School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Forest Gate Community School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 79 families who named Forest Gate Community School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 260 and 313 put it first.

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

1.20

first choices for every place available

313 first preferences for 260 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Forest Gate Community School

There is no published appeal success rate for Forest Gate Community 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 Newham 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 Newham, 3.8% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 24 of 626 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 Newham.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Newham 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

Forest Gate Community School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 9 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 Forest Gate Community 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 0.57 per place 132 first choices 233 places 2016/17 0.59 per place 144 first choices 245 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 231 first choices 239 places 2018/19 1.34 per place 322 first choices 240 places 2019/20 1.24 per place 333 first choices 268 places 2020/21 1.57 per place 415 first choices 265 places 2021/22 1.48 per place 405 first choices 273 places 2022/23 1.63 per place 436 first choices 267 places 2023/24 1.56 per place 416 first choices 266 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 326 first choices 258 places 2025/26 1.21 per place 319 first choices 263 places 2026/27 1.2 per place 313 first choices 260 places
First preferences per place at Forest Gate Community School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 313 first preferences for 260 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Forest Gate Community School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 233 132 132 0.57
2016/17 245 144 144 0.59
2017/18 239 231 190 0.97
2018/19 240 322 216 1.34
2019/20 268 333 240 1.24
2020/21 265 415 239 1.57
2021/22 273 405 243 1.48
2022/23 267 436 251 1.63
2023/24 266 416 247 1.56
2024/25 258 326 233 1.26
2025/26 263 319 234 1.21
2026/27 260 313 234 1.2

Places offered

260

in 2026/27

Named first choice

313

1,322 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

74.8%

234 of 313

Offers to families outside the council

4%

11 of 260 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 102775.

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

1,350

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,340

99.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

10

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 Forest Gate Community 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 Forest Gate Community School reported 10 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.3% 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 Forest Gate Community School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,050 places 1,015 on roll 2010/11 1,050 places 1,067 on roll 2011/12 1,050 places 1,033 on roll 2012/13 1,050 places 1,045 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 1,032 on roll 2014/15 1,050 places 1,029 on roll 2015/16 1,050 places 1,027 on roll 2016/17 1,050 places 1,065 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 1,097 on roll 2018/19 1,140 places 1,123 on roll 2020/21 1,350 places 1,240 on roll 2021/22 1,350 places 1,280 on roll 2022/23 1,350 places 1,315 on roll 2023/24 1,350 places 1,343 on roll 2024/25 1,350 places 1,340 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
Newham

Postcode E7 9BB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 143274).

Other contested secondary schools in Newham

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.