School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Teddington School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 27 families who named Teddington School as their first choice did not get a place: 139 put it first and 112 of them were offered one.

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

27

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

139 first preferences for 260 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Teddington School

There is no published appeal success rate for Teddington 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

Teddington School turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 12 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 Teddington 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 1.39 per place 320 first choices 230 places 2016/17 1.07 per place 251 first choices 234 places 2017/18 0.95 per place 226 first choices 238 places 2018/19 1 per place 235 first choices 235 places 2019/20 0.47 per place 123 first choices 262 places 2020/21 0.52 per place 124 first choices 240 places 2021/22 0.54 per place 128 first choices 235 places 2022/23 0.45 per place 118 first choices 263 places 2023/24 0.58 per place 152 first choices 263 places 2024/25 0.66 per place 172 first choices 260 places 2025/26 0.62 per place 162 first choices 260 places 2026/27 0.53 per place 139 first choices 260 places
First preferences per place at Teddington School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 139 first preferences for 260 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Teddington School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 230 320 212 1.39
2016/17 234 251 200 1.07
2017/18 238 226 190 0.95
2018/19 235 235 173 1
2019/20 262 123 111 0.47
2020/21 240 124 116 0.52
2021/22 235 128 119 0.54
2022/23 263 118 116 0.45
2023/24 263 152 148 0.58
2024/25 260 172 155 0.66
2025/26 260 162 141 0.62
2026/27 260 139 112 0.53

Places offered

260

in 2026/27

Named first choice

139

1,037 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

80.6%

112 of 139

Offers to families outside the council

33%

87 of 260 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

1,200

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,163

96.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

37

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 Teddington 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 Teddington School reported 37 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.9% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Teddington School from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,200 places 1,157 on roll 2013/14 1,200 places 1,175 on roll 2014/15 1,200 places 1,279 on roll 2015/16 1,200 places 1,327 on roll 2016/17 1,200 places 1,305 on roll 2017/18 1,200 places 1,283 on roll 2018/19 1,350 places 1,225 on roll 2020/21 1,350 places 1,205 on roll 2021/22 1,350 places 1,203 on roll 2022/23 1,350 places 1,302 on roll 2023/24 1,350 places 1,402 on roll 2024/25 1,350 places 1,378 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Richmond upon Thames

Postcode TW11 9PJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138460).

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.