School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Hampton High?

In 2026/27, Hampton High offered 180 places and 95 families named it as their first choice.

Below: what an appeal in Richmond upon Thames actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 10 years of official figures.

0.53

first choices for every place available

95 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Hampton High

There is no published appeal success rate for Hampton High, 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

Hampton High turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 10 years. More families named it first than it had places in 2 of those years. In the other 4 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 Hampton High, 2017/18 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 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2017/18 0.55 per place 96 first choices 176 places 2018/19 0.55 per place 97 first choices 175 places 2019/20 0.92 per place 161 first choices 175 places 2020/21 0.92 per place 160 first choices 174 places 2021/22 1.03 per place 181 first choices 176 places 2022/23 1.21 per place 207 first choices 171 places 2023/24 0.95 per place 165 first choices 174 places 2024/25 0.72 per place 123 first choices 172 places 2025/26 0.52 per place 92 first choices 178 places 2026/27 0.53 per place 95 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at Hampton High. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 95 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Hampton High, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2017/18 176 96 96 0.55
2018/19 175 97 97 0.55
2019/20 175 161 125 0.92
2020/21 174 160 124 0.92
2021/22 176 181 129 1.03
2022/23 171 207 135 1.21
2023/24 174 165 138 0.95
2024/25 172 123 109 0.72
2025/26 178 92 92 0.52
2026/27 180 95 95 0.53

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

95

370 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

95 of 95

Offers to families outside the council

52%

87 of 166 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

875

97.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

25

across Years 7 to 11

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 Hampton High 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 Hampton High reported 25 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.2% 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, 2016/17 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Hampton High from 2016/17 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 16/17 17/18 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2016/17 975 places 668 on roll 2017/18 1,060 places 632 on roll 2018/19 1,060 places 669 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 788 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 859 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 881 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 876 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 875 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
Academy sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Richmond upon Thames

Postcode TW12 3HB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 143419).

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.