School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ark Isaac Newton Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 120 families who named Ark Isaac Newton Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 83 and 181 put it first.

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

2.18

first choices for every place available

181 first preferences for 83 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ark Isaac Newton Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Ark Isaac Newton Academy, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Redbridge 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 Redbridge, 7.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 45 of 567 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 Redbridge.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Redbridge 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

Ark Isaac Newton Academy 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 Ark Isaac Newton Academy, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.54 per place 267 first choices 173 places 2016/17 1.64 per place 290 first choices 177 places 2017/18 1.45 per place 253 first choices 174 places 2018/19 1.59 per place 281 first choices 177 places 2019/20 1.73 per place 295 first choices 171 places 2020/21 1.82 per place 314 first choices 173 places 2021/22 2.73 per place 221 first choices 81 places 2022/23 2.78 per place 250 first choices 90 places 2023/24 2.56 per place 218 first choices 85 places 2024/25 2.69 per place 234 first choices 87 places 2025/26 2.53 per place 210 first choices 83 places 2026/27 2.18 per place 181 first choices 83 places
First preferences per place at Ark Isaac Newton Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 181 first preferences for 83 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ark Isaac Newton Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 173 267 136 1.54
2016/17 177 290 152 1.64
2017/18 174 253 142 1.45
2018/19 177 281 143 1.59
2019/20 171 295 137 1.73
2020/21 173 314 140 1.82
2021/22 81 221 72 2.73
2022/23 90 250 74 2.78
2023/24 85 218 66 2.56
2024/25 87 234 71 2.69
2025/26 83 210 68 2.53
2026/27 83 181 61 2.18

Places offered

83

in 2026/27

Named first choice

181

991 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

33.7%

61 of 181

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 83 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

1,530

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,528

99.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

2

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

350

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 Ark Isaac Newton Academy 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 Ark Isaac Newton Academy reported 2 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.9% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ark Isaac Newton Academy from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,250 places 180 on roll 2013/14 1,250 places 359 on roll 2014/15 1,880 places 628 on roll 2015/16 1,880 places 897 on roll 2016/17 1,880 places 1,161 on roll 2017/18 1,880 places 1,345 on roll 2018/19 1,880 places 1,549 on roll 2020/21 1,880 places 1,754 on roll 2021/22 1,880 places 1,753 on roll 2022/23 1,880 places 1,759 on roll 2023/24 1,880 places 1,744 on roll 2024/25 1,880 places 1,750 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
Redbridge

Postcode IG1 1FY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138518).

Other contested secondary schools in Redbridge

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.