School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Valentines High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 138 families who named Valentines High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 280 put it first.

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

1.64

first choices for every place available

280 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Valentines High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Valentines High 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

Valentines High School 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 Valentines High School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.21 per place 215 first choices 178 places 2016/17 1.25 per place 223 first choices 179 places 2017/18 0.96 per place 168 first choices 175 places 2018/19 1.53 per place 275 first choices 180 places 2019/20 1.47 per place 258 first choices 176 places 2020/21 1.44 per place 257 first choices 178 places 2021/22 1.41 per place 239 first choices 170 places 2022/23 1.46 per place 259 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.6 per place 284 first choices 178 places 2024/25 2.13 per place 366 first choices 172 places 2025/26 1.71 per place 290 first choices 170 places 2026/27 1.64 per place 280 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at Valentines High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 280 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Valentines High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 178 215 115 1.21
2016/17 179 223 129 1.25
2017/18 175 168 111 0.96
2018/19 180 275 127 1.53
2019/20 176 258 130 1.47
2020/21 178 257 123 1.44
2021/22 170 239 127 1.41
2022/23 177 259 138 1.46
2023/24 178 284 140 1.6
2024/25 172 366 141 2.13
2025/26 170 290 135 1.71
2026/27 171 280 142 1.64

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

280

1,236 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

50.7%

142 of 280

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 170 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

990

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

884

89.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

106

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

360

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 Valentines High 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 Valentines High School reported 106 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 89.3% 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 Valentines High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,193 places 1,253 on roll 2010/11 1,223 places 1,291 on roll 2011/12 1,223 places 1,307 on roll 2012/13 1,235 places 1,297 on roll 2013/14 1,235 places 1,312 on roll 2014/15 1,235 places 1,299 on roll 2015/16 1,235 places 1,281 on roll 2016/17 1,235 places 1,292 on roll 2017/18 1,235 places 1,247 on roll 2018/19 1,235 places 1,255 on roll 2020/21 1,260 places 1,315 on roll 2021/22 1,260 places 1,346 on roll 2022/23 1,260 places 1,336 on roll 2023/24 1,350 places 1,338 on roll 2024/25 1,350 places 1,325 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 6HX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 102857).

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.