School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Harris Academy Chobham?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 39 families who named Harris Academy Chobham as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 113 and 122 put it first.

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

1.08

first choices for every place available

122 first preferences for 113 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Harris Academy Chobham

There is no published appeal success rate for Harris Academy Chobham, 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

Harris Academy Chobham turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Harris Academy Chobham, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.9 1.8 2.6 3.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 3.05 per place 384 first choices 126 places 2016/17 3.29 per place 342 first choices 104 places 2017/18 2.31 per place 215 first choices 93 places 2018/19 1.35 per place 268 first choices 198 places 2019/20 1.62 per place 186 first choices 115 places 2020/21 1.69 per place 200 first choices 118 places 2021/22 1.91 per place 221 first choices 116 places 2022/23 1.81 per place 208 first choices 115 places 2023/24 1.68 per place 197 first choices 117 places 2024/25 1.69 per place 189 first choices 112 places 2025/26 1.58 per place 190 first choices 120 places 2026/27 1.08 per place 122 first choices 113 places
First preferences per place at Harris Academy Chobham. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 122 first preferences for 113 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Harris Academy Chobham, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 126 384 114 3.05
2016/17 104 342 92 3.29
2017/18 93 215 77 2.31
2018/19 198 268 167 1.35
2019/20 115 186 95 1.62
2020/21 118 200 91 1.69
2021/22 116 221 100 1.91
2022/23 115 208 103 1.81
2023/24 117 197 92 1.68
2024/25 112 189 87 1.69
2025/26 120 190 104 1.58
2026/27 113 122 83 1.08

Places offered

113

in 2026/27

Named first choice

122

656 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

68%

83 of 122

Offers to families outside the council

50%

57 of 113 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

1,680

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,669

99.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

11

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

360

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 Harris Academy Chobham 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 Harris Academy Chobham reported 11 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Harris Academy Chobham from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,050 2,100 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 1,530 places 822 on roll 2014/15 1,830 places 1,436 on roll 2015/16 1,880 places 1,618 on roll 2016/17 1,880 places 1,685 on roll 2017/18 1,880 places 1,806 on roll 2018/19 1,880 places 1,848 on roll 2020/21 1,880 places 1,903 on roll 2021/22 2,040 places 1,973 on roll 2022/23 2,040 places 1,991 on roll 2023/24 2,040 places 1,997 on roll 2024/25 2,040 places 2,005 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
Newham

Postcode E20 1BD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 139703).

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.