School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 57 families who named St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 192 and 200 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.

1.04

first choices for every place available

200 first preferences for 192 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Richard Reynolds Catholic 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 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

St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at St Richard Reynolds Catholic 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 1.13 per place 169 first choices 149 places 2016/17 1.58 per place 230 first choices 146 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 158 first choices 148 places 2018/19 1.58 per place 235 first choices 149 places 2019/20 1.5 per place 220 first choices 147 places 2020/21 1.03 per place 181 first choices 175 places 2021/22 1.23 per place 217 first choices 176 places 2022/23 1.36 per place 233 first choices 171 places 2023/24 1.07 per place 207 first choices 193 places 2024/25 1.25 per place 239 first choices 191 places 2025/26 1.09 per place 219 first choices 200 places 2026/27 1.04 per place 200 first choices 192 places
First preferences per place at St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 200 first preferences for 192 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Richard Reynolds Catholic 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
2015/16 149 169 123 1.13
2016/17 146 230 123 1.58
2017/18 148 158 122 1.07
2018/19 149 235 129 1.58
2019/20 147 220 112 1.5
2020/21 175 181 136 1.03
2021/22 176 217 139 1.23
2022/23 171 233 145 1.36
2023/24 193 207 153 1.07
2024/25 191 239 164 1.25
2025/26 200 219 157 1.09
2026/27 192 200 143 1.04

Places offered

192

in 2026/27

Named first choice

200

987 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

71.5%

143 of 200

Offers to families outside the council

15%

28 of 192 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 139121.

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

895

99.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

5

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

180

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 St Richard Reynolds Catholic 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 St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School reported 5 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.4% 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 750 places 125 on roll 2014/15 750 places 281 on roll 2015/16 750 places 439 on roll 2016/17 750 places 594 on roll 2017/18 900 places 741 on roll 2018/19 800 places 789 on roll 2020/21 1,080 places 971 on roll 2021/22 1,080 places 1,018 on roll 2022/23 1,080 places 1,085 on roll 2023/24 1,080 places 1,111 on roll 2024/25 1,080 places 1,140 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 converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Richmond upon Thames

Postcode TW1 4LT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149297).

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.