School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wanstead High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 60 families who named Wanstead High School as their first choice did not get a place: 228 put it first and 168 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.

60

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

228 first preferences for 232 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wanstead High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Wanstead 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

Wanstead 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 5 of those years. In the other 7 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 Wanstead High School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 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 0.82 per place 192 first choices 233 places 2016/17 0.82 per place 192 first choices 233 places 2017/18 1.04 per place 243 first choices 234 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 232 first choices 240 places 2019/20 1.12 per place 262 first choices 233 places 2020/21 0.96 per place 219 first choices 228 places 2021/22 1.1 per place 251 first choices 228 places 2022/23 0.86 per place 202 first choices 235 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 259 first choices 234 places 2024/25 1.15 per place 266 first choices 232 places 2025/26 0.99 per place 231 first choices 233 places 2026/27 0.98 per place 228 first choices 232 places
First preferences per place at Wanstead High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 228 first preferences for 232 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wanstead 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
2015/16 233 192 157 0.82
2016/17 233 192 164 0.82
2017/18 234 243 182 1.04
2018/19 240 232 187 0.97
2019/20 233 262 176 1.12
2020/21 228 219 175 0.96
2021/22 228 251 193 1.1
2022/23 235 202 176 0.86
2023/24 234 259 173 1.11
2024/25 232 266 182 1.15
2025/26 233 231 189 0.99
2026/27 232 228 168 0.98

Places offered

232

in 2026/27

Named first choice

228

765 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

73.7%

168 of 228

Offers to families outside the council

3%

8 of 232 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

1,097

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,192

108.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

95

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

400

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 Wanstead 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 Wanstead High School 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Wanstead High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,485 places 1,563 on roll 2010/11 1,485 places 1,558 on roll 2011/12 1,485 places 1,574 on roll 2012/13 1,555 places 1,561 on roll 2013/14 1,555 places 1,548 on roll 2014/15 1,555 places 1,555 on roll 2015/16 1,555 places 1,503 on roll 2016/17 1,555 places 1,490 on roll 2017/18 1,555 places 1,457 on roll 2018/19 1,555 places 1,389 on roll 2020/21 1,600 places 1,415 on roll 2021/22 1,600 places 1,448 on roll 2022/23 1,600 places 1,468 on roll 2023/24 1,600 places 1,456 on roll 2024/25 1,497 places 1,442 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 E11 2JZ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 102851).

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.