School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Langley Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 145 families who named The Langley Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 257 put it first.

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

1.50

first choices for every place available

257 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Langley Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for The Langley Academy, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Slough 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 Slough, 6.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 88 of 1,349 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 Slough.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Slough 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

The Langley Academy 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 The Langley Academy, 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 1.45 per place 256 first choices 177 places 2016/17 1.28 per place 227 first choices 178 places 2017/18 1.52 per place 261 first choices 172 places 2018/19 1.13 per place 196 first choices 173 places 2019/20 1.16 per place 206 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.43 per place 249 first choices 174 places 2021/22 1.32 per place 236 first choices 179 places 2022/23 1.73 per place 296 first choices 171 places 2023/24 1.71 per place 302 first choices 177 places 2024/25 1.8 per place 276 first choices 153 places 2025/26 1.66 per place 271 first choices 163 places 2026/27 1.5 per place 257 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at The Langley Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 257 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Langley Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 177 256 137 1.45
2016/17 178 227 130 1.28
2017/18 172 261 138 1.52
2018/19 173 196 120 1.13
2019/20 178 206 100 1.16
2020/21 174 249 119 1.43
2021/22 179 236 101 1.32
2022/23 171 296 130 1.73
2023/24 177 302 148 1.71
2024/25 153 276 109 1.8
2025/26 163 271 119 1.66
2026/27 171 257 112 1.5

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

257

821 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

43.6%

112 of 257

Offers to families outside the council

7%

12 of 171 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

984

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

906

92.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

78

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

260

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 The Langley Academy 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 The Langley Academy reported 78 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 92.1% 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 The Langley Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,100 places 1,079 on roll 2010/11 1,150 places 1,091 on roll 2011/12 1,106 places 1,120 on roll 2012/13 1,106 places 1,108 on roll 2013/14 1,106 places 1,117 on roll 2014/15 1,106 places 1,107 on roll 2015/16 1,106 places 1,094 on roll 2016/17 1,106 places 1,129 on roll 2017/18 1,150 places 1,138 on roll 2018/19 1,150 places 1,122 on roll 2020/21 1,150 places 1,124 on roll 2021/22 1,150 places 1,149 on roll 2022/23 1,150 places 1,159 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 1,145 on roll 2024/25 1,244 places 1,148 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
Slough

Postcode SL3 7EF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135631).

Other contested secondary schools in Slough

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.