School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Larkmead School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 57 families who named Larkmead School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 164 and 191 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

191 first preferences for 164 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Larkmead School

There is no published appeal success rate for Larkmead 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 Oxfordshire 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 Oxfordshire, 43% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 238 of 553 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 Oxfordshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Oxfordshire 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

Larkmead School turned first-choice families away in 2 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Larkmead 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 0.85 per place 106 first choices 124 places 2016/17 0.98 per place 135 first choices 138 places 2017/18 0.84 per place 117 first choices 140 places 2018/19 0.94 per place 140 first choices 149 places 2019/20 0.75 per place 135 first choices 180 places 2020/21 0.85 per place 111 first choices 130 places 2021/22 0.95 per place 126 first choices 133 places 2022/23 0.87 per place 143 first choices 164 places 2023/24 0.94 per place 167 first choices 178 places 2024/25 0.92 per place 153 first choices 167 places 2025/26 1.09 per place 188 first choices 172 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 191 first choices 164 places
First preferences per place at Larkmead School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 191 first preferences for 164 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Larkmead School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 124 106 106 0.85
2016/17 138 135 135 0.98
2017/18 140 117 117 0.84
2018/19 149 140 140 0.94
2019/20 180 135 135 0.75
2020/21 130 111 111 0.85
2021/22 133 126 126 0.95
2022/23 164 143 143 0.87
2023/24 178 167 163 0.94
2024/25 167 153 153 0.92
2025/26 172 188 163 1.09
2026/27 164 191 134 1.16

Places offered

164

in 2026/27

Named first choice

191

517 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.2%

134 of 191

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 164 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 123255.

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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

811

90.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

89

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

160

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 Larkmead 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 Larkmead School reported 89 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 90.1% 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 Larkmead School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,017 places 986 on roll 2010/11 1,017 places 1,060 on roll 2011/12 1,039 places 902 on roll 2012/13 1,038 places 899 on roll 2013/14 1,042 places 860 on roll 2014/15 1,040 places 833 on roll 2015/16 1,060 places 789 on roll 2016/17 1,060 places 780 on roll 2017/18 1,060 places 726 on roll 2018/19 1,060 places 761 on roll 2020/21 1,060 places 843 on roll 2021/22 1,060 places 820 on roll 2022/23 1,060 places 863 on roll 2023/24 1,060 places 917 on roll 2024/25 1,060 places 938 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
Oxfordshire

Postcode OX14 1RF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 143890).

Other contested secondary schools in Oxfordshire

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.