Contested schools in Portsmouth

These are the Portsmouth schools that turned first-choice families away in at least one of the last three years — either because more families named them first than they had places, or because they refused families who named them first anyway. Figures shown are for 2026/27. Demand is not a forecast: an oversubscribed school turns more families away, which is not the same as their appeals succeeding more often.

Appeal success rates for Portsmouth

Secondary schools (5)

Each has its own page with a 12-year demand history.

Contested secondary schools in Portsmouth, 2026/27
School	Places	First choices	Per place
St Edmund's Catholic School	238	416	1.75
Priory School	264	320	1.21
Admiral Lord Nelson School	248	288	1.16
Mayfield School	110	114	1.04
Trafalgar School	224	192	0.86

Primary schools (17)

Primary schools are listed here as figures rather than pages. Most refusals at the Reception intake are infant class size cases, where a panel can only act on three narrow grounds and fewer than one in ten appeals succeeds — so the honest thing to publish is the data, not a page inviting an appeal.

Contested primary schools in Portsmouth, 2026/27
School	Places	First choices	Per place
St John's Cathedral Catholic Primary School	30	47	1.57
Westover Primary School	30	37	1.23
St Swithun's Catholic Primary School	45	55	1.22
Langstone Primary Academy	90	105	1.17
Cumberland Infant School	60	69	1.15
Highbury Primary School	60	68	1.13
Solent Infant School	90	102	1.13
The Victory Primary School	29	31	1.07
Gatcombe Park Primary School	29	30	1.03
Moorings Way Infant School	30	31	1.03
New Horizons Primary School	60	62	1.03
Wimborne Primary School	70	72	1.03
St Jude's CofE Primary School	60	58	0.97
Stamshaw Infant Academy	79	77	0.97
Ark Ayrton Primary Academy	58	53	0.91
Bramble Infant School and Nursery	38	33	0.87
Medina Primary School	25	21	0.84

Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal outcomes are not published for individual schools — how we source and calculate the figures.