School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Seven Kings School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 218 families who named Seven Kings School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 53 and 259 put it first.

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

4.89

first choices for every place available

259 first preferences for 53 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Seven Kings School

There is no published appeal success rate for Seven Kings 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 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

Seven Kings School 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 Seven Kings School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 1.9 3.8 5.6 7.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.13 per place 366 first choices 172 places 2016/17 1.87 per place 323 first choices 173 places 2017/18 1.89 per place 331 first choices 175 places 2018/19 1.94 per place 349 first choices 180 places 2019/20 2.08 per place 360 first choices 173 places 2020/21 2.15 per place 369 first choices 172 places 2021/22 2.24 per place 369 first choices 165 places 2022/23 7.19 per place 388 first choices 54 places 2023/24 6.38 per place 332 first choices 52 places 2024/25 6.06 per place 309 first choices 51 places 2025/26 5.55 per place 261 first choices 47 places 2026/27 4.89 per place 259 first choices 53 places
First preferences per place at Seven Kings School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 259 first preferences for 53 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Seven Kings School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 172 366 150 2.13
2016/17 173 323 142 1.87
2017/18 175 331 146 1.89
2018/19 180 349 150 1.94
2019/20 173 360 143 2.08
2020/21 172 369 145 2.15
2021/22 165 369 145 2.24
2022/23 54 388 51 7.19
2023/24 52 332 50 6.38
2024/25 51 309 50 6.06
2025/26 47 261 41 5.55
2026/27 53 259 41 4.89

Places offered

53

in 2026/27

Named first choice

259

1,445 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

15.8%

41 of 259

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 53 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

1,740

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,738

99.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

2

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

500

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 Seven Kings 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 Seven Kings School 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Seven Kings School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,150 2,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,321 places 1,414 on roll 2010/11 1,321 places 1,429 on roll 2011/12 1,321 places 1,429 on roll 2012/13 1,390 places 1,426 on roll 2013/14 1,390 places 1,391 on roll 2014/15 1,390 places 1,396 on roll 2015/16 2,230 places 1,511 on roll 2016/17 2,230 places 1,619 on roll 2017/18 2,230 places 1,776 on roll 2018/19 2,230 places 1,881 on roll 2020/21 2,240 places 2,080 on roll 2021/22 2,240 places 2,189 on roll 2022/23 2,240 places 2,225 on roll 2023/24 2,240 places 2,208 on roll 2024/25 2,240 places 2,197 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Redbridge

Postcode IG2 7BT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 102856).

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.