School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chadwell Heath Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 20 families who named Chadwell Heath Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 177 put it first and 157 of them were offered one.

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

20

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

177 first preferences for 178 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chadwell Heath Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Chadwell Heath 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

Chadwell Heath Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 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 Chadwell Heath Academy, 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 1.64 per place 285 first choices 174 places 2016/17 1.51 per place 265 first choices 175 places 2017/18 1.4 per place 240 first choices 172 places 2018/19 1.37 per place 248 first choices 181 places 2019/20 1.42 per place 255 first choices 179 places 2020/21 1.56 per place 285 first choices 183 places 2021/22 1.45 per place 256 first choices 176 places 2022/23 1.59 per place 279 first choices 176 places 2023/24 1.42 per place 256 first choices 180 places 2024/25 1.04 per place 183 first choices 176 places 2025/26 1.07 per place 195 first choices 183 places 2026/27 0.99 per place 177 first choices 178 places
First preferences per place at Chadwell Heath Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 177 first preferences for 178 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chadwell Heath Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 174 285 151 1.64
2016/17 175 265 157 1.51
2017/18 172 240 135 1.4
2018/19 181 248 151 1.37
2019/20 179 255 156 1.42
2020/21 183 285 154 1.56
2021/22 176 256 150 1.45
2022/23 176 279 162 1.59
2023/24 180 256 159 1.42
2024/25 176 183 146 1.04
2025/26 183 195 163 1.07
2026/27 178 177 157 0.99

Places offered

178

in 2026/27

Named first choice

177

464 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

88.7%

157 of 177

Offers to families outside the council

2%

4 of 178 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

921

102.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

21

reported as full or beyond

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 Chadwell Heath 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 Chadwell Heath Academy was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Chadwell Heath Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,250 places 1,272 on roll 2011/12 1,250 places 1,253 on roll 2012/13 1,183 places 1,250 on roll 2013/14 1,250 places 1,238 on roll 2014/15 1,250 places 1,235 on roll 2015/16 1,250 places 1,222 on roll 2016/17 1,250 places 1,225 on roll 2017/18 1,250 places 1,249 on roll 2018/19 1,250 places 1,255 on roll 2020/21 1,250 places 1,239 on roll 2021/22 1,250 places 1,214 on roll 2022/23 1,250 places 1,241 on roll 2023/24 1,250 places 1,231 on roll 2024/25 1,250 places 1,248 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
Redbridge

Postcode RM6 4RS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136267).

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.