School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ursuline High School Wimbledon?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 88 families who named Ursuline High School Wimbledon as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 206 and 254 put it first.

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

1.23

first choices for every place available

254 first preferences for 206 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ursuline High School Wimbledon

There is no published appeal success rate for Ursuline High School Wimbledon, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Merton 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 Merton, 18.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 25 of 135 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 Merton.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Merton 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

Ursuline High School Wimbledon turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 10 of those years. In the other 2 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 Ursuline High School Wimbledon, 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 1.25 per place 259 first choices 207 places 2016/17 1.3 per place 261 first choices 201 places 2017/18 1.46 per place 299 first choices 205 places 2018/19 1.71 per place 355 first choices 208 places 2019/20 1.65 per place 345 first choices 209 places 2020/21 1.29 per place 292 first choices 226 places 2021/22 1.18 per place 280 first choices 238 places 2022/23 1.16 per place 275 first choices 238 places 2023/24 0.97 per place 238 first choices 245 places 2024/25 0.94 per place 219 first choices 233 places 2025/26 1.14 per place 235 first choices 207 places 2026/27 1.23 per place 254 first choices 206 places
First preferences per place at Ursuline High School Wimbledon. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 254 first preferences for 206 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ursuline High School Wimbledon, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 207 259 151 1.25
2016/17 201 261 170 1.3
2017/18 205 299 172 1.46
2018/19 208 355 175 1.71
2019/20 209 345 179 1.65
2020/21 226 292 189 1.29
2021/22 238 280 201 1.18
2022/23 238 275 211 1.16
2023/24 245 238 195 0.97
2024/25 233 219 184 0.94
2025/26 207 235 169 1.14
2026/27 206 254 166 1.23

Places offered

206

in 2026/27

Named first choice

254

842 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.4%

166 of 254

Offers to families outside the council

50%

104 of 206 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 102683.

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

1,149

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,062

92.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

87

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

344

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 Ursuline High School Wimbledon 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 Ursuline High School Wimbledon reported 87 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 92.4% 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 Ursuline High School Wimbledon from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,386 places 1,306 on roll 2010/11 1,390 places 1,330 on roll 2011/12 1,390 places 1,316 on roll 2012/13 1,340 places 1,307 on roll 2013/14 1,341 places 1,344 on roll 2014/15 1,397 places 1,381 on roll 2015/16 1,397 places 1,364 on roll 2016/17 1,397 places 1,359 on roll 2017/18 1,390 places 1,351 on roll 2018/19 1,386 places 1,389 on roll 2020/21 1,386 places 1,383 on roll 2021/22 1,394 places 1,406 on roll 2022/23 1,394 places 1,392 on roll 2023/24 1,394 places 1,384 on roll 2024/25 1,493 places 1,383 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Merton

Postcode SW20 8HA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 151350).

Other contested secondary schools in Merton

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.