School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Woodbridge High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 138 families who named Woodbridge High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 288 and 395 put it first.

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

1.37

first choices for every place available

395 first preferences for 288 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Woodbridge High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Woodbridge 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

Woodbridge High School turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 of those years. In the other 2 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 Woodbridge 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 0.76 per place 225 first choices 296 places 2016/17 0.76 per place 226 first choices 296 places 2017/18 0.8 per place 228 first choices 286 places 2018/19 0.7 per place 234 first choices 332 places 2019/20 0.99 per place 296 first choices 299 places 2020/21 1 per place 291 first choices 291 places 2021/22 1 per place 286 first choices 285 places 2022/23 1.11 per place 323 first choices 290 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 324 first choices 291 places 2024/25 1.3 per place 378 first choices 291 places 2025/26 1.36 per place 397 first choices 291 places 2026/27 1.37 per place 395 first choices 288 places
First preferences per place at Woodbridge High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 395 first preferences for 288 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Woodbridge 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
2015/16 296 225 213 0.76
2016/17 296 226 225 0.76
2017/18 286 228 217 0.8
2018/19 332 234 233 0.7
2019/20 299 296 240 0.99
2020/21 291 291 243 1
2021/22 285 286 242 1
2022/23 290 323 247 1.11
2023/24 291 324 258 1.11
2024/25 291 378 260 1.3
2025/26 291 397 263 1.36
2026/27 288 395 257 1.37

Places offered

288

in 2026/27

Named first choice

395

1,127 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.1%

257 of 395

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 288 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

1,500

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,494

99.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

6

across Years 7 to 11

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 Woodbridge 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 Woodbridge High School reported 6 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.6% 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 Woodbridge High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,000 2,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,440 places 1,533 on roll 2010/11 1,440 places 1,572 on roll 2011/12 1,440 places 1,551 on roll 2012/13 1,565 places 1,544 on roll 2013/14 1,565 places 1,558 on roll 2014/15 1,985 places 1,614 on roll 2015/16 1,985 places 1,618 on roll 2016/17 1,985 places 1,650 on roll 2017/18 1,985 places 1,710 on roll 2018/19 1,985 places 1,795 on roll 2020/21 1,900 places 1,874 on roll 2021/22 1,900 places 1,876 on roll 2022/23 1,900 places 1,854 on roll 2023/24 1,900 places 1,928 on roll 2024/25 1,900 places 1,995 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 IG8 7DQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 102854).

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.