | 21.8% |
| 2019 | 102 | 16 | 15.7% | 22.2% |
| 2020 | 86 | 6 | 7% | 21.2% |
| 2021 | 45 | 2 | 4.4% | 19% |
| 2022 | 70 | 13 | 18.6% | 20.1% |
| 2023 | 50 | 7 | 14% | 19.8% |
| 2024 | 65 | 7 | 10.8% | 20% |
| 2025 | 52 | 9 | 17.3% | 19.4% |
| 2026 | 43 | 10 | 23.3% | 18.5% |
How Merton compares
Success rate ranking
90 of 151
English councils, ranked on the pooled 3-year success rate, LAs with 10+ appeals heard. Position 1 is the highest rate.
Appeal volume ranking
135 of 151
by number of appeals heard over the same period — 160 in total.
Success rates vary enormously between councils, from under 5% to over 50%. Some of that is real difference in how panels and admission authorities operate; some of it reflects which schools are oversubscribed and how many hopeless cases get lodged. A high local rate is not a prediction about your appeal.
Schools in Merton
Merton has 52 state-funded mainstream schools — 43 primary and 9 secondary. The largest concentrations are in London, Mitcham, Morden and Wimbledon.
What we can't tell you
Nobody publishes appeal outcomes school by school — the Department for Education collects returns from individual schools but only releases them added up to council level. Any site claiming to know your school's appeal odds is guessing. What matters far more than a local average is whether your particular grounds are ones a panel is allowed to act on.
Where places are hardest to get
What is published, school by school, is how many families applied and how many got in. These are the Merton schools with the most first choices for each place available in 2026/27 — the places where refusals, and so appeals, are concentrated. High demand does not mean an appeal is more likely to succeed; it means more families are refused.
See all 7 secondary and 16 primary schools in Merton →
| School | Places | First choices | Per place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ursuline High School Wimbledon | 206 | 254 | 1.23 |
| Wimbledon College | 194 | 188 | 0.97 |
| Harris Academy Merton | 236 | 220 | 0.93 |
| Harris Academy Wimbledon | 190 | 164 | 0.86 |
| Rutlish School | 260 | 195 | 0.75 |
| Ricards Lodge High School | 266 | 193 | 0.73 |
| Harris Academy Morden | 184 | 114 | 0.62 |
| School | Places | First choices | Per place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Merton Park Primary School | 30 | 74 | 2.47 |
| Bishop Gilpin CofE Primary School | 60 | 115 | 1.92 |
| Hollymount School | 60 | 92 | 1.53 |
| Wimbledon Park Primary School | 90 | 134 | 1.49 |
| St Mark's Primary School | 29 | 37 | 1.28 |
| Holy Trinity CofE Primary School | 60 | 76 | 1.27 |
| Malmesbury Primary School | 30 | 36 | 1.20 |
| Harris Primary Academy Merton | 60 | 66 | 1.10 |
| Dundonald Primary School | 60 | 64 | 1.07 |
| Park Academy | 30 | 32 | 1.07 |
Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27.
Admission rules challenged in Merton
Separately from appeals, anyone can object that a school's admission arrangements break the School Admissions Code. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator decides those objections and publishes a determination naming the school. Since 2011 it has reached a decision on 9 objections about schools in Merton, and found the arrangements did not comply in 1.
Too few to quote as a rate — the national figure is 68.3%.
| School or authority | Determined | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| London Borough of Merton local authority schools | 28 May 2026 | Complied |
| Harris Academy Wimbledon | 8 September 2022 | Complied |
| Garfield Primary School | 16 May 2022 | Complied |
| London borough of Merton local authority schools | 31 January 2022 | Did not comply |
| Dundonald Primary School | 15 July 2021 | Complied |
| Ricards Lodge High School | 24 June 2016 | Complied |
| Rutlish School | 24 June 2016 | Complied |
| Wimbledon Park Primary School | 1 August 2012 | Complied |
| Wimbledon Chase Primary School | 1 September 2011 | Complied |
Merton does not write the admission arrangements for every school in the table. Academies, foundation and voluntary aided schools are their own admission authority, so a finding against one of them is a finding about that school's governing body or trust, not about the council. An upheld objection also requires the arrangements to be revised, so an older determination describes rules that have since had to change.
How often admission rules are found not to comply, nationally →
Office of the Schools Adjudicator, published determinations, 2011–2026.