School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Shenley Brook End School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 31 families who named Shenley Brook End School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 296 and 298 put it first.

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

1.01

first choices for every place available

298 first preferences for 296 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Shenley Brook End School

There is no published appeal success rate for Shenley Brook End 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 Milton Keynes 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 Milton Keynes, 11.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 62 of 532 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 Milton Keynes.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Milton Keynes 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

Shenley Brook End School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 of those years. In the other 5 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 Shenley Brook End 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 1.05 per place 301 first choices 286 places 2016/17 0.99 per place 292 first choices 294 places 2017/18 1.22 per place 364 first choices 299 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 288 first choices 299 places 2019/20 1.02 per place 305 first choices 299 places 2020/21 1.01 per place 303 first choices 300 places 2021/22 0.98 per place 293 first choices 300 places 2022/23 0.92 per place 268 first choices 292 places 2023/24 0.97 per place 287 first choices 297 places 2024/25 1 per place 291 first choices 291 places 2025/26 0.77 per place 227 first choices 296 places 2026/27 1.01 per place 298 first choices 296 places
First preferences per place at Shenley Brook End School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 298 first preferences for 296 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Shenley Brook End School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 286 301 269 1.05
2016/17 294 292 262 0.99
2017/18 299 364 280 1.22
2018/19 299 288 251 0.96
2019/20 299 305 242 1.02
2020/21 300 303 258 1.01
2021/22 300 293 248 0.98
2022/23 292 268 231 0.92
2023/24 297 287 246 0.97
2024/25 291 291 264 1
2025/26 296 227 227 0.77
2026/27 296 298 267 1.01

Places offered

296

in 2026/27

Named first choice

298

852 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.6%

267 of 298

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 296 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

1,504

100.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

4

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

400

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 Shenley Brook End 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 Shenley Brook End School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Shenley Brook End School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,485 places 1,481 on roll 2011/12 1,577 places 1,503 on roll 2012/13 1,577 places 1,510 on roll 2013/14 1,577 places 1,518 on roll 2014/15 1,577 places 1,546 on roll 2015/16 1,900 places 1,580 on roll 2016/17 1,900 places 1,600 on roll 2017/18 1,900 places 1,652 on roll 2018/19 1,900 places 1,685 on roll 2020/21 1,900 places 1,835 on roll 2021/22 1,900 places 1,870 on roll 2022/23 1,900 places 1,866 on roll 2023/24 1,900 places 1,882 on roll 2024/25 1,900 places 1,881 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
Milton Keynes

Postcode MK5 7ZT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136730).

Other contested secondary schools in Milton Keynes

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.