School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 74 families who named Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 149 and 172 put it first.

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

1.15

first choices for every place available

172 first preferences for 149 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary School

There is no published appeal success rate for Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary 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 Richmond upon Thames 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 Richmond upon Thames, 15.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 21 of 139 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 Richmond upon Thames.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Richmond upon Thames 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

Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary 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 Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary 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 0.71 per place 117 first choices 164 places 2016/17 1.13 per place 163 first choices 144 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 142 first choices 147 places 2018/19 0.99 per place 143 first choices 145 places 2019/20 0.86 per place 179 first choices 209 places 2020/21 1.4 per place 207 first choices 148 places 2021/22 0.95 per place 168 first choices 176 places 2022/23 1.01 per place 174 first choices 173 places 2023/24 0.99 per place 190 first choices 192 places 2024/25 1.16 per place 187 first choices 161 places 2025/26 0.99 per place 143 first choices 144 places 2026/27 1.15 per place 172 first choices 149 places
First preferences per place at Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 172 first preferences for 149 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 164 117 90 0.71
2016/17 144 163 103 1.13
2017/18 147 142 84 0.97
2018/19 145 143 91 0.99
2019/20 209 179 112 0.86
2020/21 148 207 90 1.4
2021/22 176 168 95 0.95
2022/23 173 174 109 1.01
2023/24 192 190 128 0.99
2024/25 161 187 102 1.16
2025/26 144 143 75 0.99
2026/27 149 172 98 1.15

Places offered

149

in 2026/27

Named first choice

172

730 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

57%

98 of 172

Offers to families outside the council

22%

33 of 149 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

810

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

867

107% of capacity

Over its capacity by

57

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

150

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 Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary 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 Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary 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 Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 623 places 581 on roll 2010/11 623 places 590 on roll 2011/12 600 places 596 on roll 2012/13 600 places 586 on roll 2013/14 750 places 617 on roll 2014/15 750 places 700 on roll 2015/16 750 places 762 on roll 2016/17 750 places 802 on roll 2017/18 930 places 854 on roll 2018/19 930 places 888 on roll 2020/21 960 places 918 on roll 2021/22 960 places 970 on roll 2022/23 960 places 1,032 on roll 2023/24 960 places 1,047 on roll 2024/25 960 places 1,036 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.

This school's admission rules have been challenged

Separately from appeals, anyone can object that a school's admission arrangements break the School Admissions Code. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator decides those objections and publishes a determination naming the school. Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary School has been the subject of one such determination. The adjudicator found its arrangements did not comply with the Code.

Adjudicator determinations naming Christ's Church of England Comprehensive Secondary School. Each links to the full determination on GOV.UK.
Determined Outcome Determination
7 October 2022 Arrangements did not comply ADA3979

This is not a prediction about your appeal. An objection is about the rules the school admits by; an appeal is your case about your child. No school-level appeal figures are published for any school in England, and a determination does not create any. An upheld objection also requires the school to revise its arrangements, so a finding from an earlier year describes rules that had to change — what matters for your appeal is the arrangements for the year you applied under, and whether they were applied to you correctly.

When a mistake in the process is a ground for appeal →

Office of the Schools Adjudicator, published determinations.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Richmond upon Thames

Postcode TW10 6HW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 102929).

Other contested secondary schools in Richmond upon Thames

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.